Remembering Jerry Bridges

This past weekend, author and speaker Jerry Bridges past away. He was 86-years-old. Jerry was, and still is, one of my favorite authors. God had used him to impact my life through his book.

I remember reading The Pursuit of Holiness before I went off to college and did not get much of it. During my sophomore year, I decided to give it another shot and I was blown away by Jerry's simplistic yet deep theological teaching. I immediately became a Jerry Bridges fan.

I read The Practice of Godliness a few months later and it changed my perspective on what it means to be a godly person. I was hit hard with his teaching on humility which sprang from Jerry's life. In fact, he wrote one last book, which is on humility called, The Blessing of Humility: Walk within Your Calling, which will come out in June.

Jerry was the first person I heard that the gospel was not just for unbelievers but for believers as well. He introduced me to preaching the gospel to myself which I thought was weird because when I thought of preaching, it was to those who were your audience. Glad that perspective changed.

Jerry always wrote in a user friendly format that all readers can enjoy his books yet he was also deep in his teaching. He always made much of Jesus in his books. One thing that I loved about his books, he always backed up everything with the Word of God. When you pick up a book by Jerry Bridges, you know you were going to get a Bible study. I must confess, I have not read all of Jerry's books, but I plan too which there are not many I have not read by him.

I am grateful to God for Jerry Bridges. I will always be thankful for the impact he had on me. I always said, when I get to heaven, the one theologian of old I want to talk with was John Owen. Now I can say, there are two: John Owen and Jerry Bridges.