Puritan Appreciation Part 2: The Gospel

The second part of this series involves the Puritan understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In J.I. Packer's chapter, The Puritan View of Preaching the Gospel, he masterfully paints a picture of the entire gospel: the issue of sin (its pollution and bondage), the goal of grace (the glory and praise of God), the sufficiency of Jesus Christ (the perfectly adequate, living Redeemer), and the condescension of Christ (considering how great was his humility in the immensity of the glory he left behind to come to us). Thinking on these things has been a sweet refreshment to me of late. Surely, the entire gospel should be meditated on day and night throughout all of life. We don't understand it like we should, primarily, because we don't think about it with the depth which we were intended to.

We must strive and work to understand:

1. The depth of our sin - Our sin nature is total enmity and utter hatred toward God. It is a most disgusting and permanent pollution filling our souls, of which we have no power to clean in ourselves

2. The glory of Christ - He was willing to leave behind infinite glory to be among us and suffer for us. He demonstrates this and a billion other most excellent qualities for all eternity (The Bible only scratches the surface and leaves most of Christ's glory an unattainable mystery in this life). Jesus Christ is infinitely greater then everything we have seen, heard, tasted, or touched. Every capacity we have to experience beauty and value, finds its utter intoxication in Jesus Christ.

3. The priority of repentance - The immensely important priority of turning away from what God most loathes in us. Seeing the fight against sin as common to our lives as eating, drinking and breathing. We must learn how to kill that which wars against our soul's eternal hope in heaven, being willing to be violent against things that pull us away from continuous adoration and worship of God.

4. The promise of glorification - One day, God will bring those He has foreknown, predestined, called, and justified to glorification in Christ Jesus. We must long to be free from sin because then we will be able to most enjoy and glorify God. We must see the direct Biblical correlation between the choices we make now and the glory we will enjoy then. I am convinced the treasure of heaven will find its value in its ability to impress the glory of God on each of our heavenly senses, however many there may be.


Considering these things has opened so many lines of consideration and contemplation. The most practical message in the world, is the ramifications of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel radically changes every single aspect of our lives. It calls the thoughts, feelings and actions of Christ into everything we do. Surely these are heavy thoughts and those of us who do not regularly wrestle with such questions are infinitely parochial.

My Favorite Bumper Stickers

"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."

Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

You are depriving some poor village of its idiot!

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.

Earn cash in your spare time...blackmail friends.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Honk if you love peace and quiet.

"I souport publik edekasion"

Beat rush hour, leave work at noon.

If You Can Read This, I've Lost My Trailer.

You're Just Jealous Because The Voices Are Talking To Me.

Illiterate? Write For Help.

Caution - Driver Legally Blonde.

Honk If You've Never Seen An Uzi Fired From A Car Window.

I will mess with Texas.

Reading Old Books

Do you ever feel like many books being written today are going to be popular for about five months and then forgotten forever? Me too, which is why I try to read books which have already stood the test of time. Through this, I don't want to minimize what is being written today, merely seek some balance.
Reading classical works can be more difficult because of the differences in word usage, but it can be good to slow our minds down and learn to chew on ideas. Here, I've compiled a list of some great classics to start with. Some of them are over 400 years old. But I'm guessing the classics will pull you in, like they have me.

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A'Kempis (the overall impact of this work is in incalcuable)
Meeting The Master In The Garden, Thomas A'Kempis (reprinted in 2005, brilliant)
The Glory of Christ, John Owen (easily the best treatise of Christ's glory I've read)
Communion with God, John Owen
The Holy Spirit, John Owen
Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ, John Owen
The Mortification of Sin, John Owen (powerful instruction on how to systematically fight to remove indwelling sin)
Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards (highly recommended by my hero, John Piper)
The Preciousness of Time, Jonathan Edwards
The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter (its been said every pastor should read this once a year)
A Christian Directory, Richard Baxter
Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan (2nd all-time publishing bestseller to the Bible)
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs
Remedies for Wandering Thoughts in Worship, Richard Steele
Doctrine of Repentance, Thomas Watson
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, John Wesley (answers question, what is true sanctification?)
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, William Law ( John Wesley credited this book with most stirring his heart early in his ministry)

C.S. Lewis said every fourth book he read was from before the 20th century and he recommended this practice to others.

I'm convinced most of the world's greatest theological geniuses are already dead.

What do you think?

I Can Stop Searching...

I finally found it...

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

Worship Must Include Justice and Righteousness

I try to feed on several different parts of God's Word everyday. This doesn't fit everyone, but is just what I need. I like to think of it as balancing my spiritual diet. Everyday, I read parts of the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, New Testament and a Proverb. It ends up I read the Bible through every year and the Proverbs once a month (I need the extra wisdom). Today, in my devotional treck, I was reading through Amos and came upon the most amazing prophecy. Listen to God speak to you through Amos:

"I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt
offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

Amos 5:21-24

This hit me between the eyes. I heard God speaking right into my life at so many times and places. If my life is not a constant pursuit of righteousness and justice, my worship is noise in God's ears. God does not want heartless offerings and sacrifices. He deeply desires righteousness which flows from hearts that love and enjoy Him.

I wonder how many times in our church services, God is saying, "Take away the noise of your worship; to your professional worship bands, I will not listen." Not because of the quality of the music, or the words that are being sung. Not because of the decorations or the number of people. But because, our hearts are far from him.

We are far too good at decieving ourselves in worship. We are awed by the beauty of the song, the harmony of the band, the beauty of the backdrop or lighting, even the background on the overhead. And we can even be decieved in our thoughts about God. We think warm loving thoughts about God, instead of being deeply concerned with God's thoughts about us.

God's highest thoughts towards us is love, which means His highest hate is toward our sins (big and small). In worship, we must constantly loath our sins and desire His righteousness in our lives. I fear we don't hate our sins much at all. More often, we hate not being able to do what we want when we want. We dislike (or are annoyed by) our sins for our sake, while God hates all sin for His glory's sake. All sin always has great enmity towards the glory of God. If we are to worship properly, we must see righteous and just living as our highest priority. This will fuel passionate and consistant digestion of God's word, and prayer without ceasing for more of Christ's righteousness and less of our indwelling sin.

Oh God, may our worship be sweet in Your ears, because we live lives of righteousness and justice for Your names' sake.

Puritan Appreciation Part 1

Here's a great book for all you "wanna be" Puritans out there. You might think all such people are dead or worse, but I've been greatly stirred recently by Dr. Packer's heady reflections on these people.

Packer takes sections of this books and dives head first in general Puritan thinking and practice. He is heavy on great thinkers like Richard Baxter, John Owen and Jonathan Edwards, but includes many of the more obscure Puritan writers (demonstrating his breadth of scholarship on the topic).

So far, I've been blessed through the chapters on marriage, Puritan conscience, and communication from God. I hope to write on several of these topics in the next weeks.

Yet, I still dig and glean with thanksgiving. A great resource and very edifying. Perhaps, I'll make my sixth graders read it :)