The Practice Of Godliness Order Printed Copy

Author: Jerry Bridges
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About the Book

"The Practice of Godliness" by Jerry Bridges is a Christian book that explores the importance of spiritual disciplines in cultivating godly character. Bridges emphasizes the need for intentional effort and discipline in pursuing godliness, and offers practical guidance for developing habits that reflect the character of Christ. The book encourages readers to prioritize growth in godliness as a central aspect of their Christian faith.

John Owen

John Owen’s life was incredibly difficult. Born in 1616 and dying in 1683, Owen lived through the deaths of his first wife and all of his children, several of whom died in very early childhood. He supported his last surviving daughter when her marriage broke down. He contributed to a political revolution, watched it fail, saw the monarchy restored and wreak a terrible revenge on republicans, and lived in and around London during the persecution that followed. For twenty years he would have seen the decapitated heads of his friends on display around the city. He died fearing that the dissenting churches had largely abandoned the doctrine of the Trinity and justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone; and, with Charles II about to be replaced by his openly Catholic brother James, believing that the English Reformation was almost over. Owen was one of the most published writers in the seventeenth century. He published around 8 million words. These writings included books on theology and spirituality, politics and economics, and ranged in length from the largest commentary ever published on the epistle to the Hebrews to a short Latin poem that has never been reprinted. For not all of Owen’s works have been kept in print. The most widely circulating nineteenth-century edition, most of which is published by the Banner of Truth, did not include Owen’s sermon manuscripts that are kept in various English libraries, nor the book for children that Owen published in 1652. Owen was one of England’s earliest children’s authors. The catechisms that Owen published (1645) outlined what he expected children in his congregation to know. These catechisms were published before the Westminster Assembly published its better-known examples. But Owen’s catechisms are in many ways simpler. The Primer (1652), which Owen prepared after the death of several of his children during the years of poor harvests and disease at the end of the 1640s, showed what Owen expected of an ideal Christian home. Its routine would be built around Bible reading and prayer, he believed, and his little book included sample prayers that children could learn to pray in mornings, evenings, and at meals. Owen argued that those who led church services should take account of the needs of children. Services that were too long, he believed, did no one any good. Adult believers should not need written prayers, he believed, and these should be banned from public worship. But children were different and needed all the help they could get. Owen enjoyed many warm friendships. His social network included many of the most famous writers in seventeenth-century England. Among his friends and rivals were John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Bunyan, and Lucy Hutchinson. Owen fell out with Milton and became the subject of one of his sonnets. Owen helped Marvell publish one of his most controversial political pamphlets. He encouraged his publisher, Nathanial Ponder, to publish Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. And he appears to have supported Lucy Hutchinson during her move into London, when she attended and took notes upon his preaching and translated large parts of his Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661)—a translation of which has been published with the title Biblical Theology. Owen’s letters reveal his kindness and care as a pastor, especially to mothers grieving their children’s death. Owen was deeply political. He preached to Members of Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I, and pinned his hopes for the reformation of church and society on their efforts to transform England into a protestant republic. During the 1650s, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, Owen served on important committees that sought to establish a religious foundation for the new regime. But he grew dismayed by the ways in which the Cromwell family, and the administration they led, seemed to turn away from godly values. In 1658, he worked with leading army officers to create a crisis that, he likely hoped, would call the regime back to its earlier ideals. It failed, and instead created the crisis that was resolved by the restoration of the monarchy, the return of Charles II, and the persecution of dissenters that followed. During the Restoration, Owen kept his head down, and, as persecution slackened in the later 1660s, published pamphlets that argued that dissenters were the economic lifeblood of the English nation. But he was chastened by his attempts at political intervention and came increasingly to realize that his focus should be on things eternal. Owen often changed his mind. As his developing attitudes to political intervention suggest, Owen committed himself to some beliefs and behaviors that he came to regret. In his early years, he changed his churchmanship from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism. He innovated as a Congregationalist, installing as a co-elder and preacher a man who would not be ordained for several years. He argued for the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, though it is not clear that he ever persuaded any of his congregations to practice it. He thought carefully about the end times and came to believe that, in the latter days, a large number of Jewish people would be converted to Christianity and would return to live in the Promised Land. He dismissed a great deal of discussion about the millennium, but became convinced that the binding of Satan had yet to be achieved. Owen changed his mind because he kept on studying the Bible. Owen was biblical, through and through, and depended just as much on the Holy Spirit. He certainly believed in a learned ministry–after all, he had taught theology at Oxford and done his best to promote godliness within the student body. But he also trusted the Holy Spirit to guide ordinary Christians in small group Bible studies that did not need to be policed by a formally trained expert. Aside from his own Bible study, which advanced on the serious scholarship represented by the three thousand titles that were included in the catalog of his library published soon after his death, Owen encouraged church members to meet together to study Scripture in private. Owen trusted the Bible and the work of the Spirit after writing about both. Owen was not a philosophically-driven, rationalist theologian. His writing abounds in biblical citations. It is molded and contoured by biblical revelation. But he warned that Christians could approach their study of the Bible with absolutely no spiritual advantage to themselves. Christians who approached the study of the Bible without absolute dependence upon the Spirit who inspired and preserved it would gain no more benefit than Jewish readers did from their Scriptures, he argued. Christians should never choose between entire dependence upon the Bible and the Spirit. Owen believed that the goal of the Christian life was knowing God. Before Owen, no one had ever shown clearly how Christians relate to each person of the Trinity. Owen described the goal of the gospel as revealing the love of the Father, who sent the Son as a redeemer of his people, who would be indwelt, provided with gifts, and united together by the Spirit. Owen’s Communion with God is among his most celebrated achievements—and no wonder. It is the exhalation of his devotion to Father, Son, and Spirit, and the discovery of the limitless love of God. Owen is much easier to read than many people imagine. There is a mystique to Owen—a widespread feeling that his books are too difficult and best left to expert theologians. But Owen’s greatest books were written as sermons for an audience of teenagers. Publishers have begun to modernize Owen’s language in new editions of his works. Now more than ever, it’s time to pick up Owen and find his encouragement for the Christian life.

Be Content with What You Have

Contentment is not simply about settling for what we have, but trusting in what God has said. Both anxiety and greed rise in our hearts as God’s words fall. When the author of Hebrews wanted to teach his readers about contentment, he told them an old story with a familiar refrain. He quieted their fears and quenched their greed by reminding them what God had said . “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said , ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). Which prompted Charles Spurgeon to ask, Will not the distresses of life and the pangs of death, will not the internal corruptions and the external snares, will not the trials from above and the temptations from beneath all seem but light afflictions when we can hide ourselves beneath the bulwark of “he has said”? The seed of unnecessary fear in the heart of a Christian is forgetfulness — an inability to remember and trust what the God of the universe has said and done. No one has ever had any grounds to accuse God of not following through on his word. Not even one phrase in any sentence in any statement he has ever made has failed (Joshua 21:45). We will only be truly content with what we have when we know that we have him. And we will remember that we have him when we hear and believe his voice. God Has Said When God said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” he was speaking to Joshua before little Israel went up to take the whole land of Canaan by force. A nation of nomads was about to invade a land filled with enemies bigger and stronger than themselves. Not one army, but many (Joshua 3:10) — and not our turf, but theirs. Israel’s only confidence was that God had told them to go. He had said . What did he say? The foreign land you are about to enter is already yours (Joshua 1:3). No enemy, no matter how many or how strong, will be able to defeat you (Joshua 1:5). And most promising of all: “I will not leave you or forsake you.” ‘I Will Never Leave You’ “Both anxiety and greed rise in our hearts as God’s words fall.” This great promise will fall flat if we think mainly in terms of geography and not fidelity. Of course God will never leave us because he’s everywhere all the time. “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Psalms 139:8). But we see God’s fidelity in the very next verse, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Psalms 139:9–10). If you are his, he will not leave you; he will lead and protect you. When Joshua stared out into impossible circumstances and enormous opposition, God said, “I will not leave you or forsake you. . . . Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5, 9) When the author of Hebrews saw what followers of Jesus would face, and how they would be tempted to wander, he went back to those same words (the only time this promise is quoted in the New Testament), “He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). You will never be alone. No matter how desperate and alone you feel, no matter how much opposition you face, no matter how precarious your circumstances become, he has said, I will be with you. His presence can calm any fear — if we don’t forget that he’s there, he’s near, and he’s attentive. What You Don’t Have The author of Hebrews, however, wasn’t warning about Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. His readers, who were Jewish converts, were facing intense persecution, but from within their own nation — from their own communities, even their own families. And as the scorching friendly fire fell, an even more threatening enemy emerged within their hearts: their own cravings and desires. He says, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). When Western Christians today read, “Be content with what you have,” we might assume the Christian has enough. We may hear, “Don’t long for more than you need.” But many of these young converts were being thrown out of their families, cut off from all provision and protection. To follow Jesus was to embrace abandonment and accept poverty. So, many of them were being called to be content with what they did not have. “The seed of unnecessary fear in the heart of a Christian is forgetfulness.” Discontentment suddenly doesn’t seem so unreasonable. Some of them went without food — for Christ. Some of them had only the clothes on their back — for Christ. Some of them lost their homes — for Christ. Some of them “joyfully accepted the plundering of [their] property, since [they] knew that [they themselves] had a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34). If they could be content with what they had, and didn’t have, how can we not learn to be content with what we have? Grace Enough Be content with what you have. Are there six more terrifying words in a culture like ours? They certainly land on me like six sharp cannon blasts. Don’t let your heart endlessly pine for what you might have one day, but cultivate satisfaction in what God has given you for today. The word for content is the same word in 2 Corinthians 12:9, when Jesus says to the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responds, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Paul’s message is not like so many contentment gospels: If the Lord gives you less, make lemonade. Rather, he says, If Christ gives you less, boast in your less, because you get to see more of him in your less. His grace is sufficient to cover any deficiency in us. If God is that big, and grace that sweet, then we are able to say what the vast majority cannot say: “If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Timothy 6:8). We will not be simply appeased, but pleased, because our deepest joy does not rise and fall with what we have (Philippians 4:11). How Silver Kills a Man If we want to be content with what we have, however, we have to be free from the love of money. As Paul warns, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10). And through this craving, many have forfeited contentment and forgotten what God has said. Intimacy with God loses its value as we fall deeper in love with our currency (and all it buys for us). “We will only be truly content with what we have when we know that we have him.” If we keep flirting with money, we will make ourselves sons of Judas, who traded God himself for thirty pitiful pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). But even before he died, Judas knew he had been had (Matthew 27:3). He had grossly overestimated money and misjudged the love that no amount of silver could buy: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Could he not see how murderously unhappy the Pharisees were (Luke 16:14)? Still he couldn’t shake his cravings for more, even if they cost him everything. If we could feel the horrible realization he felt after trading Jesus away for money, would we not race to give away every possession necessary to have God? Would we not gladly have however little in this life to gain him in the next and forever? Content and Courageous What does contentment sound like? True contentment does not sound cheap, shy, or docile because it often requires profound strength and lionhearted courage. Hebrews continues, “He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say , ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5–6). As he looks out on this small army of Jesus-followers, facing want and need and worse, he turns from Joshua 1 to Psalm 118, which goes on to say, It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. (Psalm 118:8–9) Courage ties Psalm 118 to the promise from Joshua 1 because God says to Joshua three times, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6–7, 9). And before Joshua heard those four words, Moses had said to him, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). When you are tempted to worry about how much you have, set your mind on what he has said . If the true God is your God, he goes with you. He knows what you need (Matthew 6:32). And knowing all you need, and all you will face, he will never leave you nor forsake you. Therefore, we can be courageous wherever his hand leads us, flee the shiny promises of silver, and rejoice in what we have. Most of all, we can rejoice that we have him.