Ode to the Puritans

Somewhere along they way I reduced my reading of the Puritans.  Not eliminated them.  I guess I was just trying to keep up with what is going on in the greater world and contemporary Church.  What a schmuck.

No one dissects the heart like the Puritans.  Read John Owen on The Mortification of Sin, On Temptation or On Indwelling Sin in Believers (Volume 6 of his Works).  There is great insight into the human heart and the effects of both grace and sin on it.  It is great to return to him as I preach on repentance (one of those topics that has fallen by the wayside these days).  I even took my title from Thomas Brooks, who called it “the vomit of the soul”.

Thomas Boston is another true master to study.  I’m slowly working my way thru Boston’s The Crook in the Lot which is about affliction.  Sadly, his book Repentance was not at the RTS bookstore as I hoped.

We neglect the Puritans at our peril.  Our theology will be more shallow, less practical (they were not abstract theologians, but drove the truth home to life- which may be why we hide from them), less enthusiastic and so on.

I’ve seen guys go overboard- not making the cultural and/or ephocal adjustment.  We shouldn’t expect to live just like they did.  I’ve even seen guys start to write like Puritans.  The average person will just not grasp what you are trying to say (which is why Kris Lundgaard simplifies Owen’s classic works).

I choose the middle road- delving into them to understand our God and ourselves better that we might be more faithful followers of Jesus in our own day.