The Pilgrim's Progress (New Edition)

From Desiring God:

On November 28, 1628, in a quiet cottage nestled within the English parish of Elstow, during one of the most tumultuous times in the country’s history, John Bunyan was born.

The place of Bunyan’s birth in Elstow was only a mile from the busy town of Bedford, where years later Bunyan would be imprisoned for over a decade for preaching the gospel. Like his father, Bunyan learned the simple trade of a tinker — a mender of pots and kettles — and came to be known as the “tinker turned preacher” when he began lay preaching in his late twenties. Bunyan’s skill and passion drew hundreds of listeners.

Theologian John Owen, a contemporary of Bunyan, when asked by King Charles why he went to hear such an uneducated man preach, replied, “I would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker’s power of touching men’s hearts.”

But Bunyan’s legacy is not so much in his preaching, but his writing. During his imprisonment in the Bedford jail, Bunyan wrote several books, including most popularly, The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has sold more copies in the English language than any book besides the Bible. Today, the book still remains both an incomparable source of spiritual education and a classic in English literature.

Our family is reading Pilgrim's Progress together at 9pm each night during our family worship time. The boys love it. We read a chapter and then I do some teaching on what we've heard in the allegory and the we praise God for the lesson. 

If you've never read it, here's a link to Desiring God ministries where you can grab free e-copies of the great book.

What Was Puritanism?

From Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 5.

In summary, the late sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century movement of Puritanism was a kind of vigorous Calvinism. Experientially, it was warm and contagious; evangelistically, it was aggressive, yet tender; ecclesiastically, it sought to practice the headship of Christ over the faith, worship, and order of His body, the church; politically, it was active, balanced, and bound by conscience before God, in the relations of king, Parliament, and subjects. J. I. Packer says it well: “Puritanism was an evangelical holiness movement seeking to implement its vision of spiritual renewal, national and personal, in the church, the state, and the home; in education, evangelism, and economics; in individual discipleship and devotion, and in pastoral care and competence.”

Summary of the Christological Councils

	Council of Antioch (267 AD)	Council of Nicea (325 AD)	Council of Chalcedon (451 AD)
Heretical theologian	Sabellius	Arius	Eutyches, Nestorius
Heretical theology	Modalistic monarchianism	Dynamic monarchianism	Monophysite Christology
Council's decision	Jesus is homoi-ousios with the Father	Jesus is homo-ousios with the Father	Jesus is truly man and truly God. His two natures are not mixed, confused, separated or divided.

*I needed to see if I could still write a table in html - success! And bonus - good information!

Ligon Duncan on John Calvin and the Christian Life

Many in the church have taken grace as a license for sin. John Calvin observed this in his day too. Watch as Ligon Duncan discusses Calvin and living a Christian life marked by growth and maturity in Christ.

The Word of God as Law and Gospel (Part 1)

I've been thinking the past few months about the word of God as law and gospel. Particularly, I've thought about it in the content of my own preaching. For the next several posts I would like to explore the law-gospel distinction in preaching. Today, I found a section in Michael Horton's excellent The Christian Faith to be helpful. In Ch. 3 of his text, Horton writes about "The Word of God as Law and Gospel:

Paul tells us that the law speaks “so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” It can bring no justification; rather, “through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Ro 3:19–20). “But now,” he adds, “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (vv. 21–22). Here the apostle uses “law” in two distinct senses: God’s moral commands, which leave everyone condemned, and the Law and the Prophets as Scripture (i.e., the Old Testament).

Similarly, the Protestant Reformers sharply opposed law and gospel when it came to the covenantal principle by which one is justified, while affirming the unity of the Old and New Testaments in terms of promise and fulfillment. Both Testaments include both commands and promises. When we speak of the distinction between law and gospel, therefore, we are referring to different illocutionary stances that run throughout all of the Scriptures—everything in both Testaments that is in the form of either an obligatory command or a saving promise in Christ. “Hence,” wrote Luther, “whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between the law and the gospel, him we place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture.”

Calvin and his Reformed colleagues and theological heirs underscored this point as well. Wilhelm Niesel observes, “Reformed theology recognizes the contrast between law and gospel, in a way similar to Lutheranism. We read in the Second Helvetic Confession: ‘The gospel is indeed opposed to the law. For the law works wrath and pronounces a curse, whereas the gospel preaches grace and blessing.’ ” Ursinus, chief author of the Heidelberg Catechism, called it “the chief division of Holy Scripture,” and Beza insisted in his catechism that “ignorance of this distinction is one of the causes of the many abuses in the church” throughout history. The great Elizabethan Puritan William Perkins taught that it was the first principle for preachers to learn in interpreting and applying passages.86 More recently, Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof have observed the significance of this distinction for the whole Christian system of faith and practice. J. Van Bruggen adds more recently, “The [Heidelberg] Catechism, thus, mentions the gospel and deliberately does not speak of ‘the Word of God,’ because the law does not work faith. The law (law and gospel are the two parts of the Word which may be distinguished) judges; it does not call a person to God and does not work trust in him. The gospel does that.”

From these two illocutionary stances assumed by the one Word of God as covenant canon—the stance of command and that of promise—the Word issues stipulations (things to be done) and tells the historical narrative of God’s deliverance (things to be believed). The law functions differently, depending on the covenant in which it is operative. In a covenant of works (a law-covenant), law prescribes what is to be performed, personally and perfectly, on penalty of death. “The promises of the law depend upon the condition of works,” Calvin notes, “while “the gospel promises are free and dependent solely upon God’s mercy.” In a covenant of grace, law has no power to condemn, since its stipulations have been fulfilled (personally and perfectly) and its penalties for violation have been borne in our place by our covenant head, Jesus Christ. As sacramental Word, the law kills, and through the work of the Spirit the gospel makes alive (2 Co 3:6–11). Of course, the law also guides, as the gospel also instructs. However, it must first cut off all hope of life by our personal obedience. Hence, the Reformation churches affirmed a threefold use of the law: (1) to arraign us before God’s judgment and prove the world guilty; (2) to remind all people, even non-Christians, of their obligations to the moral law written on their conscience, and (3) to guide believers in the way of gratitude.

Once again the emphasis on God’s Word as performative speech is highlighted. Not only proposing things to be believed and done, God in his Word actually himself brings about what is threatened in the law and what is promised in the gospel. Hardly an imposition of systematic categories on the biblical text, this crucial distinction is explicitly evident in the difference between the imperative and indicative moods in the Greek language. The law’s imperatives tell us what must be done; the gospel’s indicatives tell us what God has done.

In the Reformed tradition, the law-gospel distinction was interpreted within the historical context of distinct covenants in history. The covenant of creation (also called the covenant of works or law) was based on the personal performance of all righteousness by the covenant servant. The covenant of grace is based on the fulfillment of all righteousness by our representative head and is dispensed to the covenant people through faith in him. There is still law in the covenant of grace. However, it is no longer able to condemn believers, but directs them in lives of gratitude for God’s mercy in Christ.

--Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 136–139.

I'm a Christian But I'm Totally Not...

Lutheran Satire responds to this...

Reformed Forum/Christ the Center on TF Torrance

Episode 403 of Reformed Forum's Christ the Center, Rev. Dr. Kevin Chiarot introduces and offers a critical look into the influential Christology of T. F. Torrance, who among other things taught that the Son of God assumed a fallen human nature. Rev. Chiarot is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rock Tavern, New York. He has written an excellent book titled, The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance (Pickwick, 2013). 

Download the episode or stream the episode at the following link.

On Why (and Where to Begin) Reading the Puritans

So you want to read the Puritans? So do I, which sent me on a quest to determine the best place to begin reading. Why? Because the Puritan literature is so vast. By God's providence, I was led to find wonderful resources advising me where to start reading, compiled by people who had already wandered down the path I was seeking to tread. I share here the best of the resources.

Perhaps the three best entry points into the Puritan literature are book by Joel Beeke and J.I. Packer:

• Meet the Puritans by Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall J. Peterson
• A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by J.I. Packer
• A Puritan Theology by Joel Beeke and Mark Jones

A three-part post on reading the Puritans by Dr. Joel Beeke:

• Reading the Puritans, Part 1
• Reading the Puritans, Part 2
• Reading the Puritans, Part 3

An interview with Tony Reinke (interviewed by Josh Etter) yielded the following:

The Puritans can be tough-sledding. If someone hasn’t yet read the Puritans, where would you suggest starting?

Caution is wise here. I would not recommend a first time reader jump headlong in a multi-volume series of collected works, especially any modern reader who appreciates a section break here or there. Edwards and Goodwin would also be rough.

I would suggest four initial options:

(1) Consider reading a book about the Puritans. Packer, The Quest for Godliness and Ryken, Worldly Saints are two great places to begin.

(2) Consider reading a compilation of the best Puritan prayers: The Valley of Vision.

(3) Consider picking up a very, very short “Pocket Puritan” booklet, especially the ones on faith, heaven, heart, speech, and anger.

(4) Finally, consider reading a title from the “Puritan Paperback” series. These books run about 150 pages in length and are modernized and often abridged. My favorites include:

Goodwin, The Heart of Christ;
Owen, The Glory of Christ;
Owen, Communion with God;
Owen, The Mortification of Sin; and
Sibbes, The Bruised Reed.

A blog post on the topic by author and blogger Tim Challies yielded the following:

BEGIN WITH…

Here are a few titles that are a little bit on the simpler side:

Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks - Brooks shows how Satan opposes Christians and non-Christians.

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs - Contentment is rare but precious; Burroughs describes how the Christian can achieve it.

The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes - Here is hope for the suffering.

ADVANCE TO…

Once you have become accustomed to Puritan writing you may want to try some more difficult works:

Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen - Owen shows you how to do battle with sin.

The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards - This is a brilliant work that calls you to love the Lord with your affections.

RESOURCES

A Puritan Theology by Joel Beeke and Mark Jones - This is a massive but very readable work that provides a systematic theology through Puritan writing. The final eight chapters challenge us with how we should be more like the Puritans.

Meet the Puritans by Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson - This book introduces you to the most important Puritan authors and offers brief descriptions of their works.

Puritan Portraits by J.I. Packer - Packer provides short biographies of several Puritan authors.

Finally, the following long and extraordinary post by Dr. Joel Beeke gives a wonderful number of reasons why you should read the Puritans. It was originally published at Ligonier Ministries.

The great eighteenth-century revivalist, George Whitefield, wrote:

The Puritans [were] burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew Act, and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in a special manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings they yet speak: a peculiar unction attends them to this very hour (Works, 4:306-307).

Whitefield went on to predict that Puritan writings would continue to be resurrected until the end of time due to their scriptural spirituality. Today, we are living in such a time. Interest in Puritan books has seldom been more intense. In the last fifty years, 150 Puritan authors and nearly 700 Puritan titles have been brought back into print.

Puritan literature has so multiplied that few book lovers can afford to purchase all that is being published. What books should you buy? Where can you find a brief summary of each Puritan work and a brief biography of each author so that you can have a glimpse of who is behind all these books?

These kinds of questions motivated Randall Pederson and me to write Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints. In this book, we tell the life stories of the 150 Puritan writers who have been reprinted in the past fifty years. We have also included concise reviews of the 700 newly published Puritan titles plus bibliographical information on each book. And we have noted the books that we consider most critical to have in a personal library.

We had four goals for writing this book: first, that these godly Puritan writers will serve as mentors for our own lives. That is why we have told the stories of the Puritans on a layperson’s level and kept them short. You could read one life story each day during your devotional time. Second, we trust that when you read these reviews of Puritan writings, you will be motivated to read a number of these books, each of which should help you grow deeper in your walk with the Lord. Third, we hope this book will serve as a guide for you to purchase books for your families and friends, to help them grow in faith.

Finally, for those of you who are already readers of Puritan literature, this guide is designed to direct you to further study and to introduce you to lesser-known Puritans that you may be unaware of.

Definition of Puritanism

Just who were the Puritan writers? They were not only the two thousand ministers who were ejected from the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but also those ministers in England and North America, from the sixteenth century through the early eighteenth century, who worked to reform and purify the church and to lead people toward godly living consistent with the Reformed doctrines of grace.

Puritanism grew out of three needs: (1) the need for biblical preaching and the teaching of sound Reformed doctrine; (2) the need for biblical, personal piety that stressed the work of the Holy Spirit in the faith and life of the believer; and (3) the need to restore biblical simplicity in liturgy, vestments, and church government, so that a well-ordered church life would promote the worship of the triune God as prescribed in His Word (The Genius of Puritanism, 11ff.).

Doctrinally, Puritanism was a kind of vigorous Calvinism; experientially, it was warm and contagious; evangelistically, it was aggressive, yet tender; ecclesiastically, it was theocentric and worshipful; politically, it aimed to be scriptural, balanced, and bound by conscience before God in the relationships of king, Parliament, and subjects; culturally, it had lasting impact throughout succeeding generations and centuries until today (Durston and Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560-1700).

How to Profit from Reading the Puritans

Let me offer you nine reasons why it will help you spiritually to read Puritan literature still today:

1. Puritan writings help shape life by Scripture. The Puritans loved, lived, and breathed Holy Scripture. They relished the power of the Spirit that accompanied the Word. Their books are all Word-centered; more than 90 percent of their writings are repackaged sermons that are rich with scriptural exposition. The Puritan writers truly believed in the sufficiency of Scripture for life and godliness.

If you read the Puritans regularly, their Bible-centeredness will become contagious. These writings will show you how to yield wholehearted allegiance to the Bible’s message. Like the Puritans, you will become a believer of the living Book, echoing the truth of John Flavel, who said, “The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.”

Do you want to read books that put you into the Scriptures and keep you there, shaping your life by sola Scriptura? Read the Puritans. Read the Soli Deo Gloria Puritan Pulpit Series. As you read, enhance your understanding by looking up and studying all the referenced Scriptures.

2. Puritan writings show how to integrate biblical doctrine into daily life. The Puritan writings do this in three ways:

First, they address your mind. In keeping with the Reformed tradition, the Puritans refused to set mind and heart against each other, but viewed the mind as the palace of faith. “In conversion, reason is elevated,” John Preston wrote.

The Puritans understood that a mindless Christianity fosters a spineless Christianity. An anti-intellectual gospel quickly becomes an empty, formless gospel that never gets beyond “felt needs,” which is something that is happening in many churches today. Puritan literature is a great help for understanding the vital connection between what we believe with our minds and how that affects the way we live. Jonathan Edwards’s Justification by Faith Alone and William Lyford’s The Instructed Christian are particularly helpful for this.

Second, Puritan writings confront your conscience. The Puritans are masters at convicting us about the heinous nature of our sin against an infinite God. They excel at exposing specific sins, then asking questions to press home conviction of those sins. As one Puritan wrote, “We must go with the stick of divine truth and beat every bush behind which a sinner hides, until like Adam who hid, he stands before God in his nakedness.”

Devotional reading should be confrontational as well as comforting. We grow little if our consciences are not pricked daily and directed to Christ. Since we are prone to run for the bushes when we feel threatened, we need daily help to be brought before the living God “naked and opened unto the eyes of with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:12). In this, the Puritans excel. If you truly want to learn what sin is and experience how sin is worse than suffering, read Jeremiah Burroughs’s The Evil of Evils and Thomas Shepard’s The Sincere Convert and the Sound Believer.

Third, the Puritan writers engage your heart. They excel in feeding the mind with solid biblical substance and they move the heart with affectionate warmth. They write out of love for God’s Word, love for the glory of God, and love for the soul of readers.

For books that beautifully balance objective truth and subjective experience in Christianity; books that combine, as J.I. Packer puts it, “clear-headed passion and warm-hearted compassion” (Ryken, Worldly Saints, x); books that inform your mind, confront your conscience, and engage your heart, read the Puritans. Read Vincent Alsop’s Practical Godliness.

3. Puritan writings show how to exalt Christ and see His beauty. The Puritan Thomas Adams wrote: “Christ is the sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line, the Scriptures being but as it were the swaddling bands of the child Jesus.” Likewise, the Puritan Isaac Ambrose wrote, “Think of Christ as the very substance, marrow, soul, and scope of the whole Scriptures.”

The Puritans loved Christ and exalted in His beauty. Samuel Rutherford wrote: “Put the beauty of ten thousand worlds of paradises, like the Garden of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all joys, all loveliness, all sweetness in one. O what a fair and excellent thing would that be? And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest well-beloved Christ than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and foundations of ten thousand earths.”

If you would know Christ better and love Him more fully, immerse yourself in Puritan literature. Read Robert Asty’s Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus.

4. Puritan writings reveal the Trinitarian character of theology. The Puritans were driven by a deep sense of the infinite glory of a Triune God. When they answered the first question of the Shorter Catechism that man’s chief end was to glorify God, they meant the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They took John Calvin’s glorious understanding of the unity of the Trinity in the Godhead, and showed how that worked itself out in electing, redeeming, and sanctifying love and grace in the lives of believers. John Owen wrote an entire book on the Christian believer’s communion with God as Father, Jesus as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Comforter. The Puritans teach us how to remain God-centered while being vitally concerned about Christian experience, so that we don’t fall into the trap of glorifying experience for its own sake.

If you want to appreciate each Person of the Trinity, so that you can say with Samuel Rutherford, “I don’t know which Person of the Trinity I love the most, but this I know, I love each of them, and I need them all,” read John Owen’s Communion with God and Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity.

5. Puritan writings show you how to handle trials. Puritanism grew out of a great struggle between the truth of God’s Word and its enemies. Reformed Christianity was under attack in Great Britain, much like Reformed Christianity is under attack today. The Puritans were good soldiers in the conflict, enduring great hardships and suffering much. Their lives and their writings stand ready to arm us for our battles, and to encourage us in our suffering. The Puritans teach us how we need affliction to humble us (Deut. 8:2), to teach us what sin is (Zeph. 1:12), and how that brings us to God (Hos. 5:15). As Robert Leighton wrote, “Affliction is the diamond dust that heaven polishes its jewels with.” The Puritans show us how God’s rod of affliction is His means to write Christ’s image more fully upon us, so that we may be partakers of His righteousness and holiness (Heb. 12:10–11).

If you would learn how to handle your trials in a truly Christ-exalting way, read Thomas Boston’s The Crook in the Lot: The Sovereignty and Wisdom of God Displayed in the Afflictions of Men.

6. Puritan writings explain true spirituality. The Puritans stress the spirituality of the law, spiritual warfare against indwelling sin, the childlike fear of God, the wonder of grace, the art of meditation, the dreadfulness of hell, and the glories of heaven. If you want to live deep as a Christian, read Oliver Heywood’s Heart Treasure. Read the Puritans devotionally, and then pray to be like them. Ask questions such as: Am I, like the Puritans, thirsting to glorify the Triune God? Am I motivated by biblical truth and biblical fire? Do I share their view of the vital necessity of conversion and of being clothed with the righteousness of Christ? Do I follow them as far as they followed Christ?

7. Puritan writings show how to live by wholistic faith. The Puritans apply every subject they write about to practical “uses”—as they term it. These “uses” will propel you into passionate, effective action for Christ’s kingdom. Their own daily lives integrated Christian truth with covenant vision; they knew no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular. Their writings can assist you immeasurably in living a life that centers on God in every area, appreciating His gifts, and declaring everything “holiness to the Lord.”

The Puritans were excellent covenant theologians. They lived covenant theology, covenanting themselves, their families, their churches, and their nations to God. Yet they did not fall into the error of hyper-covenantalism, in which the covenant of grace becomes a substitute for personal conversion. They promoted a comprehensive worldview, a total Christian philosophy, a holistic approach of bringing the whole gospel to bear on all of life, striving to bring every action in conformity with Christ, so that believers would mature and grow in faith. The Puritans wrote on practical subjects such as how to pray, how to develop genuine piety, how to conduct family worship, and how to raise children for Christ. In short, they taught how to develop a “rational, resolute, passionate piety [that is] conscientious without becoming obsessive, law-oriented without lapsing into legalism, and expressive of Christian liberty without any shameful lurches into license” (ibid., xii).

If you would grow in practical Christianity and vital piety, read the compilation of The Puritans on Prayer, Richard Steele’s The Character of an Upright Man, George Hamond’s Case for Family Worship, Cotton Mather’s Help for Distressed Parents, and Arthur Hildersham’s Dealing with Sin in Our Children.

8. Puritan writings teach the importance and primacy of preaching. To the Puritans, preaching was the high point of public worship. Preaching must be expository and didactic, they said; evangelistic and convicting, experiential and applicatory, powerful and “plain” in its presentation, ever respecting the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.

If you would help evangelicals recover the pulpit and a high view of the ministry in our day, read Puritan sermons. Read William Perkins’s The Art of Prophesying and Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor.

9. Puritan writings show how to live in two worlds. The Puritans said we should have heaven “in our eye” throughout our earthly pilgrimage. They took seriously the New Testament passages that say we must keep the “hope of glory” before our minds to guide and shape our lives here on earth. They viewed this life as “the gymnasium and dressing room where we are prepared for heaven,” teaching us that preparation for death is the first step in learning to truly live (Packer, Quest, 13).

If you would live in this world in light of the better world to come, read the Puritans. Read Richard Baxter’s The Saint’s Everlasting Life and Richard Alleine’s Heaven Opened.

Where to Begin

If you are just starting to read the Puritans, begin with John Bunyan’s The Fear of God, John Flavel’s Keeping the Heart, and Thomas Watson’s The Art of Divine Contentment, then move on to the works of John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and Jonathan Edwards.

For sources that introduce you to the Puritans and their literature, begin with Meet the Puritans. Then, to learn more about the lifestyle and theology of the Puritans, read Leland Ryken’s Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), Peter Lewis’s The Genius of Puritanism (Morgan, Penn.: Soli Deo Gloria, 1997), and Erroll Hulse’s Who are the Puritans? and what do they teach? (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2000). Then move on to James I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1990) and my Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2006).

Whitefield was right: the Puritans, though long dead, still speak through their writings. Their books still praise them in the gates. Reading the Puritans will place you and keep you on the right path theologically, experientially, and practically. As Packer writes, “The Puritans were strongest just where Protestants today are weakest, and their writings can give us more real help than those of any other body of Christian teachers, past or present, since the days of the apostles” (quoted in Hulse, Reformation & Revival, 44). I wholeheartedly agree. I have been reading Christian literature for more than forty years and can freely say that I know of no group of writers in church history that can so benefit your mind and soul as the Puritans. God used their books to convert me as a teenager, and He has been using their books ever since to help me grow in understanding John the Baptists’s summary of Christian sanctification: “Christ must increase and I must decrease.”

In his endorsement of Meet the Puritans, R.C. Sproul says, “The recent revival of interest in and commitment to the truths of Reformed theology is due in large measure to the rediscovery of Puritan literature. The Puritans of old have become the prophets for our time. This book is a treasure for the church.” So, our prayer is that God will use Meet the Puritans to inspire you to read Puritan writings. With the Spirit’s blessing, they will enrich your life in many ways as they open the Scriptures to you, probe your conscience, bare yours sins, lead you to repentance, and conform your life to Christ. Let the Puritans bring you into full assurance of salvation and a lifestyle of gratitude to the Triune God for His great salvation.

You might want to pass along Meet the Puritans and Puritan books to your friends as well. There is no better gift than a good book. I sometimes wonder what would happen if Christians spent only fifteen minutes a day reading Puritan writings. Over a year that would add up to reading about twenty average-size books a year and, over a lifetime, 1,500 books. Who knows how the Holy Spirit might use such a spiritual diet of reading! Would it usher in a worldwide revival? Would it fill the earth again with the knowledge of the Lord from sea to sea? That is my prayer, my vision, my dream. Tolle Lege—take up and read! You will be glad you did.

To bury or to burn? The decline of Christian burial and the rise of cremation (Part 2)

My latest article for CHARIS is up. Here's a taste:

Is there anything cautionary about the practice of cremation that should be considered by people of the Christian faith? This was the question I asked in my previous post. With the projected incidence of cremation in the United States to reach 70.6 percent by 2030 (according to the National Funeral Director’s Association and the Cremation Association of North America) it is a question with some weight behind it. Consider whether you have ever heard a dialogue on this issue in your local Christian community and you’ll likely conclude, as I have, that the topic (cremation vs. burial) is virtually ignored in most American churches.

Though the death of a human being raises a host of questions (Do I get an inheritance? Why didn’t he eat better? Is there really a heaven?) the simplest is: what to do with a dead body? Cremation is one answer.

Cremation is referred to in the Old Testament by the phrase “burning the bones of” (1 Kings 13:2; 2 Kings 23:16, 20; Amos 2:1). In ancient Israel, death by burning was often reserved as a punishment for criminals (Gen 38:24; Josh 7:15, 25; Lev 20:14; 21:9). Death by burning and cremation were both stigmatized as abhorrent by the Israelites. Because burning human bones was considered to be the ultimate desecration of the dead (1 Kings 13:2; 2 Kings 23:16, 20), it was subject to punishment by God (Amos 2:1).

Only three notable ancient civilizations did not practice cremation: Egypt, China, and Judea. The ancient Greeks cremated bodies after a plague or battle for sanitary reasons or to prevent their enemies from mutilating the dead. A similar attitude was found among the Israelites and perhaps explains why the dead bodies of Saul and his sons were burned (1 Sam 31:12; 2 Sam 21:11–14). It is possible that Saul’s cremation also reflected God’s rejection of his ignominious reign. When Amos (6:9–10) described the burning of bodies after battle, evidently for sanitary reasons, he intended to depict the horrors faced by victims of war.

Jews of the Second Temple period buried their dead promptly, as soon as possible after death and almost always on the same day. Preparations began at the moment of death: the eyes of the deceased were closed, the corpse was washed with perfumes and ointments (Acts 9:37), its bodily orifices were stopped and strips of cloth were wound tightly around the body—binding the jaw closed, the feet together and the hands to the sides of the body (Jn 11:44). The corpse was then placed on a bier and carried in a procession to the family tomb (Lk 7:12). Eulogies were spoken, and the corpse was placed inside the tomb, along with items of jewelry or other personal effects. The funeral was thus conducted without delay, and most bodies were interred by sunset on the day of death. But Jewish burial rituals did not conclude with this first, or primary, burial. A year after the death, members of the immediate family returned to the tomb for a private ceremony in which the bones were reburied after the body had decayed.

By far the most common Jewish burial technique in Palestine during the Second Temple period was secondary burial in limestone chests known as ossuaries, the reburial of human bones after the flesh had decayed. It was a practice inherited from ancient Israel. The New Testament texts reflect the Jewish belief that corpses were unclean and impure, thus to be avoided and not be touched (e.g., Mt 23:27–28; Lk 10:31–32; 11:44). Many Jews during the Second Temple period expected that the dead would be raised bodily on the last day. Secondary burial in ossuaries, a burial technique that preserved the individual identity of the deceased, may have been at least partially motivated by this belief.

Early Christians were hesitant to practice cremation because of their understanding that the body was the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19) yet recognized that cremation has no effect on the integrity of one’s eternal state (Rev 20:13). Nonetheless, belief in the resurrection of the body made cremation often repugnant to the early Christians, whose use of burial is attested by, for example, the evidence of the catacombs at Rome..

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