John Muether reflects on the qualification “able to teach”.

John has served as a ruling elder for 35 years, first in Lake Sherwood OPC for 12 years and then in Reformation OPC, Oviedo, FL for 23 years. For many years John served as Historian for the OPC, and still serves on the Committee of the Historian and the Committee on Christian Education. He is currently Professor of Church History at RTS, Orlando, and Dean of Libraries for RTS.

A pdf of Murray Smith’s article is available here.

The Catechism by Packer (To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism (Approved Edition) J.I. Packer and Joel Scandrett, Crossway, 2020) is currently out of print. It may be available second hand.

A good recent introduction to the Means of Grace is Harrison Perkins book, Meeting God in His Means of Grace: How Word, Sacrament, and Prayer Help Us Encounter Christ. (Baker Books, 2026).

John's Book Recommendations

• J. I. Packer and Gary Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way. (Baker Books, 2010).
• Thomas E. Bergler, The Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2012)
• Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. (Oxford University Press, 2009)