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    Rules for Walking in Fellowship
    Rules for Walking in Fellowship
    Rules for Walking in Fellowship
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    Rules for Walking in Fellowship

    By John Owen

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    About this ebook

    What good is a church community if it lacks loving fellowship?

    In Rules for Walking in Fellowship , John Owen supplies struggling congregations with biblical guidelines for making church life in the present a foretaste of heavenly fellowship to come. He discusses both the responsibilities congregations have toward pastors as well as the duties members have toward one another. Together, Owen presents twenty-four rules for fostering gospel fellowship, supporting them with numerous proof texts, brief explanations, and words of motivation to keep them. His simple approach makes this book ideal for personal or small group study. Here, then, is a collection of indispensable biblical rules that will challenge Christians in any given congregation, of whatever denomination—a little gem that is at the same time doctrinal, practical, and ecumenical.


    Table of Contents:
    PART 1: Rules for walking in fellowship, with reference to the pastor or minister who watches over your souls
    PART 2: Rules to be observed by those who walk in fellowship, to remind them of their mutual duties toward one another
    Series Description

    Interest in the Puritans continues to grow, but many people find reading these giants of the faith a bit unnerving. This series seeks to overcome that barrier by presenting Puritan books that are convenient in size and unintimidating in length. Each book is carefully edited with modern readers in mind, smoothing out difficult language of a bygone era while retaining the meaning of the original authors. Books for the series are thoughtfully selected to provide some of the best counsel on important subjects that people continue to wrestle with today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReformation Heritage Books
    Release dateDec 2, 2014
    ISBN9781601783462
    Author

    John Owen

    John Owen (1616–1683) was vice-chancellor of Oxford University and served as advisor and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Among the most learned and active of the Puritans in seventeenth-century England, he was accomplished both in doctrine and practical theology.

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      Book preview

      Rules for Walking in Fellowship - John Owen

      Rules for Walking in Fellowship

      John Owen

      Edited by

      David G. Whitla

      Reformation Heritage Books

      Grand Rapids, Michigan

      SERIES EDITORS

      Joel R. Beeke & Jay T. Collier

      Interest in the Puritans continues to grow, but many people find the reading of these giants of the faith a bit unnerving. This series seeks to overcome that barrier by presenting Puritan books that are convenient in size and unintimidating in length. Each book is carefully edited with modern readers in mind, smoothing out difficult language of a bygone era while retaining the meaning of the original authors. Books for the series are thoughtfully selected to provide some of the best counsel on important subjects that people continue to wrestle with today.

      Rules for Walking in Fellowship

      © 2014 by Reformation Heritage Books

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Direct your requests to the publisher at the following address:

      Reformation Heritage Books

      2965 Leonard St. NE

      Grand Rapids, MI 49525

      616-977-0889 / Fax 616-285-3246

      orders@heritagebooks.org

      www.heritagebooks.org

      First published as Eshcol: A Cluster of the Fruit of Canaan (London, 1648).

      Printed in the United States of America

      14 15 16 17 18 19/10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      ISBN 978-1-60178-346-2 (epub)

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Owen, John, 1616-1683.

      [Eshcol]

      Rules for walking in fellowship / John Owen ; edited by David G. Whitla.

      pages cm. — (Puritan treasures for today)

      Previously published under title: Eshcol : a cluster of the fruit of Canaan : London : Philemon Stephens, 1648.

      ISBN 978-1-60178-345-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Christian life—Early works to 1800. I. Whitla, David G., editor. II. Title.

      BV600.3.O96 2014

      248.4’859—dc23

      2014026928

      For additional Reformed literature, request a free book list from Reformation Heritage Books at the above regular or e-mail address.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      To the Reader

      Part 1: Rules for Walking in Fellowship, with Reference to the Pastor or Minister Who Watches Over Your Souls

      1. Attending to the Ordinances Dispensed by Your Pastor

      2. Following Your Pastor’s Example

      3. Praying for Your Pastor

      4. Esteeming Your Pastor

      5. Paying Your Pastor’s Salary

      6. Standing by Your Pastor in His Trials

      7. Gathering to Worship When Summoned

      Part 2: Rules to Be Observed by Those Who Walk in Fellowship, to Remind Them of Their Mutual Duties toward One Another

      8. Loving One Another

      9. Praying for the Church

      10. Taking a Stand for the Church

      11. Preserving Unity

      12. Separating from the World

      13. Engaging in Spiritual Conversation

      14. Bearing with One Another’s Faults

      15. Bearing One Another’s Burdens

      16. Helping the Poor

      17. Being Wary of Those Who Divide the Church

      18. Sharing the Church’s Lot, No Matter What

      19. Associating with the Lowly

      20. Praying for the Afflicted

      21. Keeping Each Other Accountable

      22. Being Holy

      Preface

      It takes no great insight to discern that the biblical doctrine of the church has fallen on hard times. Several contemporary trends illustrate this. The church of the living God is no longer respected as the house of God…the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), but is instead redefined as an emergent phenomenon writing its own story. Many people exchange the ministerial authority of godly pastors and elders for the unaccountability of the home church or the well-meaning pursuit of an every-member ministry. They see making a commitment to a particular local congregation by vows of church membership as an antiquated practice at best, and an infringement of Christian liberty at worst.

      And yet, ironically, in this present atmosphere there is one aspect of the church that advocates of all these positions generally agree upon: that Christians ought to live in fellowship with one another. Community is a buzzword that finds ready expression in all parts of Western society, and yet the church is frequently assumed to be merely a voluntary society that one may drift in or out of, with no strings attached. How curious the assumption that the fellowship of the members of the body of Christ can take place in a dismembered body, eviscerated of the elemental structures of church government, church discipline, and church membership established by its glorious Head! It was not always so. While the pressures mentioned above are perennial enemies of the church, there have always been those in her midst who have called her back to biblical purity in ecclesiastical matters. In seventeenth-century Britain and America, many clergy and laymen showed such zeal for a return to a pure, biblical ecclesiology that they were branded with the nickname Puritans. Unlike today’s church-growth gurus, they argued from Scripture that the communion of the saints was not to be divorced from these structures, but rather was dependent upon them. In other words, while the church existed as an organism, it also had an organization—and the two were interdependent.

      One who wrote extensively on the subject was John Owen (1616–1683), whose prominence in this movement has frequently earned him the title Prince of the Puritans.1 Owen’s extraordinary gifts propelled him to many high-profile positions, especially during the Commonwealth era in England (1649–1660). His remarkable career included such posts as chaplain to the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell; vice-chancellor of Oxford University; and dean of Christ Church, Oxford. He was

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