The Bruised Reed (Puritan Paperbacks) [Paperback]

This book is one of the best Christian books I've read, and definitely one of the easiest Puritan books to start out on. A group of Christians from the 1600s, the Puritans were thorough theologians but put great emphasis on application to the Christian life. This edition has all the benefits of Puritan literature without any of the drawbacks, being immensely helpful for your personal walk with Jesus without the Ye Olde English language (the Thous have been changed to Yous, the sentence structure has been made more clear etc. without being an all our paraphrase)

The book itself is an exposition on Isaiah 42:3. Sibbes has two audiences in mind those who are downhearted in their faith and those who are dealing with the downhearted. He reminds both groups that Jesus does not crush the bruised reed, but cares for it. Moreover, he will "faithfully bring forth justice" which he explains is the kingdom of God in our hearts. He tells us that we all suffer and fall back into sin, but that Jesus will care for us and establish his rule in our hearts despite our weaknesses.

This book had a profound impact on the lives of the great men Richard Baxter and Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. If you are worried by the strength of your faith in comparison to others and are lacking assurance of salvation this book will help you by pointing you not to something in your life, but to the greatness of Jesus and his ability to keep you faithful to the end.

It's so short and so cheap what are you waiting for!

Another reviewer has given the standard Reformed evangelical view of this title. But although I would definitely describe myself as both evangelical and reformed (in theology, although I happen to belong to a Lutheran church), I have to say that I cannot wholly agree. I have just finished reading Sibbes' "Bruised Reed" from the Banner of Truth edition of Sibbes' Works (Vol. 1), and a number of points remain fresh in my mind:
1. Reading literature from the 1630s is, even with modernised spelling, a task which I still find almost as difficult as reading Shakespeare. Words have changed their meanings, which is okay, because one can learn English vocabulary as well as a foreign language, but when sentence and thought structure is so different from today's mindset, reading becomes a dry task indeed, an intellectual challenge that tends to divert from the spiritual message which the Puritan author was intending to convey.
2. This book is a transcription of a series of sermons held by Richard Sibbes at some time during the 1620s. Now in those days, people had a great deal more free time, i.e. they didn't have computers or television nor a lot of our other present-day diversions. A sermon was expected to fulfil functions that today are unthinkable, such as entertainment! Therefore Sibbes and the like preached for hours, often on a single verse. What they had to say was often correct, but for a modern Christian much of this is totally unnecessary. It would have been possible to express Sibbes' meaning in this book in much shorter space and in a much more memorable way.
3. The Puritans, and not least Sibbes, were, for all their "sweet dropping" (Sibbes is known not only as the "heavenly" Sibbes but as the "sweet dropper"), decidedly introspective. And although I suspect that they had a better knowledge of the theology of the Apostle Paul than many of their modern counterparts, as a modern Christian I feel that too often they encourage their readers or listeners to look at themselves rather than Christ. Now that is a risky judgment, because it is Sibbes' intention here to get his listeners/readers to do just the opposite, but an attentive reader of this book will notice that it is "sensible" (i. e. outwardly perceptible) evidence of grace which the reader is encouraged to seek in his own life. That, I fear, can be spiritually jeopardous, something that leads to the self-doubt and moroseness that Sibbes appears to have been preaching against. Now I know that Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to recommend this book and that he greatly profited from it, but I dare say that most of us are, spiritually, not in the same category (more's the pity, one might add). Personally, I have a shrewd suspicion that the hours I spent studying Sibbes' book were, if I may be permitted to express myself unguardedly, a waste of good Christian time. At the end I did not feel that I had made significant progress either in spiritual understanding or in theology; rather, the only "benefit" I had from it was that I could say I had read Richard Sibbes' famous seventeenth-century book. And I am not aware that the Bible anywhere promises that that will get me to heaven any faster than on any other route.

Of course, if you are a sincere, rather introspective believer who needs encouragement because you are so aware of your own imperfections, this book may do you a world of good. Most twenty-first-century believers will, however, survive quite happily without having read this book. Its message was wonderful for a certain group of people nearly 400 years ago, but to make it a yardstick of Christian profession today would be, if nothing else, an anachronism.