Quotes from Joel R. Beeke

God, through the Law, His alien work, brings man to despair and humility and to a recognition of his need, and through the Gospel, His appropriate work, He gives man faith and the knowledge of His forgiveness.

Many forget that most of the greatest theologians God has given to the church were also pastors and teachers in the local church.

Christ did not come to earth simply to be our moral teacher. If that were His only mission, He could have come as He did in former times, as the Angel of the Lord, without our flesh and blood to encumber Him. Instead, He had to become like us so that He could raise us up to be like Him.

the ultimate expression of truth appeared on this earth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Preaching was uniquely honored by God "in that it serveth to collect the church and to accomplish the number of the elect" and also "it driveth away the wolves from the folds of the Lord.

The constant challenge in Christian theology is to preach the whole counsel of God, while not emphazing one point of doctrine in a way that denies another.

Now I know not anything that will contribute more to the furtherance of this good work than the bringing of family religion more into practice and reputation. Here the reformation must begin.

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops; but God is the ocean.16

Puritan Thomas Gataker (1574–1654) said, "There is no society [relationship][3] more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the society of man and wife."[4] By the grace of God, such friendship between husbands and wives is possible and practical and should be our priority.

Death breaks the union between the body and the soul but perfects the union between Christ and the soul.

As Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) said, "A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven.

It is possible to be saved without assurance, but it is scarcely possible to be a healthy Christian without assurance.

Remember in the midst of your most grievous afflictions that the worst state of a believer is better than the best state of an unbeliever.

hay poca diferencia entre el cristiano y el no cristiano en lo que pensamos y creemos, pronto habrá poca diferencia en como vivimos.

donde hay poca diferencia entre el cristiano y el no cristiano en lo que pensamos y creemos, pronto habrá poca diferencia en como vivimos.

We put on God by putting on His armor. Christ Himself wore and made the armor, and the Holy Spirit fits it to us and makes it ours. We must fight through to the end until we hold the field against Satan. Then we must go on the offense, attacking him.

with their pens, and no less great with their swords—fearing God very much, and fearing men very little,—they were a generation of men who have never received from their country the honor that they deserve.

The Puritans, then, were not afraid to use the law of God as an instrument of evangelism. When God is about to play the chord of grace in the soul, they taught, he usually starts with the bass note of the law. In order for man to come to Christ, he must first come to an end of his own righteousness.[4] "They held [that] the index of the soundness of a man's faith in Christ is the genuineness of the self-despair from which it springs," says Packer.

Thomas Goodwin said that "next to the Bible, he esteemed Dr. Ames, his Marrow of Divinity, as the best book in the world.