Feb
16
I’m currently reading an excellent compilation of three of John Owen’s greatest works. The books is entitled, Overcoming Sin and Temptation, and is an unabridged compilation of John Owen’s Mortification of Sin, Of Temptation, and Indwelling Sin. Lovers of John Owen, who have wanted to own these works, have in years past had to decide between either buying the costly corpus of all of Owen’s works or settling for an abridged alternative. Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic have made this version available with the intention of making Owen more accessible by eliminating the cost barrier and providing a readable unabridged version of these classic works.
Although the works are unabridged, the editors have done several things to make the text easier to read. As is stated in the introduction, features of this volume include:
- Overviews of the thesis and arguments for each book
- Footnoted definitions for difficult vocabular words
- Americanized the Brittish spellings
- Updated archaic pronouns, spellings, and word forms
- Modernized some of the punctuation
- Put Scripture references in parenthesis
- Added Scritpure references to undocumented allusions
- Transliterated Hebrew and Greek words
- Translated Latin phrases that Owen left untranslated
- Removed Owen’s intricate numbering system and placed an extended outline of each work in the appendix
- Added headings and italics throughout the volume to aid in the discernment of the flow of Owen’s thought
You could not ask for more in terms of enhancing the readability of John Owen. I will warn you though, that Owen’s works are not easy reading. They are dense. But they are dense with theological richness that will challenge and bless your growth in grace. This book is well worth your time. As I have heard John Piper say on occasion, you can’t mine precious jewels with a rake. You need a shovel and some hard labor. If you have ever wondered how to fight sin, this book is a must read!
“John Owen is a spiritual surgeon with the rare skill to cut away the cancer of sin and bring gospel healing to the sinner’s soul. Apart from the Bible, I have found his writings to be the best books ever written to help me stop sinning the same old sins.” -Philip Graham Ryken
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