Light and Heat: John Owen on Spiritual Health and Its Application for Us Today
11/08/2021
11/08/2021
By Pastor Joe Romeo
"Light and Heat: John Owen on Spiritual Health and Its Application for Us Today"
I'd like to share with you some lessons I learned from reading John Owen's book The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually-Minded. I was surprised by what I learned and I think you will be too.
I love reading John Owen (1616–1683). Like other Puritan pastors, he wrote theologically weighty tomes and spiritually affecting treatises. Over the past three years, I have read three of Owen’s theological works—his Discourse on the Holy Spirit, The Person of Christ, and Meditations and Discourses Concerning the Glory of Christ. After finishing these dense volumes, I shifted to one of his more spiritual works: Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually-Minded.
The book is an extended meditation on Romans 8:6, which the King James Version (the translation Owen used), renders: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Owen explains and applies the entire verse, but I will focus on his treatment of the latter portion of the text.
