by Sam Waldron | Feb 24, 2022 | New Testament, Systematic Theology, Worship
“Of God and the Holy Trinity”
The confessional treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity ends with these words: “which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on him.”
For our Baptist forefathers, the doctrine of the Trinity was anything but mysterious and difficult with little practical application to daily life. No, rather, it was crucial to our communion with God and comfort in God. No passage in all the Bible shows this so richly as 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”
Here the devout blessing of the Apostle is that the Corinthian believers would know as a matter of ongoing practical experience communion with each of the three persons in their actings for our salvation. He wants the distinct acts of the three persons of the Trinity to be “with you all,” he says. This blessing also implies that this is his wish, his prayer, and his prediction for them. Please consider the distinct works of the three persons of the Trinity and the riches of this Trinitarian blessing for believers.
“The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”
When Paul speaks of “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” we do not have far to look to discover specifically what He is talking about. In this very letter, he has given the best and perhaps the fullest exposition of what he means. 2 Corinthians 8:9 reads: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ focuses our attention on that wonderful condescension and compassion—that glorious humility and kindness—that made the Lord of glory willing to stoop down and die an accursed death in our place so that we might come to share in the glory that He possessed with His Father before the beginning of the world. This reminds us of the wonderful passage in John 17:3-5:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. 4 “I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do. 5 “And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.
So the grace of the Lord Jesus is his wonderful, personal virtue and quality of kind condescension, compassionate humility, or merciful submission. It is this glorious personal characteristic that made Him willing to come down from glory to die in our place and for our sins. This quality—this grace—is nothing less than divine and majestic. It is glorious, personal virtue. Paul wants us to know and find this person with this virtue a blessing to be with us. He wants us to live in intimate contact with this grace. He wants to have present with us Christ as the accomplisher of salvation.
“The Love of God”
In this context when Paul speaks of God, he means, of course, God the Father. The original makes this clear because literally, Paul speaks of “the love of the God.” The presence of the article before God tells us that Paul is thinking in personal terms of the Father.
In John 1:1 the words, the God, are a reference to the person of God the Father. John 1:1 literally reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was God.” So the reference is to God the Father in our text and is clearly a reference to Him in light of parallel passages.
When Paul speaks of the love of the God, that is to say, God the Father, very much is comprehended. The key text which tells us a great deal about what we are to think of when we think of the love of God the Father is Ephesians 1:3-5:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
Paul traces the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ up to the love of God the Father. He begins with the work of Christ and traces it back to the work of God the Father. Here we learn that it is the peculiar work of the Father in salvation to plan or author it. He is the one who chooses or elects us that we should be holy. He is the one who “in love predestined us to adoption as sons.” It is out of the heart and love of God the Father ultimately that salvation springs. He sends the Son and the Spirit to save us. They come willingly. They love us too and love us in and with the Father, but Paul’s doctrine of the Trinity allows him to specify the loving Father as the elector and predestiner of the saved. Paul wants us to live with a sense of the presence of that love of God which chose us to be saved and adopted us into His family. He wants us to experience more and more the unconditional, sovereign, love of the Father. He wants us to have present with us the Father as the author of salvation.
“The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit”
In the third stage of this Trinitarian blessing, Paul having traced salvation up to the Father brings it all the way down to us and speaks of how God the Holy Spirit works in us. When Paul focuses on the third person of the Trinity, he speaks of the “fellowship” of the Holy Spirit. The word, fellowship, is the common New Testament Greek word, koinonia. The word means partnership, partaking, participation. The fellowship of the Spirit is partnership with us and participation in us. Romans 8:2 speaks of the Spirit of God as the life-giver—the one who gives us spiritual life: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
The fellowship of the Spirit speaks of the Spirit as the one who actually renews us, indwells us, makes us holy, and assures us of our good standing with God. The Bible calls Him the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Wisdom, and the Spirit of Adoption. Working salvation in us subjectively, inwardly, and personally is the work of the Spirit. This is the rich grace and peculiar work of the Holy Spirit in salvation. Paul describes it here as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Paul wishes for the Corinthian believers the increasing presence of the Holy Spirit in these His special works. He wants us to have present with us the Spirit as the applier of salvation.
My hope and prayer for you is the same as the Apostle’s. May you live in the practical presence of the peculiar saving works of each of the three persons of the Trinity. May you experience the richness of your Trinitarian salvation. May “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Michael Haykin | Feb 22, 2022 | Church History
Introduction
From time to time in the history of the Church, God raises up men, who, because of their God-given talents, exercise extraordinary influence for good. In the Ancient Church Athanasius and Augustine were such pastor-theologians as they defended the Christian Faith. At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin were critical to the advance of that great move of God. And in more recent days, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones played a central role in the recovery of the doctrines of grace among Anglophone Evangelicals. And in his day, especially among members of his community, the Particular Baptists of the eighteenth century, John Gill may rightly be reckoned, in the words of Lloyd-Jones, “a very great man, and an exceptionally able man.”
Gill viewed negatively
Yet, contrary to this perspective, Gill has been remembered by many as a hyper-Calvinist whose theology has been seen as a major cause for the decline of his Baptist denomination for much of the eighteenth century. By the time that the Victorian Baptist historian J.M. Cramp, for instance, came to write his influential and widely-read Baptist History, the responsibility of Gill for the decline of the Baptist cause in the eighteenth century was a given. According to Cramp, Gill “abstained from personal addresses to sinners, by inviting them to the Saviour.” Instead, he was content “with stating men’s danger, and assuring them they were on the high road to perdition.” When his teaching was embraced by many in the Baptist community, Cramp was not surprised that their churches experienced declension.
In the middle of the twentieth century, historian A.C. Underwood reiterated the charge: despite his great learning, Gill “never addressed the ungodly” in his preaching. On the other side of the Atlantic, Southern Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth likewise opined in a massive study of Baptist history that Gill’s hyper-Calvinism with its “rigid ‘non-invitation’ style of theology and preaching, while ringing with impressive logic, brought the kiss of death” to the Particular Baptists.
Gill defending the Trinity
This perspective on Gill has some truth in it, but, like so many other figures in church history, Gill’s legacy is complex. While his theology did contain definite elements of hyper-Calvinism, it was also a bastion against the destructive forces unleashed during the eighteenth century by what is called the Enlightenment, which exalted the omnicompetence of human reason.
Now, in the crosshairs of many of the rationalistic protagonists of the Enlightenment was the central Christian truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. Some Christian communities, like the English Presbyterians, largely succumbed to this attack on the Trinity, but not so the Particular Baptists—and that largely because of John Gill. This Baptist theologian stood firm for the doctrine of the Trinity that had been hammered out in the fourth century and codified in what came to be called the Nicene Creed. This creedal statement declared Christ to be fully God since he shared the very being of God and all of his divine attributes to the full. The Spirit was also fully divine since he was worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. Gill’s written works, including a powerful study of the Trinity, came to be possessed by most Baptist pastors. By standing squarely for this vital doctrine, Gill thus enabled his Baptist contemporaries to maintain their hold on orthodoxy and so have the capacity to receive the fire of revival later in the century.
Gill comes to London
Gill was in the position to exercise such influence since he was the pastor one of the largest and most important Baptist congregations in London, which meet at Goat Yard, Horselydown. When its pastor, Benjamin Stinton, had died unexpectedly in February of 1719, Gill was invited to preach in the summer of 1719. This preaching engagement led to Gill being invited to preach for the whole month of August, during which time a goodly number of the church clearly came to the conviction that they had found their new pastor in this twenty-one year old who hailed from Northamptonshire.
A church meeting was held on Sunday, September 13, 1719, to vote on calling Gill. The motion passed “by a very great majority.” While there was opposition by some of the deacons of the church to calling Gill, he came to London as the pastor of this church in 1719. And in the providence of God, it was good that he did, for he and his books would be critical in preserving the orthodoxy of the Particular Baptists.
Born in England of Irish and Kurdish parents, Michael A.G. Haykin serves as professor of church history & biblical spirituality. Haykin has a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto (1974), a Master of Religion from Wycliffe College, the University of Toronto (1977), and a Th.D. in Church History from Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto (1982). Haykin and his wife, Alison, have two grown children: Victoria and Nigel.
He is the author of a number of books, including The Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 and 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century (E. J. Brill, 1994); One heart and one soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, his friends, and his times (Evangelical Press, 1994); Kiffin, Knollys and Keach: Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage (Reformation Today Trust, 1996); ‘At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word’: Andrew Fuller as an Apologist (Paternoster Press, 2004); Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival (Evangelical Press, 2005); The God who draws near: An introduction to biblical spirituality (Evangelical Press, 2007).
Course taught for CBTS: Biblical Spirituality.
by Sam Waldron | Feb 17, 2022 | New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology, Worship
“Of God and the Holy Trinity”
The next portion of paragraph 3 which deals with the Trinity emphasizes the full and undiluted deity of each of the persons of the Trinity: “of one substance, power and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided.”
These words are intended to underscore the fact that the personal subsistences in the divine being are fully God. The Father is God, The Son is God. The Spirit is God. They are God in the maximum meaning of that Word. Each has the whole divine essence. This means that each person possesses all the attributes which describe that divine essence. Each is love. Each is light. Each is spirit. Each is consuming fire; because each has the whole divine essence that is described in the Bible in these ways. The great controversy over this was with Arianism. Jehovah’s Witnesses are modern Arians who deny the full deity of Christ. They insist that Christ is only a small g god. But the New Testament applies to Christ Old Testament passages which speak of Yahweh, the one who calls Himself “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14). Jesus Himself applies the Yahweh language to Himself in John 8:58 when he says, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
These words also condemn what is Called Subordinationism. Subordinationism grew up in the Early Church under the influence of some forms of Platonism. It derived from the idea that the Supreme Being was so transcendent that in order to create or communicate with a finite world and intermediate being was necessary. God had to be cut down to size to fit through the door into the finite world. The Word or Son of God was viewed as this intermediate being and, thus, necessarily a lesser form of God or God diluted. In response to this false view, the Confession says that each person has the whole divine essence.
Though the great controversy was over the deity of Christ in the Early Church, it followed from His full deity that the Spirit of God was also fully God. He was neither merely a spiritual force nor a created being.
Christians sometimes wonder if they should worship the Son of God and the Spirit of God. This is, I suppose, because worship is generally in the Bible given to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Since, however, the Son and Spirit are God, they may be worshiped with the praise and prayers that may only be given to the infinite and divine being.
We must entertain exalted and majestic views of the Son of God and the Spirit of God as fully and without dilution God. We may worship them without moderation or reduction. We may trust their power and grace without reluctance or fear.
We must reject as unworthy of our Savior every doctrine which diminishes His true deity. He is not a lower case g God. He is capital G-O-D, God!
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Jon English Lee | Feb 15, 2022 | Church Discipline
Introduction
I remember right where I was—leading a bible study in my living room. The conversation moved into the practice of church discipline. I had previously mentioned that “of course the goal of church discipline is always repentance.” What I meant was that we always want the sinner to be restored into full, healthy communion with God and with the church.
Then someone asked the question: “Why doesn’t church discipline ever seem to work?” By that this person meant, “why haven’t we seen any of the excommunicated members repent and be restored?” This person had heard my previous statement about the goal being restoration and had assumed that restoration was the only goal, or perhaps even the primary goal. This is not the case. In fact, there are several goals in mind when a church practices discipline.
A goal in church discipline is to be motivated by love.
Whenever a church must discipline someone, they must ensure that love is their motivation. Love is the only proper motivation, as the Lord himself illustrates: “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). We likewise are called to restore our brothers with a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1), that they might come to repentance (1 Corinthians 5:5),A goal of church discipline is to guard the church’s purity.
A goal of church discipline is to guard the church’s purity.
When churches fail to practice church discipline, a subtle moral laxity can creep in. A little leaven, when left to fester instead of being removed, will leaven the whole lump. Conversely, when the church practices discipline, church members will soberly reflect upon their own sins and will take seriously Christ’s call to holiness.
A goal of church discipline is to guard the reputation of Christ.
When churches stop practicing church discipline, they begin to slide. They become worldly. Their light begins to dim and their salt begins to lose its saltiness. Once their salt becomes worthless (Matthew 5:13), their witness to the community goes with it.
The ultimate goal of discipline is to obey the Lord, regardless of whether repentance occurs.
Jesus empowered, indeed commanded, local congregations to exercise discipline among their own congregation. In Matthew 16:16–19 and 18:15–20, Jesus gives to local assemblies the keys of the kingdom for loosing and binding on Earth. Paul likewise speaks about this discipline process in 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 6:1, Ephesians 5:11, 1 Thessalonians 5:14, 1 Timothy 5:19–20, Titus 3:9–11, and other places. Regardless of whether the sinner ever repents and restores, believers are to humbly obey Jesus (and Paul) and follow through with discipline. The outcome does not change the obligation for the congregation to faithfully obey.
by Ben Carlson | Feb 8, 2022 | Uncategorized
Introduction
The title “The Angel of the LORD” is used nearly 50 times in the Old Testament. Similar titles include:
- “The Angel of God” (Genesis 21:17; 31:11; Exodus 14:19; Judges 6:20; 13:6, 9; 1 Samuel 29:9; 2 Samuel 14:17, 20; 19:27)
- “The Angel of His presence/face” (Isaiah 63:9)
- “The Angel of the covenant” (Malachi 3:1).
But there may be more titles in the OT referring to the Angel of the LORD than just these. Foreman and Van Dorn state, “In fact, the Angel of the LORD appears in the OT sometimes under different titles. Some of these titles include: the Word of the Lord, the Name of the Lord, the Glory of the Lord, the Face of the Lord, the Arm/Hand of the Lord, the Prince/Commander, even the ‘Son’.”
What is important to note is that His appearances are not confined to one particular epoch in the Old Testament, but His presence and importance are seen and felt from Genesis to Malachi. Foreman and Van Dorn state, “He appears in crucial passages as the central figure in the redemptive promises of God.” Let’s look now at the explicit and implicit places where He is found.
A.) The Explicit Places
1.) The Patriarchs
Geerhardus Vos states, “The most important and characteristic form of revelation in the patriarchal period is that through ‘the Angel of Jehovah’ or ‘the Angel of God.’” The patriarchal period is probably not the first time the Angel of the LORD appears in the OT, but it is the first time the Angel of the LORD is explicitly referenced in the OT.
- In Genesis 16, the Angel of the LORD appears to Hagar in the wilderness and tells her she will bear a son named Ishmael.
- In Genesis 21, the Angel of God speaks to Hagar from heaven and tells her that Ishmael will not die but he will make him into a great nation.
- In Genesis 22, the Angel of the LORD stops Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac and blesses him.
- In Genesis 31, the Angel of God tells Jacob in a dream to return to the land of Canaan.
2.) Moses
- In Exodus 3, the Angel of the LORD appears to Moses in the burning bush, speaks to him about the coming Exodus, and calls him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (see also Acts 7:35-36).
- In Numbers 22, the Angel of the LORD appears to the prophet Balaam with a drawn sword in his hand and gives Balaam the words to speak to King Balak.
3.) Joshua
- In Judges 2, the Angel of the LORD recounts how he brought the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.
4.) The Judges
- In Judges 5, the Angel of the LORD speaks through Deborah to curse the inhabitants of Meroz for not lending a helping hand to fight against the Canaanites.
- In Judges 6, the Angel of the LORD appears to Gideon to call him to save Israel from the Midianites.
- In Judges 13, the Angel of the LORD appears Manoah and his wife to inform them that they will have a son named Samson who will begin to save Israel from the Philistines.
5.) King David
- In 1 Chronicles 21, the Angel of the LORD almost destroys Jerusalem with a drawn sword due to David’s sin of numbering Israel but relents when David builds an altar on Mount Zion and offers sacrifices to God.
6.) The Prophet Elijah
- In 1 Kings 19, the Angel of the LORD appears to Elijah in the wilderness when he fled from Jezebel and strengthens him with food so he can make the long journey to Mount Horeb.
- In 2 Kings 1, the Angel of the LORD tells him to deliver a message of judgment to King Ahaziah and protects him from being killed.
7.) King Hezekiah
- In 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37, the Angel of the LORD fights on behalf of Israel and strikes down and kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night.
8.) The Prophet Zechariah
- In Zechariah 1, the Angel of the LORD explains various visions to Zechariah and intercedes for the people of God.
- In Zechariah 3, in a vision given to Zechariah the Angel of the LORD rebukes Satan and exchanges Joshua the high priest’s filthy garments with pure vestments.
9.) The Prophet Malachi
- In Malachi 3, the Angel/Messenger of the Covenant, who is the Angel of the LORD, is prophesied to come.
B.) The Implicit Places
There are other places in the OT where I believe the Angel of the LORD is present without His specific title being used. Let’s look at three such places where this may occur.
1.) The LORD God in the Garden of Eden
In Genesis 2, we are told that the LORD God plants a garden in Eden, forms Adam out of the ground, forms the animals out of the ground and brings them to Adam, forms Eve out of Adam, brings Eve to Adam, and gives them both commands to follow. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve hear the LORD walking in the Garden, hide themselves from His presence, are confronted by Him for their sin, are condemned by Him, are clothed by Him with animal skins, and are sent out of the Garden by Him.
These actions performed by the LORD seem to be very human-like. Now, we could read all this as anthropomorphic language. The Scriptures could be telling us figuratively that God did all these things in a way that we can understand as humans. But what if the LORD here is actually the Angel of the LORD doing these things in a very literal way? What if the LORD walked in the Garden in human-like form as the Angel of the LORD? This view would at least be consistent with how God revealed Himself to His people later on in the OT. And some of the older commentators make mention of this view:
- Augustine: “it should appear that God then spoke with man in the appearance of a man.”
- Matthew Henry: “It is supposed that he [the Lord God] came in a human shape, and that he who judged the world now [when Adam and Eve fell] was the same that shall judge the world at the last day, even that man whom God has ordained.”
- Matthew Poole: “Either God the Father, or rather God the Son, appeared in the shape of a man, as afterwards he frequently did, to give a foretaste of his incarnation.”
- John Gill: “but rather the voice of the Son of God, the eternal Word, is here meant, who appeared in an human form, as a pledge of his future incarnation,”
Although these commentators do not specifically identify the human-like appearance of the LORD in the Garden as the Angel of the LORD, what they tell us is entirely consistent with what the rest of the Bible teaches concerning the Angel of the LORD, namely that He is the pre-incarnate Son of God appearing in human form before assuming humanity.
2.) The “Second” Yahweh near Sodom and Gomorrah
In Genesis 18, Abraham is visited by three “men” (Genesis 18:2). Two are supernatural angelic beings (Genesis 19:1), and one is the LORD/Yahweh (Genesis 18:1).
We are told that the LORD (as well as the two angels) washed his feet, rested, and ate a meal. He also promised a son to Sarah, conversed with Abraham about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and went his way to Sodom and Gomorrah. But the most interesting statement about the LORD comes in Genesis 19:24: “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.”
There seems to be two persons both identified as the LORD/Yahweh in this text working together to judge Sodom and Gomorrah: Yahweh on earth and Yahweh in heaven. How do we understand this? I think the best way to do so is to see that the Yahweh on earth who looked and acted like a man was none other than the Angel of the LORD!
Socrates Scholasticus, a fifth century church historian says, “. . . for the Lord the Son rained from the Lord the Father.”
John Gill elaborates, “and this destruction was brought upon them by Jehovah the Son of God, who had appeared to Abraham in an human form, and gave him notice of it, and heard all he had to plead for those cities, and then departed from him to Sodom, and was the author of this sad catastrophe; this amazing shower of fire and brimstone was rained by him from Jehovah his Father, out of heaven;”.
Yahweh the Father from heaven destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with the assistance of Yahweh the Son who appeared on earth as the Angel of the LORD.
3.) The Commander of the Army of the LORD near Jericho
Before the battle at Jericho, Joshua meets a man with a drawn sword in his hand who calls himself “the commander of the army of the LORD” (Joshua 5:14, 15). In response to meeting him, we are told that Joshua falls on his face and worships him, calls him his lord, confesses to be his servant, pledges his obedience to him, and takes off his sandals in his holy presence.
Who was this mysterious warrior? He was not a mere man or a created angel, but I believe he was the Angel of the LORD who stood as the general and prince of the heavenly and earthly armies of the LORD.
Keil and Delitzsch state, “Joshua regarded him at once as a superior being, i.e., an angel. And he must have recognised him as something more than a created angel of superior rank, that is to say, as the angel of Jehovah who is essentially equal with God, the visible revealer of the invisible God,”.
Calvin says, “In his representing himself as different from God, a personal distinction is denoted, but unity of essence is not destroyed. We have said that in the books of Moses the name of Jehovah is often attributed to the presiding Angel, who was undoubtedly the only-begotten Son of God.”
Ben has been one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Owensboro, Kentucky, since June 2017. In February 2018, he received his Master of Divinity from Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. Ben has been married to his lovely wife Ali since September 2011. They have four children together: Liam, Luther, Cosette, and Maezie. In his spare time, Ben enjoys playing with his kids, coaching, doing yard work, and Friday family nights.
