You may have noticed some new books on the shelves of the welcome desk in the foyer. These are resources we would like to highlight to the congregation for a period of time. 

The theme for these resources is Heaven Help Our Worship: Worship and the Christian Life. They have been selected to fall into five categories. Categories and titles include:  

Theology: The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.  

Sanctification: Look and Live by Matt Papa.  

Christian Biography: The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts by Douglas Bond.  

Church History/Cultural Evaluation: Worldly Saints by Leland Ryken.  

The Church: Church Planting: Thinking Through Each Step by 9Marks’ Church Matters Journal.  

The purpose of highlighting these resources is simply to put biblically solid, Christ-exalting, affection-fueling resources in the hands of the members at Summit Woods for their personal growth in the Lord, to equip them to do the work of ministry, and for use in discipleship relationships.   

Perhaps you’ve been looking for a new book for yourself to read in your devotional time, or perhaps you’ve been wanting to get together with a brother or sister in the Lord and desire to encourage them in their walk with the Lord – these resources are there to be readily available for you in addition to the books provided in the resource room.   

Today's highlight is: Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were by Leland Ryken. 

Who were the Puritans, those 17th century Christians who peppered the religious landscape across England and America? What are the historical facts and fiction surrounding them? More importantly, why should Christians today study the Puritans to help us worship God better?  phies that are a great way to introduce readers to the lives and ministries of faithful saints.

Leland Ryken’s book, Worldly Saints, answers these questions as it presents a clear, devotional look at Puritan thought on such matters as work and money, family and marriage, church and preaching, and even education and social action. In every aspect of life, the Puritans sought keep the worship God at the center. Understanding the Puritans in their example and even their failings will equip Christians today to be worldly saints who worship God in everything they do. 

From the forward, by J. I. Packer: 

I would commend Professor Ryken’s chapters, which these remarks introduce, as a fine presentation of the Puritan outlook. Having read widely in recent Puritan scholarship, he knows his way around…He knows that into the making of Puritanism went Tyndale's reforming biblicism, the piety of the heart that broke surface in John Bradford, the passion for pastoral competence that John Hooper, Edward Dering, and Richard Greenham, among others, exemplified, the view of Scripture as the "regulative principle" of worship and ministerial order that fired Thomas Cartwright, the comprehensive ethical interest that reached its apogee in Richard Baxter's monumental Christian Directory, and the concern to popularize and make practical, without losing depth, that was so evident in William Perkins and so powerfully influenced his successors. 

Dr. Ryken also knows that in addition to being a movement for church reform, pastoral renewal, and spiritual revival, Puritanism was a world view, a total Christian philosophy, in intellectual terms a Protestantized and updated medievalism, and in terms of spirituality a kind of monasticism outside the cloister and away from monkish vows. His presentation of the Puritan view and style of life is perceptive and accurate. It should win new respect for the Puritans and should create a new interest in exploring the great mass of theological and devotional literature that they left us, so as to discover the profundities of their biblical and spiritual insight. If it has this effect, I for one, who owe mere to Puritan writing than to any other theology I have ever read, shall be overjoyed. 

From the preface: 

This book is a survey of Puritan ideals. It explores Puritan attitudes on a broad range of topics that generally fall within the category of practical Christian living. My purpose in writing this book has been threefold: (1) to correct an almost universal misunderstanding of what the Puritans really stood for, (2) to bring together into a convenient synthesis the best that the Puritans thought and said on selected topics, and (3) to recover the Christian wisdom of the Puritans for today. Evangelical Protestants are strangers to what is best in their own tradition; my hope is that this book will make a small contribution to remedying that situation.