The missing ingredient

Who among us cannot see the difference between the ancient church and us? between the Apostles and us? or even between the Reformers and Puritans of several hundred years ago and us? It was as if a fire burned in their bosoms. Are we even aflame at all? They seemed driven by a holy passion and resolve. Are we motivated by a holy passion for God? They were as men at war with their sin and they strove for holiness as if empowered by a heavenly strength. Do not so many seem to be at home with much of their sin and content to do the minimum God requires? Continue reading “The missing ingredient”

The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality, Part 2

I explained in yesterday’s post about Puritan spirituality that it was the conviction of the Puritans (as well as my own) that the inherent righteousness of every believer was to be shaped by the Ten Commandments, the moral Law of God. This is because the Puritans rightly understood that the moral law provides the Christian with both light from heaven to expose his sin and truth from God to guide his feet in righteousness. Continue reading “The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality, Part 2”

The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality

One of the saddest effects of Scofieldian Dispensationalism on the landscape of the American  church is the almost wholesale disregard for and discarding of the Moral Law. Scofield taught a stark division between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church, a division so great that the two were not one people or one church or under one covenant of grace, but were rather two peoples under two covenants, and two churches in two different administrations. Indeed, the New Testament church hardly needs the Old Testament, according to Scofield, since it is a book of the Jews, by the Jews, and therefore for the Jews. The New Testament church has all it needs in the New Testament revelation.  Continue reading “The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality”