After finishing up Preaching and Preachers, I felt the desire—if not the urge—to begin to read Iain Murray's two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Knowing that Lloyd-Jones had been influenced by the Puritans, I was not surprised to discover that already in March of 1926, before he entered the ministry (although at that point already having decided to), he was giving a talk to the Literary and Debating Society at Charing Cross Chapel on Puritanism.

One of the most significant reasons we ought to read the Puritans, he says, is because of the profound depth of faith they demonstrate, and their earnest desire to live a life reflective of the grace of God that had been at work in their lives.

'If you wish to know what Puritanism really is, don't read large volumes on the subject by men who may be scholars but never were Puritans, but rather read the life-stories of Puritans...and pray God to give you light not merely to see what is in print but also to see what is between the lines. The great truth in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is not that Christian endured great hardships on his way to the eternal city, but that Christian thought it to be worth his while to endure those hardships...The only people who have a right to say anything about Christianity are those who have felt its force in their own lives...'

The Puritan, [Lloyd-Jones] argued, is not 'the strong man'. He is: 'a very weak man who has been given strength to realise that he is weak. I would say of all men and women that we are all weak, very weak, the difference being that the sinners do not appreciate the fact that they are weak, whereas the Christians do' (98).

Growing up in Dutch Reformed circles, I did not have a lot of exposure to the Puritans, nor did I during my college years where I was surrounded by—and profoundly influenced by—neocalvinism (which I still primarily identify myself with). However, last year I took a course on the theology of John Owen taught by Sinclair Ferguson, which opened my eyes to the gold mine that is the Puritans.

I remember conversations in college in which we wrestled with the recognition that sometimes neocalvinism could be so focused on thinking about what it meant to bring all of life and creation under the lordship of Jesus Christ that we lost sight of the fact that our souls needed to be submitted to Christ as well. I think reading more of the Puritans may be a way for me to balance that out.