Joel Beeke

The Puritans show us how to live from a two-world point of view. Richard Baxter’s The Saint’s Everlasting Rest is a magnificent demonstration of the power that the hope of heaven should have for the directing, controlling, and energizing of…

Dear Timothy, The Puritans were able to weather trials and rebuke pride because of their profound reliance upon the Holy Spirit. They keenly felt their inability to bring anyone to Christ as well as the magnitude of conversion. “God never…

Dear Timothy, The Puritans show us how to handle trials in a Christian manner. Consider the Scottish brothers, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine. In addition to the religious controversies that dampened their joy in ministry for twenty-five years, they endured much…

Dear Timothy, Perhaps nowhere are the Puritans so helpful as in offering guidelines for the process of spiritual, biblical meditation. Here’s an outline of their method. First, ask the Holy Spirit for assistance. Pray for the power to harness your…

Dear Timothy, The Puritans show us the need to be praying men of God. They were truly “men of the closet.” In their closets—their special, private place dedicated to prayer, be it in the bedroom, the attic, or the open…

Dear Timothy, The Puritans show us the importance of catechizing your own church people and your neighbors. Like the Reformers, the Puritans were catechists. They believed that pulpit messages should be reinforced by personalized ministry through catechesis—the instruction in the…

Dear Timothy, As we’ve seen, when God’s Word is preached experientially, the Holy Spirit uses it to transform people and nations. And in this experiential preaching, the Puritans focused on Christ. As Scripture clearly shows, evangelism must bear witness to the record…

Dear Timothy, I’ve written to you about how the Puritans stressed the practice of a piety that flows out of sound doctrine. And yet they also promoted the experiential dimension of Reformed preaching. Puritan preaching explained how a Christian experiences…

Dear Timothy, In my last letter, I wrote that the Puritans show us how to marry doctrine and practice in our preaching. I’d like to add that they stressed the practice of piety (praxis pietatis), or practical godliness, flowing out of sound doctrine—just…

Dear Timothy, In my last letter, I wrote that the Puritans show us how to shape our entire lives and preaching by the Holy Scriptures. But they also show us how to marry doctrine and practice in our preaching. They accomplished…