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Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach QUOTES

Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach QUOTES

1 " First, then, Puritan preaching was thoroughly biblical. The Puritan preacher found his message in God’s Word. “The faithfull Minister, like unto Christ, [is] one that preacheth nothing but the word of God,” said Puritan Edward Dering.[1] John Owen agreed: “The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word.”[2] As Miller Maclure noted, “For the Puritans, the sermon is not just hinged to Scripture; it quite literally exists inside the Word of God; the text is not in the sermon, but the sermon is in the text.... Put summarily, listening to a sermon is being in the Bible. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

2 " The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying,” wrote John Flavel. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

3 " Long and personal familiarity with the application of Scripture was a key element in the Puritan ministerial makeup,” Sinclair Ferguson writes. “They pondered the riches of revealed truth the way a gemologist patiently examines the many faces of a diamond.”[11] They used Scripture wisely, bringing cited texts to bear on the doctrine or case of conscience[12] at hand, all based on sound hermeneutical principles. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

4 " The Puritans understood that the doctrines of atonement, justification, and reconciliation are meaningless apart from a true understanding of God who condemns sin, and atones for sinners, justifies them, and reconciles them to Himself. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

5 " Conviction—or the killing work of the law—is the way that leads to Christ, not a condition for receiving Christ. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

6 " The Puritans, then, were not afraid to use the law of God as an instrument of evangelism. When God is about to play the chord of grace in the soul, they taught, he usually starts with the bass note of the law. In order for man to come to Christ, he must first come to an end of his own righteousness.[4] “They held [that] the index of the soundness of a man’s faith in Christ is the genuineness of the self-despair from which it springs,” says Packer. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

7 " An important mark of saving faith, then, is that a convert not only wants to be delivered from the corruption of sin, but that he also hungers and thirsts after righteousness and holiness. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

8 " The regenerate man loves God, loves holiness, loves the Bible, loves the godly, and loves the thought of going to heaven to commune with God and to leave sin behind forever. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

9 " The discrepancies between Puritan and modern evangelism should prompt us to revert back to the older message where the whole of Scripture is addressed to the whole man. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

10 " First, the Puritans showed a profound dependence upon the Holy Spirit in everything they said and did. They felt keenly their inability to bring anyone to Christ as well as the magnitude of conversion. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach

11 " The Puritans preached that a flabby mind is no badge of honor. They understood that a mindless Christianity will foster a spineless Christianity. An anti-intellectualistic gospel will spawn an irrelevant gospel that doesn’t go beyond “felt needs.” That’s what is happening in our churches today. We have lost our Christian mind, and for the most part we don’t see the necessity of recovering it. We do not understand that where there is little difference between the Christian and non-Christian in what we think and believe, there will soon be little difference in how we live. "

― Joel R. Beeke , Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach