chapterONE: self-inquiry

J.C. Ryle's Practical Religion: "the daily duties, experience, dangers, and privileges of professing Christians." (1878)
I first heard about this book after a friend sent me a chapter excerpt that addressed worldliness, an issue that was weighing heavily on my heart at the time. I was struggling with a decision that was clearly black and white, and required of me a choice between my unbelieving friends and my Lord and Savior. Like I said, black and white right? But nonetheless, with a selfish heart, I was reluctant to make the choice due to my fear of man and loyalty to worldly friends. Foolish girl.

Ryle proposes 10 essential questions for self-reflection and our stance in matters between us and God...


These 10 questions based on the Apostle Paul's missionary journey to Barnabas, where he revisits the Churches he founded to see how they were doing. These 10 questions, though proposed in 1878, are very much valid and applicable to our lives today.

1) Do we ever think about our souls at all?
"From the beginning of the year to the end they are absorbed in the pursuit of business, pleasure, politics, money, or self-indulgence of some kind or another. Death, and judgment, and eternity, and heaven, and hell, and a world to come, are never calmly looked at and considered. They live on as if they were never going to die, or rise again, or stand at the bar of God, or receive an eternal sentence!"
"...a life unworthy of an immortal creature...it reduces a man to the level of a beast"
2) Whether we ever do anything about our souls?
Ezekiel 33:32 ...they hear they words, but they do them not.
3) Whether we are trying to satisfy our consciences with a mere formal religion?
On legalists/Pharisees: "Yet all this time there is no heart in their religion
Matthew 15:9 This people draweth nigh with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship.
"...let us beware of making shipwreck on the very lighthouse which helps to show the channel into the harbour."
4) Whether we have received the forgiveness of our sins?
"They can say, He is a Saviour but not 'my Saviour,'--a Redeemer, but not 'my Redeemer,'--a Priest, but not 'my Priest,'--an Advocate, but not 'my Advocate:' and so they live and die unforgiven! No wonder that Martin Luther said, 'Many are lost because they cannot use possessive pronouns.'"
5) Whether we know anything by experience of conversion to God?
"Without conversion there is no salvation (Matthew 18:3; John 3:3; Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 5:17)."
"Just as ducks as soon as they are hatched, take naturally to water, so do children, as soon as they can do anything, take to selfishness, lying, and deceit; and none pray, or love God, unless they are taught."
"Hypocrites and sham Christians are indirect evidence that there is such a thing as real grace among men. Let us search our own hearts then, and see how it is with ourselves."
6) Whether we know anything of practical Christian holiness?
"It is as certain as anything in the Bible that 'without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' (Hebrews 12:14)"
"Holiness is not absolute perfection and freedom from all faults. Nothing of the kind! ...Absolute perfection is for heaven, and not for earth, where we have a weak body, a wicked world, and a busy devil continually near our souls. ...'I fight,--I labour,--I keep under my body and bring it into subjection' (1 Corinthians 9:27)... Yet, weak and imperfect as the holiness of the best saints may be, it is a real true ting, and has a character about it as unmistakable as light and salt. It is not a thing which begins and ends with noisy profession: it will be seen much more than heard."
7) Whether we know anything of enjoying the means of grace?
Means of grace = 5 principle things:
Reading of the Bible, private prayer, public worship, sacrament of the Lord's Supper, rest of the Lord's day.
"As long as the world stands, the state of a man's soul will always depend greatly on the manner and spirit in which he uses means of grace... Our feeling about them is just one of the many tests of the state of our souls. How can that man be thought to love God who reads about Him and His Christ, as a mere matter of duty, content and satisfied if he has just moved his mark onward over so many chapters?...Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible-reading and praying, in this matter of Sunday, public worship, and the Lord's Supper, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on which road he is travelling."
8) Whether we ever try to do any good in the world?
"A Christian who was content to go to heaven himself, and cared not what became of others, whether they lived happy and died in peace or not, would have been regarded as a kind of monster in primitive times, who had not the Spirit of Christ. Why should we suppose for a moment that a lower standard will suffice in the present day?
9) Whether we know anything of living the life of habitual communion with Christ?
Communion, in this usage = the habit of 'abiding in Christ' (John 15:4-8)
Union (coming to Christ) vs. Communion
On union: "Too many believers, it may be feared, never get beyond this stage!
"Union is the bud, but communion is the flower: union is the babe, but communion is the strong man"
"Union is not so good as communion!"
10) Whether we know anything of being ready for Christ's second coming?
"Are we living as if we long to see Him again, and love His appearing?--Readiness for that appearing is nothing more than being a real, consistent Christian. It requires no man to cease from this daily business... Each and all cannot do better than be found doing his duty, but doing it as a Christian, and with a heart packed up and ready to be gone.


Encouragement:
"Expect little from self, but much from Christ."


Ryle, J. C. "Self-Inquiry." 2009. Practical Religion. Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1998. 1-22. Print.