
Review: Gentle and Lowly by Dane C. Ortlund

the sweep of the New Testament teaching is that it is the sun of Christ's heart, not the cloud of my sins, that now defines me.
I was encouraged to read this by my dad. I found it lovely both inside and out. I struggle with what Ortlund graciously calls “law-ishness…” an inordinate focus on my own works and worthiness. Mr. Ortlund redirecting my gaze towards the heart of Christ, a heart brimming with compassion that runs towards the sinner1, has been a blessing.
I found the book’s style to be patterned after its title. It is very readable and re-visitable. Even the breakdown of Greek words is poetic and joyful rather than academic and snobby. It has a puritan-esque2 feeling to it in that way.
I found myself inspired and convicted in equal measure. I did not find it to be inordinately "grace-oriented" or ignoring the importance of God's justice and holiness. I thought it handled the divine dichotomy well. I’ll gladly revisit it again in a book study or in my future study of Christ’s character… and have been doing so regularly since I put the book down.
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Here Ortlund references yet another puritan… ↩
> whatsoever Christ did… he did it out of love, and graced and mercy… he did it inwardly from his very bowels.
Richard Sibbes. Works of Richard Sibbes. Banner of Truth, 2000.
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Hardly a surprise given the frequent quoting of John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Sibbes and others. You are what you eat, I suppose. ↩
Changelog
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2022-06-25 17:04:35 -0500Update tags
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2022-06-08 11:31:29 -0500Rename articles
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2021-08-19 07:16:16 -0500gentle and lowly