Review of Dr. Renihan’s new exposition of the 1689

Providence Baptist Church

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Hey, my name's Alan Nelson. I'm the pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Central Arkansas. What I wanted to do today is just give a quick review of James Renahan's new book,

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To the Judicious, that's hard to say, An Impartial Reader, his exposition on the 1689

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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. First thing I want to do is is go over some of the aesthetics.

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So I read the first volume on the First London Baptist Confession, and that's a smaller book, so I expected this one to be like that too, but if you notice, it's like over 600 pages.

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This baby is a tome, and I love the outside cover, well designed, but also, man, this is legit.

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I love the white hardback as well. So this really is a beautiful book, great for the shelf, but more importantly, great for the reading.

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So let me talk a little bit about the content of the book. So as pretty as this book will look on your coffee table or shelf or somewhere in your home, don't buy this book and just set it somewhere as a beauty piece or whatever.

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This book is well worth its weight and gold. This is a book that I've told some people,

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I think for the next 100 years, this thing will be referenced and studied and read.

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Dr. Renahan's argument is that the confession should not be read just chapter 1 to chapter 32 or whatever, but that it should be read sideways, that the chapters are dependent on one another, that they connect to one another, and it really is in many ways.

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I'm a Baptist, I'm not disparaging Presbyterian brothers here, but it really is an upgrade.

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It's better than both the Savoy and the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Baptists had those resources at their disposal and they really used those resources well, and then they updated them in better ways, made them better.

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And so Dr. Renahan does a great job of just walking through all of that and chapter by chapter.

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It really is a marvelous exposition in the historical insight and the context and quote after quote after quote.

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He depends heavily on John Owen, but others obviously as well. Obviously you're going to have

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Hansard Knowles and Hercules Collins and Benjamin Keech is a big one.

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It's just a really, really well historically researched. I felt as I was reading it that I was sitting alongside these

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Baptist brothers. Of course John Owen's not a Baptist, but I was sitting alongside these Baptist brothers, these

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Puritans who love theology, who love sound doctrine, who love the church, and I was learning from them as well as Dr.

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Renahan's exposition and explanation. So I cannot recommend this resource highly enough.

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If you're in a 1689 church, get this book, have your elders read it, encourage them to read it, teach your people.

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If you just want to know more about what the what the Reformed Baptist belief is as as adhered to the 1689, grab this book.

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I think it's useful for seminary classes. I think it's useful for personal study. I think it's useful to to teach a class at your church.

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I think it's useful just to learn more about the 1689. Now any book besides the

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Bible, I'm not going to agree in a hundred percent with. Maybe there and this is true of this one too.

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I mean there's a few places that I wrote like in the margins and just curious about maybe

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Dr. Renahan's interpretation as such, but I mean it far outweighs any sort of questions or disagreement.

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The exposition and explanation far outweighs. The benefit far outweighs any questions that may be.

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I mean I would give this this thing five out of five stars. So grab this book. I'm tremendously grateful to Founders for putting it out and go order one or two or 15 copies today and have folks in your church read it.