Today, the puritans suffer a revisionist mischaracterization that depicts them as cold, dispassionate legalists - totally unable and unwilling to garner a zeal and fervor for God. Not only is this completely untrue (just read them!), this ignorant caricature forgets the obvious fact that it was the puritans who experienced, and lead, a widespread multi-continental awakening and revival . . . twice!But it wasn't blind passion for God that drove them. It was a passion anchored in profound biblical doctrine - that is the passion God used to awake their hearts and the hearts of those in that time. A passion for the wonders of redemption, the wonders of divine sovereignty, the beauty of the substitutionary atonement, the means of evangelism and missions, the impeccability of Christ, the all-sufficient free grace and faith given for salvation, the greatness of our hope and joy in the eschaton, and many more profound truths we find in Scripture.
We can learn from our spiritual forbears. These Puritans were passionate and zealous - but not for the sake of simply being emotionally charged. They were passionate for the truth. And God rewarded them and used their zeal to ignite a widespread turning to God. Could it be that the Lord would reward us if we are passionate and discerning about Biblical truth today? Let us be zealous for truth and prayerful for revival!
