Puritan Wisdom for Today’s Church: A Discussion with Don Kistler | Ep. 90

Don Kistler: So, again, we’re trying to remove any objection to reading other than the fact that, well, I don’t read. I just look at my iPad or something like that.

Clay Kraby: Yeah. And so, this is through Northampton press that you started. You’re focusing on Puritan works. Is that kind of the main objection that you’ve heard over the years of people not getting into the Puritans? They’re just too hard to read?

Don Kistler: Well, that and misconceptions and, things like this. I had one lady ask me, why would you reprint books by these hateful, bigoted, intolerant, unloving Puritans? And I’m something of a smart aleck. I said, which one of their books did you read that gave you that impression? She goes, well, I’ve never read a single book. Then that’s really not much more than an ignorant statement, is it? And she says, well, everybody knows it. Well, I don’t know it, so at least it’s everybody minus one. That’s the thing. They’ve never read a single book, but they’ve been told in school, or they’ve heard of the Salem witch trials, right. Or something like that. Or they’ve heard Hillary Clinton talk about that old Puritanical sex ethic, which was basically just, God says don’t. So we don’t yet. It wasn’t like they invented it. and so those are more the kind of objections than the difficulty in reading them. Because first of all, most of the stuff I publish is more of the pastoral kind, which is very easy to read. I don’t really do a lot of deep theological, complex issues, because most people don’t care. And they’re not going to take the time to read a thousand pages on, you know, is it okay to breastfeed after week six or something like that? Richard Baxter actually did that in his Christian directory. When is it time to stop breastfeeding? You know, how much fear is sinful fear? When is grief, sinful grief, all kinds of playing scripture to life, things like that. So the books I do are more about who is Christ? Who are we in light of Him? What is our obligation to him? I remember years ago getting a phone call from a reporter in Portland, Oregon, who had picked up one of my books at a used bookstore there in Portland and had read it. And he called and said, what’s the difference between theology now and theology 300 years ago, if there’s ever an underhand lob, hit it out of the park question, that was it. I said, well, that’s easy. Christianity 300 years ago was about Christ. Now it’s about you and what you can get out of it. And he said, well, that is a big difference. So even a secular reporter understood that much.

Clay Kraby: So, there’s a lot of misconceptions. And you mentioned some of the reasons that come in. I think a lot of people’s exposure to the Puritans is maybe in, you know, English class and in 8th grade, and it’s. Or connected to the Salem witch trials, you said. So, it’s a pretty negative picture, if there’s a picture at all. And we use the word Puritan kind of spit when you say it, kind of a negative title. But obviously, you know that there’s lots to be gained from them. What can Christians gain from reading the Puritans today?

Don Kistler: Well, first, the term Puritan was a term of derision in their own day. M. they wanted a pure church, not a perfect church. They knew that wasn’t possible. I remember hearing John MacArthur say, to new members, you’re not joining a perfect church. And if you do find one, don’t join it, because you’ll ruin it. Yeah, but the Church of England, politically and theologically, there was, marrying roman catholic wives. And then, so they were having an effect in turning the Church of England into basically just catholic light. And so, the Puritans said, no, we need a pure church. And so they said, we’ll do this. If God says to do it, we’ll do it. If he doesn’t say to do it, we won’t do it. And for that, they got the nickname Puritan. Well, they wore it like a badge of honor. Now, today, it’s a term of derision again, except among people like us, who appreciate and admire them. with regard to the Salem witch trials, it was the Puritans who stopped it as well. Cotton Mather said, this has gone to excess, and we need to stop it now. What so many people don’t realize is that for the century before that, in England, 1100 witches had been put to death for the same thing. You never hear anybody talk about England being bad. I have to relate this anecdote. When my daughter was young, I used to take her on vacation, just her and me, once a week every summer, so she could have all the attention to herself. this particular summer, we went up to the northeast, to Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. we went to visit all the sites related to the Salem witch trials. Rather than buy all the guidebooks that give you all the nice details, I just pay the guide and go on his tour bus. So, Michelle’s about eight at the time. So, we’re on the tour bus, and all of a sudden, he pulls over to the side of the street, and there’s a woman there. He opens the door and says, this is Wanda, the official witch of Salem, Massachusetts. “Everybody say hi to Wanda.” So, everybody waved. And my daughter looked at me and she said, you’re going to embarrass me, aren’t you? Well, Michelle, I’m not going to let that go. So, she got up and moved to the other side of the tour bus. And the tour driver said, I’m so glad we no longer live in the days of those hateful Puritans who murdered 16 innocent people.”

And I said, which one of them was the innocent one? And he threw on the brakes and stopped the bus and got up and turned around, said, who said that? I said, I did. What did you say? I said, well, you said they murdered 16 innocent people. First of all, no historian says that more than eleven people died because, of this. And secondly, they were all found guilty by a jury of their peers. Now, you have taken, 300 years later, said they were all innocent. On what basis do you say that? He threw me off the bus. He didn’t want to hear the truth. But they were found guilty by a jury of their peers. But we also have to remember that in the 16 hundreds in Massachusetts, it was not a democracy. It was a theocracy. And so, what the Bible says determined things to be right or wrong, not public opinion. there was a group of students from Gordon Conwell College there that summer that were recreating the Salem witch trials. And people would come in and they’d sit, and they used the actual transcripts from the trials to try the case, and the witnesses would say exactly what was said in the trial. And so that then at the end, they’d have all the people vote guilty or not guilty. Well, none of these people are going to say, oh, I let them go. They didn’t do anything wrong. Every one of them voted wrong except me. And I talked with a young man afterwards who was in charge, and I said, what do you think? He says, “Every one of them was guilty and deserved to die.” Now, when you can get a college student to say that you got something going for you but it’s unfortunate. That’s all anybody knows about the same, or the Puritans. Is that right? And you were right about English class. In sophomore English and high school, we read sinners in the hands of an angry God simply as a piece of literature.

Clay Kraby: Right.

Don Kistler: And then the teacher would say, can you believe anybody ever believe this stuff? and here’s 60 years later. Boy, I sure do.

Clay Kraby: And meanwhile, there’s. I mean, there’s countless. Maybe not quite countless, but many, many, many books and sermons and things that are just of great value to the Puritans and things that. That we need to hear today. Right?

Don Kistler: Yeah. I mean, we’ve gotten better at sinning in the last 300 years. We’ve taken it to an art form, you know, where Paul says that he was the worst sinner who ever lived. He hadn’t come close to me. but the sins are the same, and the church issues are the same, so the solutions are the same. I mean, when Paul writes to, timothy, he says, preach the word in season and out of season, for the time will come when men will not want to hear the truth. They’ll want to hear people tickle their ears. Hadn’t anything changed in 300 years? People still need Jesus Christ to save them. The bible only says there are two things sinners need to be saved from sin and the wrath to come. That hasn’t changed in 300 years. So there was always a very strong evangelistic emphasis on their sermons. You know, today we have much of what’s called the invitation system, which was basically started by Charles Finney back in the 18 hundreds. Finney was a lawyer more than he was a theologian, and he believed that if he did not win you over to his side, it was because he didn’t do a very good job of convincing you. And so, he would have what he called a protracted meeting call, where he would have people come forward and sit on the anxious bench and have people pray with them, which is what we do. What we do, but a lot of people do. Now we’ll sing 82 verses of just as I am and, just wear down your will till you give in. Jonathan Edwards never felt that sinners in the hands of an angry God was his best sermon. He did understand that it was the one God had used the most. But he believed that his best sermon was one from Romans called the justice of God and the damnation of sinners, that it would be absolutely just of God to damn you. He has called to you for years and you have said, leave me alone. And now you call to him. It would be just of God to leave you alone. Anyway, at the end of the sermon, he says, God is going to be glorified in your salvation or in your damnation. You pick. That was his invitation. So, yes, we need them every bit as much now as they did in England in the 1600s and in America in the 16 and 1700s.

Clay Kraby: Absolutely. Now, we already mentioned that some people are intimidated by the Puritans. And it can be, because it can be difficult to read. It’s a different time and place. You’ve addressed some of that at Northampton press with updating a bit of the language. Is there a particular Puritan that you recommend for people to start with? That might be a little bit easier.

Don Kistler: Yeah, there are several. And they were more the pastoral type of Puritans. A lot of application. A Puritan sermon was at least a third to a half application. Okay, fine. Now, what am I supposed to do with all that information you just gave me? And those would be men like Thomas Watson, Christopher love, my favorite English Puritan. And Jeremiah Burroughs, very, very pastoral. Good at application. You know, the thing that I’m most impressed with the Puritans is how well they knew their bibles. They were walking concordances. And, I’ll be editing a sermon, and they’ll pull a verse out of Zephaniah. You know, most people don’t read the Old Testament at all, much less Zephaniah. Ah, and he’s got an applicable verse to his doctrinal point. so many of these books were sermons that were preached and taken down in shorthand by someone in the congregation. And then Monday, they’d be walked over to the printers and be printed out or taken to the minister himself, who’d make any corrections. But sometimes there are errors in there, because perhaps the preacher quoted psalm 48 nine when it really should have been 98.4. And so, I have to check all the scripture references for accuracy and such things as that. But the more pastoral, and that’s why the books by Jonathan Edwards I published have been his sermons, not his major, deep theological treatises, because you can get lost in those. We have a book that we published by Christopher Love, which I thought was life changing, simply called grace. The truth, growth in different degrees of grace. And it is about 200 pages on a verse in 1 Kings. The Lord God found in him one good thing, and he says, that’s grace. The world will look at the last thing you did wrong and say that’s who he is. And God will look at the only thing you may have ever done right and say, no, that’s who he is. And so, the book is summed up this way, Christ is a better savior than you are a sinner. Now, that’s life changing stuff. I mean, he says you add up all the sins you’ve ever committed, it’ll still be a finite number. But Christ is an infinite savior. He has more mercy than you have sin. Well, if that’s not worth $20, I don’t know what is.

Clay Kraby: That’s right. Now, you’ve mentioned some bigger names that people might be familiar with. With Thomas Watson or Jeremiah Burroughs. People know the name John Owen, Christopher love. I’ve not read any Christopher love. And you’ve obviously got this newer book that you’ve just edited and rereleased, from Ralph Robinson. Why should folks take the time to get to know some of the lesser-known Puritans?

Don Kistler: Well, they’re lesser known in our day because they haven’t been reprinted as much as they were in their own day.

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: now you have John Owen, who is probably the greatest theologian the Puritans have ever produced. When they were all kicked out of England, he tried to leave to come to America with the rest of them. And the king wouldn’t let him leave because he was a national treasure. but Christopher Love was a member of the Westminster assembly. He was not unknown in his own day. Ralph Robinson was not unknown in his own day. And here again, you have those last three names we mentioned. Christopher Love, Ralph Robinson, Jeremiah Burroughs. Christopher love died at the age of 33. Ralph Robinson died at the age of 41. Jeremiah Burroughs dies at the age of 47. I’ve published about twelve volumes by Burroughs, about, that many by Christopher Love. And Ralph Robinson died after only three. These men were prolific.

Clay Kraby: Right.

Don Kistler: one reason is they didn’t have a lot of, board meetings and deacon meetings, meetings with the women’s advisory board to slow them down.

Clay Kraby: Yeah, that’s a lot of output from those guys. Especially when, you know, in the case of love, especially didn’t live that long.

Don Kistler: 33 years old. And Cromwell’s forces beheaded him for what they call treason. because he sought to restore the king, who had been run out of the country and beheaded. And so love and about four or five others, Ralph Robinson included, were in jail. And, love was beheaded, and the rest were released. I guess they said, well, this should serve as an example.

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: I wrote a book about Christopher love, that called, a spectacle unto God. The life and death of Christopher love. And I title it because that’s what he said on the gallows, the scaffolding just before his head was cut off. I have been made a spectacle unto God, to men and to angels.

Clay Kraby: Wow.

Don Kistler: And, then he was beheaded. And he’s a hero. I found his wife’s handwritten memoirs at the doctor Williams library in London. And I used some of that in the conversation while he was awaiting execution.

Clay Kraby: Wow.

Don Kistler: She writes to him: “Tomorrow, do not think of it as your execution day. Think of it as your promotion day.” There’s a wife, as opposed to Job’s wife, who just said, hey, curse God and die.

Clay Kraby: That’s right. Yeah. A little bit of a contrast there.

Don Kistler: Yeah.

Clay Kraby: And just.

I mean, people will be slightly familiar, hopefully, with some of the history there with Charles I. The king of England is deposed, and he is put to death by the people. Charles II, he splits. He’s gone to stay away from the trouble. Oliver Cromwell takes over. And now you’ve got some pious, godly Puritan men who saw a lot of issues with what had just taken place and really supported, some of those, the stewards coming back into power. Christopher Love being one of those. He’s put to death, as you mentioned, Ralph Robinson put in the Tower of London, which not a tourist attraction at the time. A scary place to be, for a number of months. So, a tumultuous time to be ministering.

Don Kistler: One of the reasons for that was, was that the men you all mentioned were Presbyterians, and they believed in the divine right of kings. And if God put him there, you can’t unput him there. And, well, it cost Christopher a love, his life.

Clay Kraby: Wow.

Don Kistler: It’s an interesting anecdote that while his head is on, it was a cutout piece of wood, and he would put his head in there, and then the guy with the big axe would chop his head off. And Christopher love, before he did, reached up and handed him a pound coin, British pound, and said, get it right the first time, will you?

Clay Kraby: Oh, my.

Don Kistler: Evidently, when they did a lot of those, the blade got dull.

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: Wax. Here’s a pound. Do it right, will you, please?

Clay Kraby: Yikes. Yeah. And people gather. I mean, this is. It is a spectacle unto men. Like, people gathered. They bring their kids to this. This is a weird time to be alive.

Don Kistler: Well, same in the old west, when the town would hang somebody, the whole town for now, to watch.

Clay Kraby: Yeah, absolutely.

So, you’ve got Ralph Robinson, we’ve mentioned, got kind of caught up in that, but wasn’t put to death. How did you come across Ralph Robinson? Because you’re just deep in the Puritans or through digging into Christopher Love’s story, how did you first come across Ralph Robinson?

Don Kistler: Well, when I lived in Pittsburgh, I was friends with the librarian at Pittsburgh theological Seminary, and they had a lot of good old books before they went bad, theologically. And he would let me take books out and reprint them and then have them bound and take them back. And so, I would just go through the stacks, and I would see books that I had heard about but had never seen. And I found out about ones that just looked interesting to me. And this one was particularly interesting because that verse in Colossians 311, Christ is all and in all. And so, I opened it up and I saw, okay, he was in the 1600s. Went over to the Dictionary of National Biography and read a little bit about him. I said, wow. and it was a lithograph, so it didn’t need to be retyped. The first books I did when I started publishing were lithographs, which is just basically, they take a picture of the page, make a plate from it, and then reproduce it.

Clay Kraby: Okay.

Don Kistler: Now, all the books I do are first time reprints. They’ve been completely retyped, slightly modernized, and grammar fixed. I don’t abridge anything. I’m not doing short versions of books. it’s the book, in my opinion, it’s the book he would have written if he lived today. It’s the way he would have said it, with the reverence for God he had and the dignity. he held the office of preacher in. So, if he lived in 2024 and he wrote the same book, it’s the way he would write it, is the way I print it. There’s always a tension, between publishing the book he wrote or the one you wish he would have written. He may say something. You know, I remember when I first started off retyping these books, I wasn’t familiar with the old English where the f, in some instances, looks like s. And I had to become acquainted with that. So that the s at the being of the word looks like an f, but the s at the middle of the word in the end looks like an s. When Doctor Packer was still alive, I’d call and ask him questions like that, and he no long. They didn’t talk like that. You need to get better with the old English type.

Clay Kraby: Okay, so you’ve reprinted a work of Ralph Robinson’s Christ, the perfect pattern for a Christian. This hasn’t been reprinted since, like, the 1650s. What’s going on in this book? What is it about?

Don Kistler: Well, he takes, about 18 chapters or so and uses Christ as what should be our example, that we follow Christ, not people. Now, there’s places in scripture where Paul says, be an example of me. But he follows that with as I am an example of Christ. In other words, we’re to follow no man more than he’s an example of Christ. But one of my favorites, passages to preach from is, in Peter, where Peter says, do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. That’s all you can do. That’s all I can do, is fulfill the ministry God’s given me to do. He doesn’t ask me to do what John MacArthur does. He doesn’t ask me to do what RC Sproul has done. He doesn’t ask me to do what. Pick your favorite Christian hero has done, fulfill your ministry, and so on, the same thing. We’re to be an example of Christ. and he says, Christ is an example of faith, an example of suffering, an example of patience. And Christ will always take it to a higher level than we will or than another human being will, because we’ll all eventually say, well, that’s nice, but he doesn’t really mean it. Like where the Bible says, be ye perfect. Ah How perfect. Only sinners like us would say, how perfect. As your father in heaven is perfect. That’s the standard. Not Billy Graham, not Alistair Begg, not MacArthur or Sproul or anybody else. It’s Christ. Because Christ always sets the bar up here because it’s a, saying. People say, God will never ask you to do anything that you can’t do. That’s a lie. That’s all he ever asked us to do. We wouldn’t need Jesus. He always asks us to do things that are beyond our reach because he wants us to be dependent upon him. And so, Robinson’s book is a great reminder that Christ is our example.

Clay Kraby: And so, each of these chapters, he’s going through a particular way that Jesus is our example, how we’re to follow him. And he’s digging into probably throughout the scriptures and showing us that.

Don Kistler: Yes, showing us, with New Testament illustrations, that when, they came to take Christ and Peter cut off the servant’s ear, and Christ said, this is what I came for. Peter, put your knife away. You are not seeking God’s interest. Now, there’s an example of patience, of compassion, of suffering. what a thing to say. M most of us will do anything we can to avoid suffering. Jesus didn’t do anything to avoid it. He said, this is what I came for, and I have to think in the back of his mind, Peter, when this is over, I get to go home. I get to go back and see my father, and you’re keeping me from that. Are you kidding me?

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: So, yeah, using New Testament illustrations and examples, he shows how Christ did what he’s asking us to do of the famous line from a John Wayne movie. I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. That’s what Christ does.

Clay Kraby: Yeah. And again, as the title says, he’s a perfect pattern for a Christian to follow. So, he’s setting forth Jesus in these different aspects of who he is and how he lived and ministered. And so, these are sermons that he preached and then was turned into this book. Is that right?

Don Kistler: That’s what most Puritan books were. Collections of sermons made into books thematically. for example, Jeremiah Burroughs book, Gospel Worship, is based on his sermons on, Leviticus ten three, where God killed Nadab and Abihu and said, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. And he says that God didn’t kill them for doing something he had not commanded them to do. He killed them for doing something he had not commanded them to do. One of the things the Puritans believed in was called the regulative principle of worship, which says God regulates what we do in his worship, not us. Theme of that book is worship is for God, not for us. Gee, what would that change today? Yeah, people went by that. I mean, I don’t know if you’re young enough, old enough to remember American bandstand, when Dick Clark was on, and they would play a new song, that might be a big hit, and they’d have a group of teenagers listen to it and then rate it afterwards. Okay, what do you think of that? Well, I give it a nine. It’s snapping. It’s easy to dance to. That’s what people do with church today.

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: You know, if. If we like it, we do it. Doesn’t matter if God likes it, we do it.

Clay Kraby: Yep.

Don Kistler: RC Sproul said that book changed his entire philosophy of ministry, of worship, liturgy, and worship, it’s for God, not for us.

Clay Kraby: And just yet another example of how the Puritans can speak into our own day to the very same issues that we’re having. I mean, probably looked a lot different, in their day, but clearly they needed to be addressed in their own congregations. And it’s the same thing here. We, all these hundreds of years later, still need the same message from the bible.

Don Kistler: Well, in his commentary on Hosea, it’s a massive commentary, this tall and this thick. He talks about how the people went out into the garden to worship and sit under a tree because their shade was pleasant. And he makes this whole thing about how people choose to worship. What’s pleasant. Now, with everything going on in so-called contemporary worship today, how does that apply? Yeah, and it’s interesting, and I can’t remember which Puritan did it. There were about 4000 of them. It’s hard for me to remember one name is that the worship in heaven is all corporate worship. So, people say, well, I’m just going to stay home and read my bible and watch, so and so preach on tv. That’s individual worship.

Clay Kraby: Yeah.

Don Kistler: None of the worship in heaven will be like that. It’ll all be corporate worship. And if you read one of my favorite passages is in Hebrews seven, where it calls Christ a minister of the heavens.

The word minister there is from the Greek word liturgaeo, from which we get liturgy, literally, Christ is the worship leader in heaven. And so, all the worship in heaven, which according to revelation is very stately and dignified, will be based on how Christ wants us to worship, not how we want to worship.

Clay Kraby: Right.

Don Kistler: Why not start now?

Clay Kraby: Yeah, absolutely. God is not indifferent to how we worship him. We see that throughout scripture. Puritans were attuned to that, and we need to be as well. Absolutely.

In terms of this particular Ralph Robinson book, Christ, the Perfect Pattern for a Christian, what is it that you hope readers will take from that? A lot of work into reprinting this and getting this ready and kind of reintroducing it to the church today. What do you hope the takeaway will be?

Don Kistler: Well, one, that they’ll have a more exalted view of the Lord Jesus. that is one thing I strive to do, and almost every book I publish is to will people love Christ more after they’ve read this book? I think that’s my main goal. whether it’s, reprinting books on the covenant of grace or the covenant of redemption, or the book on grace, or, trying to think of some others that I’ve done. Will they love Jesus more when it’s over? If I can do that. It’s been worth every bit of energy I put into it. It takes about a year and a half start to finish, to produce a book. From the time I have a typist start typing it till they get done. it has to be somebody who can read the old English, and then they’ll type it into Microsoft word files for me, and then I’ll edit it. I used to be able to go 6 hours a day. Now I can go for an hour. Then I got to get up and watch an Andy Griffith episode, and I’ll come back to it, and then I’ll go to lunch. So maybe two, 3 hours. So, it takes six months to edit it, and then I have to have it proofread to get all the errors that I missed, and then I have to have a cover design for it. And then it takes two months once it goes to the printer to publish it. So that’s why I said to you, I haven’t had anything to do with this Ralph Robinson book in a couple years. So, I’m having to look at it over my shoulder here to reacquaint myself.

Clay Kraby: I remember it. Yeah, well, that’s a lot of work, and you’ve been faithfully doing that for many years. Now, where can folks go to pick up a copy of this particular Ralph Robinson book? And then could you tell us a little bit more about your work there at Northampton Press and what people can find there?

Don Kistler: Well, we have it on our website. We have all of our books on our own website, northamptonpress.org dot we also have a distributor up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, heritagebooks.org, and they can get it there. We don’t have many distributors. A lot of them have gone out of business. A lot of them have just found that the general public doesn’t want this book. They want a self-help book. how to love your mother from the life of David, how to have a good day from the life of Moses, things like that. In fact, I called one denominations bookstore and asked why they stopped ordering, and they said, well, our pastors don’t read that much. And when they do, they don’t read this kind of stuff. M wow. What an indictment. I said, what do they read? Well, more self-help books.

Clay Kraby: Yep.

Don Kistler: Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with why the church is in the shape it’s in today.

Clay Kraby: Yeah, absolutely. So, when people walk into a Christian bookstore and, they’re disappointed, and they walk out with nothing because there’s nothing worth buying, they should probably head to Northampton press and kind of browse your shells, virtually.

What are some of the things that you have? You’ve been doing this for quite some time now. What does Northampton press have to offer?

Don Kistler: Well, I started in 1988, so this is, 36 years now. And I’ve done over 500 titles. 450 of those were with Soli Deo Gloria, and a little over 50 are with this new imprint, Northampton Press. And it’s named after Northampton, Massachusetts, where Jonathan Edwards pastored. And our logo is an artist’s depiction of the church that he would have been in when he was there. a lot of books about Christ, practical Christian living. We did, one book by a man named James Birdwood. You talk about people nobody’s ever heard of. Heart’s ease in heart’s trouble. About 200 pages on let not your heart be troubled. believe in God, believe also in me. He said, that’s the best thing to calm a heart, is reacquaint yourself with God and Christ and your faith in him. the book is set to printers now is, a collection of sermons by Jonathan Edwards on the Lord’s supper. There’s not that much out there on the Lord’s supper. And Edwards was a master. I’ve made books by his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, who was terrific. Terrific. Well, to give you an example, when Jonathan Edwards died, he got an 8th of a page on the back page of the Boston Herald. When Solomon Stoddard died, he got the entire front page.

Clay Kraby: Wow.

Don Kistler: I mean, that’s. Obviously, Edwards is better known today, but Stoddard was known then. things like that. So, books on spiritual warfare, the whole armor of God by William Goodge. Christopher, love the Christian in complete armor. Ralph Robinson has a book that we’ll be publishing in the next year or so. The Christian completely armed on spiritual warfare. And it’s not saying, I bind you, Satan, and casting out demons. It’s putting on the armor of God and using the weapons that God has given us. So just a lot of practical stuff.

Clay Kraby: That’s wonderful. I’ll be sure to link to that, to Northampton Press, to the resources that we mentioned throughout the episode. You can find that at the show notes@reasonabletheology.org. Dot Doctor kiss I really greatly appreciate you joining me for this conversation.

As we close, if you could just give a parting shot to someone who has not taken up the Puritans, what would you say to encourage them to do so?

Don Kistler: Well, like anything else, don’t knock something till you’ve tried it. I mean, just because so and so says that they don’t like steak. Doesn’t mean you should never have a steak. Unless you don’t like steak after you’ve tried it. Give it a shot. Take a book, 200 pages or less. That’s on a pleasant theme, like grace. Or heart sees in heart’s trouble, or something like that. And, or one on the conscience. The duty and blessing of a tender conscience. Gee, which of us wouldn’t like to have one of those? I mean, we don’t have a money back guarantee on content, but, I’ve had very few people return a book because they didn’t like the book. So, hey, try it. See if you like it.

Clay Kraby: Absolutely. Well, again, we’ll link to those resources that you’ve mentioned, those specific titles. Link people over to Northampton Press. And really just join you in encouraging everybody to take up the Puritans read. They’ve got a lot to say to our own day as well.

Don Kistler: If you become like the people you spend your time with, spend your time with these guys.

Clay Kraby: That’s right. Choose wisely.

Don Kistler: Yeah.

Clay Kraby: Perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time for the interview.

Don Kistler: Thank you.