A LABOR OF LOVE
Puritan pastoral priorities
By J. Stephen Yuille
Reformation Heritage Books. 136 pages, £9.13
ISBN 978 1 601 782 663
Do you want to pray for your pastor? Or, pastor, do you want to be a better one? Then you need this sparkling book! Think of John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals meeting Jonathan Edwards’s Resolutions, and you have an idea of its depth and passion.
The book is in two sections. The first is 16 chapters, covering 16 ‘wishes’ – extended Scripture-based prayers or meditations – of Puritan pastor George Swinnock, concerning various aspects of the pastor’s calling. They are each five or so pages in length, and every one brimful of stirring and profound content. We see the ‘wish’ first, very helpfully in sparkling (not dumbed-down!) modern English, after which Yuille gives several pages of further comment and application, often based on other parts of Swinnock’s works.
