Roots by the River

by Richard Baxter, excerpted from  The Poor Man’s Family Book , 1672 In times when churches are corrupted, and good ministers are wanting, and bad ones either deceive the people or are insufficient for their work, there is no better supply to keep up religion than godly families. If parents and masters will teach their children and servants faithfully, and worship God with them holily and constantly, and govern them carefully and orderly, it will much make up the want of public teaching, worship, and discipline. Oh that God would stir up the hearts of people thus to make their families as little churches, that it might not be in the power of rulers or pastors that are bad to extinguish religion, or banish godliness from any land! You have greater and nearer obligations to your family than pastors have to all the people. Your wife is as your own flesh; your children are, as it were, parts of yourself. Nature bindeth you to the dearest affection, and therefore to the greatest dut...

by Wes Callihan , ( Antithesis , July/August 1991, p. 3) Do you enjoy what you read to your children? “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and far more) worth reading at the age of fifty.” If C.S. Lewis was right about this, then a good test of the quality of a given “children’s” book should be whether or not adults can (not whether they do) enjoy it as well. To put it another way, if it is only a children’s book, it is probably not a good children’s book. He’s right, of course. Consider those books that are called children’s classics. Peter Rabbit is considered a classic. So is Winnie the Pooh . So are many fairy tales, and so also (though for different reasons) are the Little House books. Children love these stories—but the same is true of the adults who read them to the children. Something in them goes deeply enough into a person to obviate the question of age. A child may be delighted in a story in different ways than the adult who ...

by Richard Baxter, excerpted from The Reformed Pastor (1656) Many a tailor can go in rags while making costly clothes for others. Many a cook may scarcely lick his fingers when he has prepared the most sumptuous dishes for others to eat. Believe it, brethren, that God never saved any man for being a preacher. Nor did he reject a man because he was not an able preacher. He saved a preacher because he was a justified and sanctified man. Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first. See to it that you be the worshiper which you persuade your hearers to be . Make sure first that you believe what you persuade others daily to believe.   Make sure you have heartily entertained the Christ and the Holy Spirit in your own soul before you offer Him to others. He that bids you love your neighbor as yourself implied that you should love yourself instead of hating and destroying yourself—and others, too. O dear brothers, what men then should we be in skill, in resolution, and in unwearied dili...

John Murray , Collected Writings, vol. 1, (Banner of Truth, 1976) I take it for granted that we all believe the Bible to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. I take it for granted that we all read the Bible with regularity. What I am going to plead for, however, is concentrated, sustained, devoted study of the Bible, the kind of study that is not fulfilled by the perfunctory reading of some passages each day. The set periods of family worship are not, of course, by any means to be disparaged. This is a highly necessary and most fruitful exercise. The influence for good exerted by honouring God’s Word in this way is incalculable for all concerned. Indeed, the minimal use of the Bible in this way has often left an indelible impression for good. And furthermore, the set periods of family worship may become the occasions for very concentrated and systematic study of the Bible. But what I stress here is the necessity for diligent and persevering searching ...

Here are two benedictions which we find at the end of letters in the Bible. “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you” (2 Thess. 3:16). “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Heb. 13:20-21). Please look at every phrase, for I will not comment on all of them. Notice “at all times and in every way ” and “ everything good for doing his will.” The God of peace does a thorough work in us. Recently* I have been conscious of the lack of moderate commands in the Scriptures. During the same period of time, I have noticed many Christians moderating these commands. The commands are so extreme, we think we have to run them through a transformer or a reducti...

I have just written to a man in a California prison.* He has just started on a 44-year prison sentence. After that, he has 35 years waiting for him in an Idaho correctional institution. His children live with their mother in Florida. He is not a Christian. I am sending him a Bible and books. I am his only correspondent. We send Bibles and books to many people in prison at their request. We correspond with some of them and take collect calls from others. If you were here, you would think it is our only ministry. It is only a minor part, but biblically it is a very important part. Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-40, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, y...