Many of us were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Mike Ovey on January 7th 2017. Mike was probably best known for his role as the principal of Oak Hill theological College where he leaves a legacy of men and women inspired and trained for biblically faithful gospel-centred ministry for generations to come. It is well worth reading Chris Green’s short obituary for Mike here and pausing to give God thanks for his life and pray for his family and friends.
I recently came across Mike’s 2013 address to GAFCON – The Grace of God or the World of the West? If you want to get a flavour Mike’s Christian convictions it’s a brilliant and challenging message to hear. You can watch/listen to it below.
To give you a flavour of what he has to say here is a short extract that particularly struck me: “It is not enough just to say the word grace an awful lot. The issue is what we mean by it and whether we mean what the Bible means by it or whether we have made up our own meanings for ourselves…the kind of grace that I think the Western church talks about is cheap grace… Dietrich Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as the grace that we bestow on ourselves…it is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession… it is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.”