Watch Your Walk

by Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter lived in an age when many of his fellow pastors had grown too comfortable with performing their religious duties by rote and spending much of their time in gluttony and drunkenness. It was under these conditions that Baxter wrote The Reformed Pastor —a reprimand to indolent clergy and an appeal to ministers of the gospel to take heed of their own spiritual condition before attempting to shepherd others. This paraphrased edition of the Watch Your Walk makes Baxter's time-tested wisdom accessible and relevant to any who desire to be ministers of Christ today.

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2004

About the author

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long and prolific career as theological writer. After the Restoration he refused preferment, while retaining a non-separatist presbyterian approach, and became one of the most influential leaders of the nonconformists, spending time in prison.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slightly modified and modernized writing of a Puritan minister from the 17th century. As a pastor I found this a challenging book in a couple of ways. The first was the challenge to, as the modern title says, "watch your walk." There were a number of chapters emphasizing the importance of the clergy walking a consistent Christian life, and not falling into the category of "having preached to others, they themselves have fallen short.

The second main takeaway for me was the importance of knowing your congregation individually so as to meet their spiritual needs. Baxter talked about how he and his associates would catechize everyone in his church individually, which entailed regularly visiting hundreds of people. While the methods may not translate to the 21st century, the principle of knowing your people does.

Though the language and context is updated for the 21st century, there are still times when the modern reader can get a little lost in the sentence structure and the context. But overall this is a useful little book for clergy with a number of important takeaways.

[Clara Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an updated book written in the 17th century While the book was directed at pastors, I felt that it spoke to me. One good quote is, "it is the Holy Spirit Himself who enlighten men's minds and softens their hearts and turns them from the power of Satan to God by faith in Christ, making them sanctified, ... to God." "We are overseers of the flock." Ilved this book.