Encouragers and Challengers: John Frame on the Dispositions of Theological Vocation

J. Neil Daniels

Introduction

In On Theology: Explorations and Controversies, John Frame offers a compelling typology for understanding the diverse motivations that animate theologians. He categorizes them broadly into two kinds—encouragers and challengers—while acknowledging that most theologians exhibit a blend of both tendencies. This seemingly simple taxonomy offers profound insight into theological method, vocational posture, and ecclesial engagement. In this essay, I will examine Frame’s distinction, probe its theological and pastoral implications, and draw connections to the broader trajectory of Frame’s work in apologetics and systematic theology.

The Encourager and the Challenger: A Functional Typology

Frame begins by distinguishing between two general impulses in theological work. The challenger is the reformer, the one who calls the church to reconsider what it has long believed. He warns, “You’ve always thought this is right, but my research indicates that your view is wrong, and you have to change.” Such theologians tend to disturb settled convictions, often questioning long-held interpretations in exegesis, dogmatics, or ecclesial practice. By contrast, the encourager reaffirms historic orthodoxy and bolsters the faith of believers amid a hostile or skeptical culture. He declares, “You know there are many who doubt your age-old belief. But I’m here to tell you that they are wrong and you are right.” Frame concludes that the Church needs both types, for “we get too attached to our ideas” and yet also “need encouragements” in the face of cultural and ideological opposition.¹

Theological Disposition and Ecclesial Context

Frame’s distinction is not merely academic. It bears directly on how theological labor functions in the life of the Church. Challengers serve a prophetic role, analogous to the reformers who called the medieval church to return to biblical faithfulness. Encouragers, meanwhile, often function in the pastoral or apologetic mode, defending the flock from external attack and internal doubt. What determines whether a theologian takes up the mantle of challenger or encourager is not only personal temperament but also ecclesial context. Frame himself acknowledges that “in our time… Christians are more in need of encouragement,” for they are “under attack, not only by skeptics, but also by non-Christian religions, and especially by a culture that despises the Christian faith.”²

In this way, the distinction is not neutral. Frame’s own choice to adopt an encouraging stance is based on an assessment of cultural conditions. His orientation is not one of blind traditionalism, but of strategic faithfulness, rooted in the conviction that the Christian tradition has retained vital truth, and that the attacks mounted against it lack “intellectual or moral substance.”³

Frame’s Personal Vocation: Encouragement Through Systematics and Apologetics

Frame self-identifies as an encourager, a fact reflected in the nature of his major contributions. In his multi-volume Theology of Lordship series, Frame systematically builds a comprehensive account of Christian theology that is at once rooted in classical Reformed orthodoxy and structured around a triadic epistemological model.⁴ His emphasis on the lordship of Christ over knowledge, ethics, and metaphysics reassures believers that the Christian worldview is coherent, intellectually viable, and ethically grounded. In Frame’s apologetic vision, biblical truth is not only defensible but compelling and beautiful.

Yet even as an encourager, Frame does not shy away from challenge. His interactions with alternative theological models—whether liberal, Roman Catholic, or evangelical but flawed—are marked by critical rigor. However, the aim of such critique is not primarily deconstructive. Rather, as he explains, even statements of opposition can serve either as encouragement or challenge depending on the posture of the recipient.⁵ Frame’s apologetic engagement with presuppositionalism, his careful critique of natural theology, and his defense of scriptural sufficiency function as both rebuke and balm, depending on whether the reader shares his fundamental commitments.

Frame’s Use of Examples: Kline and Bavinck

To illustrate the typology, Frame contrasts Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof—whom he categorizes as encouragers—with his own Old Testament professor, Meredith G. Kline, a paradigm of the challenger. Bavinck and Berkhof reassure readers that “the old Reformed faith of Calvin and Turretin is still viable after all these years.”⁶ They defend classical doctrines against modern skepticism and vindicate traditional formulations. Kline, however, upended conventional understandings of the Decalogue, the nature of Scripture, and the scope of the Noahic flood. His method was confrontational and revisionist, yet, as Frame notes, still within the bounds of orthodoxy.⁷

Frame’s own approach thus exhibits admiration for challengers like Kline, while ultimately preferring the path of one who “encourages many believers,” particularly in an age when cultural forces aggressively assault the plausibility of the faith.⁸ This orientation exemplifies Frame’s commitment to theological construction over mere deconstruction. His methodology resists novelty for novelty’s sake, preferring a patient exposition of what God has already spoken with clarity and authority in Scripture.

Encouragement as Apologetic Task

One of the more subtle insights of Frame’s discussion is that encouragement, far from being intellectually passive, can be a powerful apologetic act. He writes, “It is good to know that when people oppose the gospel, as we understand it, it is not necessarily because they have discovered new facts, but rather because they have adopted presuppositions hostile to the truth.”⁹ In this single sentence, Frame encapsulates the heart of his presuppositional apologetics: the intellectual battle is not one of data alone but of worldview and precommitments. To identify the antithesis and affirm the truth of Scripture despite cultural derision is to stand courageously as an encourager.

In Apologetics to the Glory of God, Frame similarly urges believers not to retreat in the face of academic hostility. “The Christian apologist,” he insists, “must challenge the unbeliever to abandon his autonomy, to place himself under the authority of Christ.”¹⁰ Such exhortation is both a challenge to the unbeliever and an encouragement to the Church. It reassures Christians that fidelity to Christ does not entail intellectual surrender. On the contrary, it is only within submission to divine revelation that coherent thought becomes possible.

The Pastoral Dimension of Theological Tone

Frame also notes the importance of discerning the rhetorical and pastoral tone of theological writing. He writes, “It is always useful, when you are reading theological works, to try to identify the writer’s motivation.”¹¹ Is the writer encouraging the saints or unsettling the confident? This question does not merely concern academic method; it is deeply pastoral. The effectiveness of theology lies not only in its content but in its sensitivity to context. The wise theologian knows when to strengthen and when to shake.

In Frame’s own corpus, the dominant tone is pastoral encouragement grounded in epistemological clarity. His constant appeal to Scripture’s authority, his commitment to tri-perspectival analysis, and his concern for the unity of doctrine and life all reflect a shepherd’s concern for the stability and maturity of the Church. Even when confronting false teaching or cultural apostasy, Frame avoids needlessly inflammatory rhetoric. He offers not spectacle, but solidity.

Conclusion

John Frame’s distinction between the encourager and the challenger provides an illuminating lens through which to evaluate theological motivations and methods. It reframes theological discourse not as a competition for novelty or academic acclaim, but as a form of ministry. In placing himself in the encourager’s role, Frame models a theology that defends, nourishes, and fortifies the faith of God's people. His commitment to the authority of Scripture, the clarity of the gospel, and the coherence of the Christian worldview is a much-needed voice in a culture that often seeks to unsettle confidence and undermine biblical conviction. While the Church needs both challengers and encouragers, Frame’s theological vocation serves as a reminder that in times of widespread doubt and cultural hostility, the work of encouragement is not secondary, but rather, vital.

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Endnotes

1. John M. Frame, On Theology: Explorations and Controversies (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023), 15–16.
2. Ibid., 17.
3. Ibid.
4. See John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1987); The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002); The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008); The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010).
5. Frame, On Theology, 16.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 16–17.
8. Ibid., 17.
9. Ibid., 16.
10. John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1994), 93.
11. Frame, On Theology, 17.