Review: Gospel Evidences of Saving Faith by John Owen
If you’re anything like me, you’ve doubted your faith at some point. You may even be doubting it now! If you’re asking, “How do I know if I’m saved?”, John Owen answers this question by providing four evidences of saving faith. To hear the page quotations, you can watch the video listed above.
Book info
P. #: 105 Though this is a short book, it is a valuable read (p. Ix,x)
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RHB sent me this book in exchange for a fair and honest review
Author: John Owen (1616-1683)
Life: Called the “prince of the English divines,” Owen was one of the greatest theologians of his era if not of all time. We’ve talked about Owen before, so I don’t want to spend too much time on him here. His biography is lengthy, but I will give some highlights. From a young age, he loved the theology of the Puritans. Interestingly enough, he actually struggled with assurance of faith for quite some time until God called him into ministry. He entered Queen’s College, Oxford at the age of 12 where he became well aquainted with the classics, mathematics, philosophy, theology, Hebrew, and Greek.
General info about author: Owen was a theologian, puritan, pastor, author of dozens of books, husband, and father of 11, although none of them lived long enough to have children of their own.
Overall Summary/review:
As I mentioned earlier, Owen gives us four evidences of saving faith (table of contents)
Like all John Owen books, this one is quite in depth. Even though it’s only right at 100 pages, he covers a great deal. He is known for his difficult writing, so the editor has helped us with this (p. Xviii-xix)
In this newly updated book, Owen speaks to the reader in a very pastoral tone; he truly desires the success of his readers in both having and saving faith and in how to know that they have saving faith.
Let's walk through this one evidence at a time. First, the first evidence (p. 4, 16)
And evidence two (p. 45, 56)
Third evidence (p. 65, 67)
Fourth evidence (p. 75, 94)
Closing p. 105