"In the Puritans, people are finding men who were passionate and obsessed with the knowledge of God." - Don Kistler
Puritan expert Don Kistler wrote a short book entitled "Why Read The Puritans Today?", in which he gives ten reasons why the books and written sermons of the 17th and 18th century Puritans are still highly relevant for Christians in the modern era. The reasons Kistler gives were practical and everyday realities for the Puritans, which ensured for them an in depth and encompassing relationship with God and His Word.
I would like to write out excerpts from all ten of those reasons here to encourage Christians to become acquainted with the writings of the Puritans for the sole purpose of growing closer to God and for gaining a much more intimate and comprehensive hold on God's Word.
"Why Read Puritans Today" - by Don Kistler
1. Reading the Puritans will elevate your concept of God to a degree you probably never thought possible, and show you a God who is truly worthy of your worship and adoration... When you begin to have Isaiah's vision of God from Isaiah 6, and you realize that the reality of God is infinitely beyond anything your mind can fully comprehend, you'll realize that the average man doesn't think much about God at all... The Puritans were, above all, great thinkers.
2. The Puritans had a "love affair", if you will, with Christ; they wrote much about the beauty of Christ... The true Christian wants Christ and nothing but Christ.
3. The Puritans will help us understand the sufficiency of Christ. This comes under great attack in our modern church. You may have Christ to save you, but you need psychology to help you get through life, we are told... It is our deficiency of Christ that is the issue. If Christ is all in all, how can we look to anyone else or anything else for answers?
4. The Puritans help us to see the sufficiency of Scripture for life and godliness... The Puritans understood that spiritual problems needed spiritual solutions... God, who created the soul, and who died to redeem the soul, best knows how to treat the soul. And those men who are most acquainted with God are best able to provide cures for the soul. In fact, the Puritans were called "physicians of the soul."
5. The Puritans can teach us about the heinous nature of sin... There is no doctrine on which it is more important to be orthodox than this one, because if you are off on the doctrine of sin, you are going to be off on every other doctrine.
6. The Puritans will help us with practical living... Before this century, most counseling was done from the pulpit or during a pastoral visit to the home to catechize the family... There was no area of life that the Puritans believed was not to be regulated by Scripture... The Puritans were very pastoral in addition to being very theological. There is a great deal for comfort in their writings.
7. The Puritans will help us with evangelism that is biblical. Most evangelism today is man-centered. Puritan evangelism was God-centered.
8. Reading the Puritans will help establish right priorities... One Puritan said it this way, "God's smile is my greatest reward, and His frown is my greatest fear." If it is true that we become like the people with whom we spend our time, then it is an investment in eternity to spend your time with the Puritans.
9. The Puritans can help us clarify the issue of how a man is made right with God. A title that I highly recommend is Solomon Stoddard's work on the difference between imputed and infused righteousness, "The Safety of Appearing on the Day of Judgment in the Righteousness of Christ." I cannot overemphasize the importance of being sound on this matter of imputed righteousness in this day when so many are not sound on the eternal difference between imputed and infused righteousness. The difference between these two positions is not simply the distance between Rome and Geneva; it is the distance between heaven and hell.
10. Finally, let's examine the Puritans and the authority of the Word... The Puritan divines who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith wrote, "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God."... That is how the Puritans viewed Scripture. Their high view of God came from their high view of Scripture. And if we would know God the way they did, we must love His Word the way they did.
"Reading the Puritans, then, would be the best possible use of time. Oh, that we might become like them in the ways that they set Christ forth for all to adore and worship."
- Don Kistler, Why Read The Puritans Today, pg 17
6. The Puritans will help us with practical living... Before this century, most counseling was done from the pulpit or during a pastoral visit to the home to catechize the family... There was no area of life that the Puritans believed was not to be regulated by Scripture... The Puritans were very pastoral in addition to being very theological. There is a great deal for comfort in their writings.
7. The Puritans will help us with evangelism that is biblical. Most evangelism today is man-centered. Puritan evangelism was God-centered.
8. Reading the Puritans will help establish right priorities... One Puritan said it this way, "God's smile is my greatest reward, and His frown is my greatest fear." If it is true that we become like the people with whom we spend our time, then it is an investment in eternity to spend your time with the Puritans.
9. The Puritans can help us clarify the issue of how a man is made right with God. A title that I highly recommend is Solomon Stoddard's work on the difference between imputed and infused righteousness, "The Safety of Appearing on the Day of Judgment in the Righteousness of Christ." I cannot overemphasize the importance of being sound on this matter of imputed righteousness in this day when so many are not sound on the eternal difference between imputed and infused righteousness. The difference between these two positions is not simply the distance between Rome and Geneva; it is the distance between heaven and hell.
10. Finally, let's examine the Puritans and the authority of the Word... The Puritan divines who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith wrote, "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God."... That is how the Puritans viewed Scripture. Their high view of God came from their high view of Scripture. And if we would know God the way they did, we must love His Word the way they did.
"Reading the Puritans, then, would be the best possible use of time. Oh, that we might become like them in the ways that they set Christ forth for all to adore and worship."
- Don Kistler, Why Read The Puritans Today, pg 17
