Anger Management

I finally got my hands on one of the new "Pocket Puritans" (thanks to my generous friend, Mark who had snow on his church last Thursday).

So, last night before turning out the light, I read through Baxter's Anger Management. What a helpful little book. If you struggle with anger, run to get your hands on this helpful resource!

Here is just one of many helpful "directives" given by Baxter:
"When anger rises, confess your sin without delay to those around. Take the shame to yourself. Shame the sin and honour God."

Baxter goes on to suggest saying to those around you, "I feel a sinful anger rising in my heart and am tempted to forget God's presence and act in a way that is not proper for his glory and speak provoking words that I know would be displeasing to him."

Wow. What if we really did such things?

Pocket Puritans

Tony Reinke has a great post about the new Pocket Puritans series by Banner of Truth.

WTS has them at 40% off:
1. Impure Lust by Flavel
2. Living Faith by Ward
3. Heaven, A World of Love by Jonathan Edwards
4. Anger Management by Baxter

Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ

The Puritans knew how to take a verse or a phrase and meditate long and hard on it. Most of the Puritan books are simply meditations on one verse of Scripture.

One such book is Bunyan's Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. It is a meditation on John 6:37.

Since I'll be preaching from John 6:30-40 on Sunday and I'm reading through the works of Bunyan, I decided to go ahead and read Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

This is a great little book. Banner of Truth has published it in the Puritan Paperback series and you can find it in volume 1 of Bunyan's works.

Basically, Bunyan takes this verse a word at a time and draws out implications and observations.

He meditates on:
-the extent of the gift ("all").
-the Person giving the gift ("the Father").
-the importance of the word "giveth" (implies election).
-the Father's intent in giving (in order to save).
-the Son's reception of the gift ("shall come").
-what it means to "come to Christ."
-the importance of the words "to me," "him," "cometh," "in no wise," and "to cast out."

Then, the second half of the book is devoted to pondering 3 of his 8 observations about this verse. He devotes some effort to application.

Bunyan concludes the book like a good Puritan, pleading with sinners to see in Christ beauty worth coming to.

I would highly recommend slowing reading through Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ (only $5.40).

The Redeemer's Perfect Adequacy

I love Packer's description of the Puritan veiw of preaching the gospel. He lists 5 major points. Here is the 4th one:

"They stressed the sufficiency of Christ. They did not teach men to trust a theory of the atonement, but a living Redeemer, the perfect adequacy of whose saving work they never tired of extolling."

-JI Packer, A Quest for Godliness, p. 170.

Father, may it please You to raise up a new generation of preachers who never tire of extolling the perfect adequacy of the Redeemer.

More mercy in Christ than sin in me

I am thoroughly enjoying Richard Sibbes' The Bruised Reed. This is one of the few puritan books that is very easy to read. It is packed with life-transforming sentences and meditations. Here are a few I've been meditating on:

"...there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us..."

"The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them; and this is his office. When we pray, we need to pray again for Christ to pardon the defects of our prayers."