{"id":1712,"date":"2013-06-29T21:05:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T19:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2013-06-29T21:05:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T19:05:24","slug":"book-review-prepared-by-grace-for-grace-joel-beeke-and-paul-smalley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/book-review-prepared-by-grace-for-grace-joel-beeke-and-paul-smalley\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: &#8220;Prepared by Grace For Grace&#8221;, Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two things caught my attention when I was given the opportunity to get a review copy of this book. First, Joel Beeke is one of the authors. I&#8217;ve heard Joel Beeke preach several times and have always been blessed by his ministry. Second, the theme of the book: the doctrine of preparation.<\/p>\n<p>As a father of three boys, one of my man burden is that they will not only hear the gospel, but respond to its call. I can&#8217;t force them to believe. I do not want to manipulate them into easy believism either. In the end, only God can regenerate them and save them. But God uses means, and I must faithfully teach the gospel to my children.<\/p>\n<p>This book surveys Puritan literature in order to assess their views on the preparation of sinners for salvation. It is somewhat technical, but gives some interesting perspectives on a neglected subject. Various perspectives on preparation are compared and help clarify the issues.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good book, but it is not for everyone. It is thoroughly researched and it is very informative, but not devotional. I found it hard going at times, but rewarding. It will definitely make you think through important issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two things caught my attention when I was given the opportunity to get a review copy of this book. First, Joel Beeke is one of the authors. I&#8217;ve heard Joel Beeke preach several times and have always been blessed by his ministry. Second, the theme of the book: the doctrine of preparation. As a father &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/book-review-prepared-by-grace-for-grace-joel-beeke-and-paul-smalley\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Book Review: &#8220;Prepared by Grace For Grace&#8221;, Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}