Posts by Don Kistler

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The Character of Puritan Preaching, Part 4

Don Kistler
Nov 7, 2023
The sermon was the minister’s attempt through reason to encourage faith as it affected this life and the next. They were committed to a style that was plain but not dull. Each minister was pledged by his own creed to use a balance of doctrine and practice, faithfully devoted to the exposition of...

The Style of Puritan Preaching: the Content

Don Kistler
Oct 20, 2023
The Puritan preacher’s concern was light and heat; light from the pure Word of God to penetrate the darkness of the heart and soul of the hearer, and heat from the passion and pathos of the heart and soul of the preacher to bring about conviction. The preaching was expository and Christ was the...

Distinctives of Puritan Preaching: Dignity

Don Kistler
Oct 6, 2023
The Puritan preacher saw the role of preaching much differently than we do today because he saw the role of the preacher so much differently than we do today. Rather than seeing the preacher as just “one of the boys” with a bit more knowledge of religious things, the Puritan preacher saw his office...

The Style of Puritan Preaching

Don Kistler
Aug 8, 2023
One of the great follies of which many studies on Puritanism are guilty is the practice of analyzing and criticizing the Puritans rather than allowing them to analyze and criticize us! It is not my intent in this series of posts to comment on the preaching of these godly men, but rather to allow...

How to Help the Hurting with Hope

Don Kistler
Jun 20, 2023
The Puritans not only preached to comfort the weary and wounded, but admonished those who had close relations with such saints in how to help them. So Timothy Rogers gave instructions to those who had to deal with those under a sense of God’s desertion: Speak kindly and compassionately to those...

The End of Puritanism

Don Kistler
May 25, 2023
The Church of England, increasingly angry over the Puritan’s unwillingness to conform to their practices (for which they found no Scriptural warrant or felt were throwbacks to Popery), began to persecute the Puritans to drive them out of their pulpits for being non-conformists. These non-conforming...

Focused on Christ (with Joseph Alleine)

Don Kistler
Jan 3, 2023
Growing in grace requires knowing and meditating upon the Word of God, which both reveals to us the glory of God and exposes to us the shame of sin. This is a slow process, yet we must not lose heart. At the same time, a weak and weary soul will find no comfort when her focus is set on her sin or...

Getting the Word and Growing in Grace

Don Kistler
Oct 7, 2022
Calvin once said that we listen to ourselves too much, and we talk to ourselves too little. Specifically, Calvin meant telling ourselves the truth of the Word of God. Many Puritans followed Calvin in this encouragement, including Thomas Hooker Use the Word of God aright. For as you must, in all...

His Obedience Infinitely Exceeds Your Disobedience

Don Kistler
Sep 15, 2022
Satan is the great enemy of our souls. When he realizes that he cannot stop God’s saving a person, he does all that he can to trouble and vex that soul. Recognizing this, the Puritans spent a great portion of their sermon ministering to wounded souls in their congregation. For example, consider...

For Weary Souls: Greenhill on the Sweetness of the Savior

Don Kistler
Aug 20, 2022
As more and more people are beginning to read the Puritans, there seems to be a natural inclination towards what I call “the hard and heavy” writings of the Puritans. One reason is that more of that kind of material is available, having been reprinted several times over the last few centuries...