It goes without saying that Reformed Faith churches owe their very existence to John Calvin and Martin Luther. And if such a premise is true, isn’t it worth becoming acquainted with them in a more-than-superficial manner? Do we know anything more about Luther than the fact he nailed 95 theses on a church door? Is there more to John Calvin than the greatly misunderstood doctrines of election and predestination? Yes, so much more!

Years ago, Reformation Sunday never passed my city, St. Louis, Missouri, without a real turnout of Protestant Christians to Kiel Auditorium to celebrate the historical birth of the “Justification by Faith” movement. Today Reformation Sunday comes and goes with hardly a whimper from the evangelical sector. There are perhaps many reasons for this, including a possible ecumenical spirit and desire not to emphasize differences. However, it is also possible that special recognition of the Reformation has fallen into silent disrepute because evangelicalism has lost its fervor for sound doctrine. The emphasis has switched from doctrine to need-meeting (a form of narcissism). Many flock into churches today to have personal needs met rather than to know more intimately a great God or His will for the Church.
It goes without saying that Reformed Faith churches owe their very existence to John Calvin and Martin Luther. And if such a premise is true, isn’t it worth becoming acquainted with them in a more-than-superficial manner? Do we know anything more about Luther than the fact he nailed 95 theses on a church door? Is there more to John Calvin than the greatly misunderstood doctrines of election and predestination? Yes, so much more! I will even venture to confess here the impact Martin Luther had on me when I was eleven years old. I borrowed a book on Martin Luther’s life from the bookmobile that came to our elementary school once a week. It was a child’s book, but it communicated the fact that he experienced a turning point in his life and a personal relationship with God. Thanks to that story, I became a truth seeker at a very young age and searched for a personal knowledge and relationship with God. The fulfillment of that search became a reality when I was 19 years old.
Both John Calvin and Martin Luther, of course, can be faulted in one way or another from our “enlightened” perspective. We are not called to put anyone on a pedestal; and from our present vantage point, they would not desire such from us either. Nonetheless, the personal pilgrimages and teachings of these two men changed the known world of their day upside down, and 506 years later continue to impact us today.
Perhaps the greatest vestige of the Reformation attributable to John Calvin is his Institutes of the Christian Religion, one of the most positive interpretations of the Christian religion. His prefatory letter to Francis I is a model of a “learned, eloquent, elegant, dignified address of a subject to his sovereign,” according to A. M. Fairbairn. “It throbs with a noble indignation against injustice and with a noble enthusiasm for freedom and truth. It is one of the great epistles of the world, a splendid apology for the oppressed and arraignment of the oppressors.” I can’t resist the thought that if families included the Institutes of the Christian Religion in their home libraries and read it frequently, a hardier Christianity would emerge today which would impact our culture greatly. Calvin was a super spiritual strategist. Within a period of eleven years, his center of education in Geneva sent at least one hundred sixty-one pastors into France. “They were learned men, strenuous, fearless, praised by a French bishop as modest, grave, saintly, with the name of Jesus Christ ever on their lips . . . The Reformed minister was essentially a preacher, intellectual, exegetical, argumentative, seriously concerned with the subjects that most appeared to the serious-minded.” Most of all, the teachings of the Christian faith, according to Calvin, transformed the men and women in the pew into a learned, vibrant, respected (and often persecuted) followers of Jesus Christ.
As for Martin Luther, according to Martin F. Marty, “There’s no more consistent strand in Luther than the gospel of forgiveness. That theme still isn’t heeded well.” Today, the gospel of self-esteem and marketing the church based on people’s needs takes precedence over the teaching of sound doctrine. Martin Marty also notes that, “Our culture promotes human ability and human will, as did the indulgences culture in Luther’s day, as a way to bring salvation.” If Luther lived today, he would probably direct his central message to the evangelical church itself. How history twists and turns!
John and Martin were two men who lived intensely in their day, who knew God and served Him diligently and without compromise. They were unashamed lovers of God and of His written revelation. If we are to experience revival or reformation in our day, such men and women are needed once again. Are we willing to pick up the torch which once beamed so brightly and to dare hope for true reformation in the Church in our day? If so, we must willingly give serious study to the Word of God and doctrine as these men once did. Let’s pick up the torch and run with it to the glory of God and for the sake of His Church!
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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The Puritans believed that regeneration enables the believer toward obedience in all areas of life, and motivated them to obedience and good works. It is only from this understanding that the Puritan perspective of habits can truly be discerned.

In the history of the church, and particularly counseling within the church, there has been a house, of sorts, that is being constructed. Faithful, competent men and women are slowly building the house of biblical counseling on a solid foundation.[1] One of these men—Jay Adams—spoke to some of the load-bearing walls within this house, and one in particular:
Few, if any, recent theologians have discussed the relationship of habit to behavior. Their efforts have been expended on important questions having to do with Adam’s sin, the effects of sin upon the nature of his descendants, and the process by which sin has been transmitted to his posterity. These are all vital questions…But so is the matter of habit—especially for counseling.[2]
Jay Adams did not create biblical counseling, but he is perhaps the father of biblical counseling as it is modernly known. Yet he asserted that no “recent theologians” have dealt with the important issue of habits as a load-bearing wall within the house of biblical counseling.[3]
This raises a question: What historical theologians did discuss the relationship of habits to behavior? And what did they say? In this series, I’d like to answer this question from the perspective of English Puritanism.[4] The Puritans are to be noted for a distinctly theological approach in most of their writings and sermons, which informed the way they addressed issues from national sins to the place of penance.[5] Regarding habits, the Puritans had much to say, which this study summarizes as follows:
The Puritans believed that habits were a means of cultivating spiritual maturity in the believer by giving a believer a greater capacity for future obedience, by uniting a believer’s will to God’s, and by conforming a believer to the image of Christ. 
To demonstrate this, we will survey the way the Puritans spoke of habits, synthesizing their voices to a singular definition, and developing an understanding of their view of habits in relationship to spiritual maturity. At the end of this synthesis, the reader will have a better understanding of habits and their relationship to supporting the house of biblical counseling within a historical perspective. Most importantly, the reader will be emboldened to speak more of habits in counseling and, perhaps, see that an emphasis on regular action is a necessary part of spiritual maturity.[6]
Scope and Delineation
The scope of this paper is to keep within the confines of Puritan thinking in regard to habits and the role those habits play in spiritual maturity.[7] There are many who have written before and after the Puritans about habits, but the emphasis is given to these men due to their special attention and theological treatment of such issues. Thus, a quick definition of terms is warranted for sake of clarity.
Definition of Terms
The term habit is used by the Puritans in many ways, all suggesting the same thing. In this paper, habit simply means a learned, automatic, or frequent action. There are varying facets of this definition, but by and large, it simply encapsulates the scope of varying opinions on habits.[8] It should be noted that a habit does not need to occur on every possible occasion; however, the researcher is using this term in its common usage, which implies a consistent, regular action.[9]
The term Puritan, although originally a pejorative term, was coined to describe the group of Englishmen who wanted to purify the Church of England from the practices of Catholicism.[10]  These men lived, preached, and wrote between the 17th and 18th centuries, with the passing of the North American Jonathan Edwards in 1758 seen by many as the end of the Puritan era.
The term cultivate is used in the sense that spiritual maturity is existent within a person and that spiritual maturity is being developed or advanced.[11] Cultivate is commonly seen as an agricultural term that insinuates a plant is already existent, but that it is fed, nourished, and grown by further means of nutrition. This common understanding is the way in which the researcher seeks to employ this meaning, and the idea of spiritual maturity as being existent is a primary component of the researcher’s delineation.[12]
Oswald Sanders states the matter succinctly: “Viewed from another angle, spiritual maturity is simply Christlikeness. We are as mature as we are like Christ, and no more. He was the only fully mature man. His character was complete, well-balanced, and perfectly integrated. All His qualities and capacities were perfectly attuned to the will of His Father, and this is the model, the standard God has set for us.”[13] This common understanding of spiritual maturity will be developed in regards to the capacity of a believer to obey, the conformity of a believer’s will to God’s will, and overall greater Christlikeness in the believer (cf. Eph. 4:12-16).
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In Psalm 77, Asaph cannot sleep. Feeling his eyes glued open in the dead of night (Ps. 77:4), he begins asking himself a series of intensely troubling questions.
Before looking at these questions, it is helpful to consider the context of this psalm. Psalm 77 is part of Book III (Pss. 73–89), which in the landscape of the Psalter can be seen as the “dark valley.” Israel is in exile, and the psalmist observes that the wicked (the Babylonians) prosper (Ps. 73:3), the Jerusalem temple is now rubble (Ps. 74:7), and there is no Davidic king reigning—the crown lies in the dust (Ps. 89:39). A heavy shadow has settled over the place that once basked in the brightness of the rule of Solomon and his kingdom, which once stretched from “sea to shining sea” (Ps. 72).
Asaph is the choirmaster who authored Psalms 73–83, and clearly he does not shy away from playing the blue note. The minor key is dominant for the psalms of Asaph. The minor key (at least in our cultural associations) is tied with feeling of tension and disorientation and need for resolution. He picks up his baton to conduct the choir to sing in and through its sorrows.
I am quite confident that Asaph could not make a living as a motivational speaker. Why? Because the assumptions of the motivational speaker are that whatever the problems you have and may face, they are not too much for you to surmount and overcome with the right approach and “go get ’em” spirit. But Asaph understands that his plight (shared with the chosen remnant) is too deep and severe for his own resources to be of any use in efforts at self-extrication.
This brings us to the questions of Psalm 77:7–9. To paraphrase: “How can God turn His back to us?” (instead of showing the shining face promised in the Aaronic benediction). And “Am I standing at the end of the road of the promises of God?” (the road that was first paved in the call of Abraham). Finally, “Has God failed to remember the bond He formed with us in mercy?” (through His name of “Compassion” revealed to Moses in the cleft of the rock). Asaph’s middle-of-the-night musings are profoundly upsetting, and his perception is akin to sensing an ominous cloud forming directly overhead. Similarly, Augustine in the Confessions recounts: “From a hidden depth a profound self-examination had dredged up a heap of all my misery and set it in the sight of my heart. That precipitated a vast storm bearing a massive downpour of tears.”
The grief exhibited in the earlier psalms in Book III is now even more acute, because it is more than Asaph’s perplexity at apparent injustice (Ps. 73) and the trauma of walking through the ruins of the city of God (Ps. 74). Now he fears that God has actively turned against him. “When I remember God, I moan” (Ps. 77:3). He fears that God has become his enemy. The first part of Psalm 77 echoes Job’s cry: “You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me. You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm” (Job 30:21–22).