One of my favourite things to do is care for other people. I love seeing a person’s face soften with relief when they realize someone else is looking out for them or sharing their burden, whether it’s a girl in our youth group struggling with a life issue, a library patron struggling with a research question, or an older family member struggling with a household task. I usually jump at the opportunity to help someone out, but once in a while I get tired.
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Is Self-Love a Sin? Owen on Sober Love of Self
Every so often I see inspirational quotes about loving yourself and witness some Christians opposing it and others agreeing with it. Is self-love merely a euphemism for selfishness, pride, and elitism? Or is it a part of the Christian’s calling to love?
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Guiding Principles for Writing a Paper on Women in Church History
When I began studying Puritan women, I felt overwhelmed. There was something different happening in the primary and secondary texts than what I was used to, even after years of studying historical theology and writing papers. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gleaned the type of information needed to analyze these issues from my previous classes, probably because it is the kind of thing that is mentioned by professors in passing or taught through example and is highly influenced by their areas of expertise. Yet, after making many mistakes, I finally began to understand the shape of historical studies on women and found that other students were coming across the same questions I had to work through. This led me to create a list of guiding principles for those writing their first paper on a woman in church history.
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Encouragement from Church History for the Chronically Ill
Sickness has a way of muddling your brain; it can make you temporarily forget what you believe about God, creation, and yourself, making your suffering worse. In my own experience with chronic illness, I’ve found that it helps to collect small reminders about God’s person, providence, and presence so that on days when thinking is difficult due to fatigue and brain fog, I can read something short to set my mind straight. Many of the reminders I collect come from church history.
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A Day of Rest or a Day of Stress? The Purpose of the Lord's Day
Until a couple of years ago, the terms “Sabbath” and “Lord’s Day” stressed me out. I would either hear them used to make me feel bad about eating lunch at a restaurant on Sundays, supposedly against the instruction of the Puritans who I loved, or used to denounce the legalistic Sabbatarianism of the Puritans. The former was from Reformed acquaintances I didn’t know very well and felt shunned by, the inheritors of Puritan theology. The latter came from Baptist friends who I trusted but now felt pressured by to criticize the Puritans on something I hadn’t studied yet . . . In the conversations I was hearing, the Sabbath or Lord’s Day connoted anything but rest.
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Are You Schismatic? Examining Your Heart for the Sin of Schism
Schism is a scary, serious word. We often think of a schismatic as someone who has caused a split in a denomination over a hot topic issue or walked away from the church entirely, and these never include ourselves. But John Owen’s teaching on schism reminds us that schism can be much less dramatic than this and thus much easier to fall into without realizing it.
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Discipline Done for Love: Owen on the Loving Purpose of Church Discipline
No one enjoys conducting or receiving church discipline. At best, it’s awkward, and if there is no repentance, it can be devastating for individuals and families. The difficulty of addressing these situations can cause believers to shy away from initiating discipline. Yet, this must not stop believers from properly addressing sin in the church. One way to take back your courage is to remember that discipline is not an unloving thing to do, but the most loving thing to do, both for those who have sinned, and those who have been affected by their sin. In fact, there is such a close connection between discipline and love that John Owen lists love as a main purpose of discipline in his Inquiry Concerning Evangelical Churches.
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How to Measure Your Growth in Godliness: Thomas Goodwin on True and False Growth
One of the questions I always get asked about the Christian life is some variation of, “how do I know if I am growing in godliness?” Even if you are doing your best to pay attention to your spiritual growth, it can be difficult to measure because it is somewhat abstract. This is a common concern for all believers, both today and in centuries past. For Thomas Goodwin, it was so common that he decided to write a short case of conscience about it, titled “The Trial of a Christian Growth,” based on John 15:1-2.
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"Make no difference of persons": Owen on the Place of Popularity in the Church
Everyone knows that teenagers in highschool struggle with an intense desire to be part of the popular crowd. Yet, few realize that this doesn’t always end after graduation, it just looks different. As an introvert, I am always instinctively observing the people around me, and sometimes this can take a prideful turn. Have you ever been talking to someone at church and suddenly get a sneaking feeling of superiority as you realize you are the more impressive person in terms of style, speech, or interests? Do you notice when the cool people walk in on Sunday morning and try to get their attention?
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Girls, Body Image, and Theological Poetry: Lucy Hutchinson on the Beauty of the Human Body
Sometimes in an attempt to counter messages about self-esteem and body-shaming that ignore God we forget to acknowledge the beauty and goodness of the human body altogether. This kind of accidental Gnosticism can be especially harming for teenage girls who are constantly thinking about their bodies but are only taught two responses: one that makes them obsess even more about beauty by telling them to find meaning in themselves, and the other that makes them feel silly or sinful for struggling with body image in the first place but with no way to move forward other than trying to ignore their bad feelings and hope they go away.
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Lucy Hutchinson’s Theological Reflections on Motherhood
Years ago I worked as a full-time nanny for newborn twins during the first year of their lives. When I think back to this time, I remember being so tired and stressed and alone—not just because taking care of twins can be hard, but also because my anxiety and depression were starting to get worse at this time—and I wonder how much it would have helped to read quality resources on nurturing children. I’m not a mother myself, but so much of what I see seems too cliché to do justice to the deep and complex emotions and decisions involved in motherhood.
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Encouragement for Bible Reading from Puritan Women
“So how can we know what the Bible really says?” my classmate timidly asked at the end of a long lecture about interpretation. She was not playing the devil’s advocate, but was clearly discouraged by the fact that there seem to be many different and discordant ways of interpreting the Bible. Sometimes reading intense scholarly debates that dissect every tiny part of a passage, listening to sermons that use methods we don’t know how to use, or overhearing a friend joke about misapplying passages like Jeremiah 29:11 make us shrink back from Scripture.
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“Love One Another”: Bunyan on Christian Behaviour in the Home, Workplace, and Community
In 1663 when Bunyan was cooped up in prison and expecting to be executed, he wrote a little conduct manual called Christian Behaviour. Though Bunyan’s fear of execution was based on a misunderstanding of the law, it was not unreasonable for him to be concerned for his well-being because the conditions in prison were horrible. If you were in the same situation, what would you write about?
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The Puritans for Today
This summer I had the privilege of taking Dr. Tom Schwanda’s class on Puritan Spirituality at Regent College. What struck me most about Dr. Schwanda was that it was obvious he really believed and practiced what he taught. Just like I’d never trust a hairdresser with bad hair and always pass by the makeup artists in the Bay with weird makeup, so am I suspicious of those who have a lot to say about the Christian life but don’t really seem like they’re striving to do it.
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Jeremiah Burroughs on Contentment
A couple of years ago at a conference in Vancouver, one of the speakers was asked in a Q&A session, “what are some of the greatest struggles facing North American Christians today?” I usually find these types of questions too broad or vague to be interesting, but because the speaker was my favourite theologian, J. I. Packer, my ears perked up.
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“The greatest honor…is to be like Jesus Christ, and to excel in charity”: Baxter’s List of Motivations and Practical Tips for Loving All People
In my previous article, I showed that the Puritans believed that loving all people was a hallmark of the Christian faith. Though some may be surprised that these summative and forceful statements came from the Puritans, many would not be surprised to hear that the greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. However, actually doing this in real life is hard.
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“The law and glory of Christianity”: Loving All People According to the Puritans
Probably the last thing that comes to mind when someone mentions the Puritans is a loving attitude towards all people. Many imagine the Puritans as obsessed with themselves as God’s people, and obsessed with God’s judgment against humanity at large. Though it is true that they believed in the doctrines of election and hell, they also believed that Christians had a duty to love all people, and this did not contradict the former, nor was it less important. In fact, one might argue that because of the Puritans’ highly developed views of God’s law and love they were able to speak of this command in a deep and meaningful way, rather than a shallow or vague way.
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How to Write a Church History Paper
I started my first church history class with absolutely no understanding of church history. I was still trying to grasp the very basics of Christianity, nevermind the various expressions of Christianity over hundreds and hundreds of years. The only thing I remember from the lectures was finally grasping the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. When it came time to write my paper, I cried and agonized over it so much that I went to the school counsellor to ask if my frustrations were normal.
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When You Don’t Feel Like Going to Church: The Puritans on Worshipping Together
In highschool, Sundays were my favorite days. If I had to miss school or a hangout with friends, I would be disappointed, but if I had to miss church, I felt off for the whole week. I loved hearing the message, singing our songs, eating a big lunch, and laying around in someone’s living room talking about anything. And when Sunday was over, I couldn’t wait until the next one.
Years later in university, Sundays became my least favorite day. I started taking medication that made me sick from Saturday to Monday, and going to church became the time I had to pretend to be happy when all I felt was depressed. On Saturday nights I dreaded the next morning, and on Sunday nights I fell asleep happy. Of course, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know how to get back to where I was.
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Sin Deceives, Mortification Frees: John Owen on Killing Sin
When my husband suggested we watch Smallville, a TV series on Superman, I was not excited. I like true stories about ordinary people, not made up ones about imaginary people. But to my surprise the first few episodes were fairly normal: a teenage boy living in a small town meets a young billionaire and they become best friends. As one would expect, these two (Clark Kent/Superman and Lex Luthor) would become arch-enemies by the end of the series. However, it takes several seasons to get there; it is only over the span of many years that Clark becomes a hero and Lex becomes a villain.
It turns out that there are more true-story aspects to Superman than I thought.
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