Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

It was a few weeks ago that I had Dr. Kevin DeYoung, we shipped him off to a deserted island.

Well, I have brought him back, and he did his PhD dissertation on John Witherspoon.

So I've invited Dr. DeYoung to talk to us about what everyone must know about John Witherspoon.

Dr. DeYoung, it's great to have you.

Oh, wow.

Five hours in church history, did you say?

Okay, we'll try to limit this to five minutes.

Five minutes. It's very dangerous when you ask someone about their PhD.

Exactly. John Witherspoon, you know, the initial boilerplate is, he's most famous as the only

clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. So he was a delegate from the colony,

then the state of New Jersey, sent to the Continental Congress,

really just about a week before the pivotal vote, and then July 4 in approving Jefferson's

declaration. So there's one thing you need to know. But you've got to back up before that

because more than half of his career was in Scotland. So he was born outside of Edinburgh in Yester Parish in Scotland, 1723.

He is a direct descendant of John Knox, so everyone needs to know that.

And there's been some debate on that, but really, I've got the genealogies.

He was a direct descendant on his mother's side of John Knox or through one of John Knox's daughters.

So he need to know that.

And he went to school in Gifford, which is the same parish school that John Knox went to.

His father was a pastor.

So he grew up in the manse, went off to Edinburgh, stayed at Edinburgh to get his divinity degree,

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