John Lafayette Girardeau was born on November 14, 1825, nearly two hundred years ago. One of the luminaries of the Southern Presbyterian Church, he is remembered for his faithful ministry to African-Americans both on both sides of the Civil War. Several of his writings can be found on the Log College Press website, but there is one writing we have not yet been able to locate: his Discussion of Theological Questions. This book has been reprinted by Sprinkle Publications, but a scanned original copy has not been found on Archive.org or Google Books (the source of most of the PDFs on our site). This book contains several articles by Girardeau:
The Definition of Theology
The Distribution or Division of Theology
The Ultimate Source, Rule and Judge of Theology
The Person of Christ
The Doctrine of Adoption
It is the latter article that deserves the most notice, for in it Girardeau interacts with the question of whether Adam was in any sense of a son of God by nature, and considers adoption as an element of the scheme of redemption. As the topic of adoption has come into larger view during the past few decades, it is unfortunate that Girardeau’s essay has fallen out of knowledge. Hopefully we will have a chance one day to find an original copy and scan it ourselves, or some library somewhere will do that for us. Until then, enjoy the rest of Girardeau’s writings!