General Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God

General Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God
Author: Robert Bolton
Publisher: Soli Deo Gloria Publications
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2019-02-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781601786692

While Robert Bolton originally wrote General Directions as a spiritual guide for himself, its publication led to its becoming an instant classic. This book encourages us to abandon our loved sin, hate hypocrisy, exercise self-denial, live the life of faith, form right conceptions of Christianity, guard against worldliness, be warmed with the love of God, treasure reconciliation with God, keep the heart, and meditate on future bliss in order to loosen sin's grip on the soul. Bolton also excels in describing particular Christian duties, such as tending to family, governing the tongue, and managing every action of our lives. Read Bolton's book, be encouraged in your Christian walk, and find out first hand why generations of believers have cherished this sound volume of pastoral advice.

Calvin the Magistrate

Calvin the Magistrate
Author: George J. Gatgounis
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2021-01-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725261170

The legal and political scenario of Calvin’s day involved upheavals deriving from the force of religion upon law. Whole cities, provinces, and states came under Reformation influence, ranging from quiet individual conversions to Protestantism to the hysteria of community iconoclasm. The transformation of these societies, however, was not moving away from a religious worldview; rather, the transformation was a movement of one religion to another. In Calvin’s day, secularism, pluralism, and religious toleration were nonexistent. Europe was not in the thrall of the question “Should religion in public life be tolerated?” but rather “Which religion should be enforced, to the banning of all others?” Calvin was a driven man, but a valid question drove him: “What is the true religion?” And deriving from the central question were corollaries: “What law is right law?” and “What government is right government?” Calvin’s trek would lead him to answers. Calvin concluded that, substantively, a correct political and legal system derives from the Bible, and procedurally, the system is applied by democratically elected officials, checking and balancing one another—and his views were consistent with a Reformation consensus.

The Puritan View of Substantive Biblical Law

The Puritan View of Substantive Biblical Law
Author: George J. Gatgounis
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2021-09-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725261197

The Puritans, who settled in America in the early 1600s, believed that if they followed God’s laws as individuals and as a society, God would prosper them. America would become “the new Israel,” God’s light for the rest of the world. The Rev. Dr. George Gatgounis wrote The Puritan View of Substantive Biblical Law both as a constitutional attorney and a biblical scholar. He did much of the research at Harvard, which was founded by the Puritans to train their clergy. Despite its outward appearance of harshness—such as the dozen transgressions that merited the death penalty in the Massachusetts Bay Colony—Puritan society was founded on the consent of the citizens. At the center was individual spirituality. That spirituality was to be maintained by a strict observance of the Sabbath, which centered around biblical preaching. Certainly there is no going back to a Puritan society in this postmodern era. But perhaps there is something to be learned to guide our way forward.