Meet The Puritans

A Warning from Owen to Students

Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Mark Jones in John Owen, Thomas Goodwin

The nature of engaging in theological discourse and reflection was an important topic for the Puritans.  John Owen, in Theologoumena (“Biblical Theology”), suggests that students of theology should be aware that in their reading and meditation, “the all-holy God is, in a special manner, close to him as he works” (699).  God speaks to us in his Word no less directly than if he spoke audibly from heaven.  As a result, we should be overcome with humility and conduct our studies with appropriate reverence.  The same exhortation might prove valuable for those who write and comment on blogs.

Owen continues: “Wherever fear and caution have not infused the student’s heart, God is despised.  His pleasure is only to dwell in hearts which tremble at His Word.  Light or frivolous perusal of the Scriptures is a sickness of soul which leads on to the death of atheism” (699).

Moreover, according to Owen, it is imperative, for the good of the student, “that he carefully weigh up and monitor what progress he is making both (a) in all of the truth which he is busy digging out of the Word, and (b) in acceptable worship of God. Let the latter be the first and main purpose of all his studies and meditations in the Holy Scriptures….Our studies are useless if they do not teach us about our own standing before God and our Lord Jesus.” (700)

The blogosphere is no doubt filled with godless fools who rampage around insulting others they have never personally met and would never speak in the tone they do if they were face-to-face with the person.  In Seminaries in particular you will no doubt find a host of students who are quite willing to polemicize with one another, but have never prayed with their fellow classmates.

Owen continues, “If a student has labored merely to equip his mind with a store of facts, and has neglected the high and holy means of sacred meditation, he will look in vain for progress in his labors, for any real or practical value to the Church at large – or for his own eternal security” (Ibid).

Another point Owen reminds us of is the importance of the original languages, Greek and Hebrew: “Not only is this the only well from which we can draw the original force and meaning of the words and phrases of divine utterance, but also those languages (esp. Hebrew) possess a weight of their own – a vividness which brings home to the understanding fine shades of meaning with power which cannot survive the passage into another tongue.”

Lastly, all of our study should be “preceded, accompanied, and closed by continuous and heart-felt prayer. This is the most effectual means ordained of God for discovering that heavenly wisdom for which we are seeking” (701).  Again, how many people blast others on the internet after having had serious dealings with God in prayer?

At an earlier point in Owen’s magnificent treatise, he speaks of youths “who profess to have dedicated themselves to this study but who have hardly gone further in evangelical studies than the reading of three or four volumes, to behave as if they alone were the experts, and to consider that they are deserving of a glorious reputation among the great scholars. Such arrogance.  Better it would be if such Suffenuses did not also go on to despise those who are truly endowed with the wisdom that they so foolishly boast of having attained to” (592).  In line with this contention, Owen quotes Seneca approvingly: “Many might have attained to wisdom, if they had not thought that they already had it!” (Ibid).

It is interesting in Owen’s work that he breaks forth into prayers! For example, in his work he actually writes: “Dear Lord Jesus, in your infinite mercy, never allow me, the chief and greatest of sinners, to ever think that I am indebted to You by fewer or lesser ties of gratitude than I am, or in any degree to reduce or slight that merciful grace which is dearer to me than life and soul itself” (625).  I can’t imagine publishers allowing this sort of doxology in the middle of a work on Christology.  Plus, imagine the loss of academic credibility?

In Thomas Goodwin’s sermons on Hebrews he speaks to this matter as well (see Works5:529):

It may humble young Christians, that think, when they are first converted, that they have all knowledge, and therefore take upon them to censure men that have been long in Christ; and out of their own experience they will frame opinions, comparing but a few notes together. Alas, ye know but a piece of what you shall know! When you have been in Christ ten or twenty years, then speak; then those opinions which you have now will fall off, and experience will show them to be false. They think themselves as Paul, that nothing can be added unto them; but what says Paul, 1 Cor. 13:11? “When I was a child,” He takes a comparison from a child, as being a man, but raised up to his spiritual estate, and thou also wilt then ‘put away childish things.’

If God in former ages did reveal himself but by piecemeal, and if that piecemeal knowledge, which they had by inch and inch, did make them holy; for how holy was Enoch and Abraham that had but one promise; then how much more holy should we be, that have had so full a discovery! If one promise wrought so much on their hearts, how much more should so many promises on ours!”

These are timely reminders to those of us who have itching fingers or those of us engaged in theological studies, whether young or old.  The Puritans not only knew how to write good theology, but they also focused on how we do that theology.

Tags: Goodwin, humility, Owen, prayer, students, study, Theology