Meet the Puritans

The Situation Today There exists much confusion about worship today. This remains true even in churches that claim the title "reformed" and those claiming the phrase reformata, semper reformanda (“reformed and always reforming”). Typically, the approach of most churches has been, “Whatever God has...

I have referred to the puritan John Ball in a number of posts thus far. He is not exactly a household name, even within the relatively small Reformed world. Mention the term puritan and the names William Perkins, Richard Baxter, John Owen, James Ussher, and John Bunyan come to mind, not John Ball...

If someone looks at [God's commands] in the wrong way and says that they are heavy to bear, he is merely revealing his own weakness. —Andreas Presbyter, Catena on 1 John 5:3 When I was in college I was required to read G.K. Beale's edited volume, The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on...

“So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.” (Hebrews 13:12-13) We’ve paused at the half-way point in our reading of the Puritan Paperback, Sermons of the Great Ejection...

John Knox (1514-1572), perhaps as influential as any in the journey to modern Scotland, is far from loved in his homeland. A BBC news reported a couple of years ago asked the public in Edinburgh who Knox was. Some had no idea, others laid at his door all the faults of modern Scotland. This one...

William M. Schweitzer, God is a Communicative Being: Divine Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards . London: T...

When I was younger I used to think it would have been nice to be born into a family full of riches. Perhaps you did—or do—as well. Now that I am more mature I am thankful I wasn’t, though. Why? Now I appreciate what I have I look back and compare life now with life before. This is also true with us...

One of the most striking and comforting expressions in the Scriptures is that God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). Nonetheless, this statement creates a theological conundrum of sorts and has led in part some Reformed theologians, including puritans, to at least suggest if not advocate a subtle...

It's an assumed point of hermeneutics today that the grammatical historical meaning of the Song of Songs is that it merely a love song, a poem between a husband and wife. John Owen reminds us of the ancient method of Christological exegesis, seeing in the Song a type and shadow of the mutual love...

“So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.” (Hebrews 13:12-13) We’ve paused at the half-way point in our reading of the Puritan Paperback, Sermons of the Great Ejection...