We come now to the penultimate chapter of John Owen’s classic, The Mortification of Sin. In this chapter Owen concludes his nine directions for making ourselves ready to mortify sin. Next week, he will conclude the book with two final directions for killing our sin before it kills us. The 9th Direction and subject of …
Here in chapter 12, Owen presents us with his 8th Direction for mortifying sin, which is to “use and exercise thyself to such meditations as may serve to fill thee at all times with self-abasement, and thoughts of thine own vileness” (119). This is to build up within us a hatred against the sin that …
Having established the first direction for mortifying sin in the previous chapter, Owen now moves on to discuss the second direction: “Get a clear and abiding sense upon thy mind and conscience, first, of the guilt, secondly, of the danger, thirdly, of the evil, of that sin wherewith thou art perplexed” (99). The chapter is …
Moving on from Owen’s description of what mortification is and is not in the previous two chapters, he now proceeds into two “general rules and principles, without which no sin will be mortified” (69). Our present chapter will deal with the first, and chapter 8 will discuss the second. This first general principle is simple …
Pride should not be celebrated. Shocking, I know. Although I am purposely choosing to study pride and its opposing virtue, humility, during what has been dubbed “pride month,” my aim is not to launch a polemic assault on the LGBT movement. Of course, no one should be surprised to find those who gladly rebel against …
In this chapter, Owen discusses the third and final basic principle for mortifying sin, which “is that the life, vigour and comfort of our spiritual life depend much on our mortification of sin” (47). Or as the summary at the top of the chapter calls it: “of the usefulness of mortification” (47). Of all these …
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let …
Continue reading Of Prayer, Preaching, Leprosy, & the Messianic Secret | Mark 1:35-45
If the first two chapters have not yet convinced you of the great value of this book, this third chapter should soundly accomplish that task. The subject at hand is the second of the three big principles for mortifying sin that Owen began to explore in the previous chapter and will conclude in the following. …
Here in chapter 2, Owen addresses the first of three main principles made about our call to mortify our sin (the next two principles are the subjects of chapters 3 and 4). This first principle is that even the very best believers must still mortify “the indwelling power of sin” each and every day of …
We come now to the conclusion of the Secular Creed, and after so many controversial issues permeating the five prior statements, Kindness Is Everything is fairly easy to overlook because of how pleasant and inarguable it sounds. In fact, in a Mashable article that describes the origin of this house-sign, they briefly describe the beginnings …
