One of the most-notable of all the “Puritan” authors is Richard Sibbes (1577 – 1635). He was born within a generation of the passing of a great trinity of Reformation Founders: William Tyndale (d. 1536), Martin Luther (d. 1546), and John Calvin (d. 1564). His life bridged to nearly, but not quite, the creation of great work of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1643 – 1648). He had a long affiliation with the University of Cambridge (England) first as a student and subsequently held prominent professorial and preaching roles at Cambridge and at Gray’s Inn, the prominent “Inn of the Court” of King Charles I in London, a center for the study and practice of the law of that nation.
He is considered to be a pre-eminent example of “Mainline Puritan” authors meaning, principally: he remained associated with the Church of England (Anglican church) and its Common Book of Prayer in distinction to other notable “puritan” authors which represented Presbyterian or Congregational leanings as to ecclesiastical frameworks for church and worship.
His works have been in print and influential to this day. Among the many who have praised them include Charles Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
The book of his of interest here has the unusual title, based on a text in Isaiah: The Bruised Reed (TBR). It was a subject of his teaching and preaching and ultimately published as a book in 1630 or 1631. It has influenced many thousands of Christian readers to this day.
Further background on “the Puritans” and specifically Richard Sibbes can be found at these links The Puritans and at the link for Richard Sibbes.
Another resource on Puritans, Sibbes, and The Bruised Reed is available in a Ligonier “Connect” study series by Michael Reeves: The English Reformation and the Puritans, available at Ligonier online. Reeves introduces Sibbes in Lecture 5 of the above series at approximately the 18 minute mark. He further discusses Sibbes and The Bruised Reed and one other for which Sibbes is well-known (The Tender Heart) in Lecture 6.
Purpose for this Study of The Bruised Reed
My purpose for this study is to provide support, and motivation, for a careful reading of Sibbes’ most well-known book, The Bruised Reed, to encourage us as wounded, struggling believers in Christ, to recognize that we yet belong to Him, that our journey is securely in His Hand, and that even as ‘bruised reeds,’ He will bring us all the way Home.
We are that ‘bruised reed.’
Sibbes’s Summary of His Book’s Subject
The Bible makes two references to the text that makes for the the title of Sibbes’s book, first in Isaiah and again in Matthew. On what grounds does such apparently passing references warrant a book, albeit a small one? Sibbes makes his case as follows:
The bruised reed is a man who for the most part is in some misery, just as those were who came to Christ for help, and by misery he is brought to see sin as its cause, for, whatever pretences sin makes, they come to an end when we are bruised and broken. He is sensible of his sin and misery, even to his bruising; and, seeing no help in himself, he is carried with restless desire to have supplies from another, with some hope, which raises him a little out of himself toward Christ, though he dare not claim to have gained any present interest of mercy. This spark of hope being opposed by doubts and fears rising from his corruption makes him like smoking flax; so that both these together, a bruised reed and smoking flax, make up the state of a poor distressed man. This is such a person as our Savior Christ terms “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), who sees his wants, and also sees himself indebted to divine justice. He has no means of supply from himself or the creature, and thereupon he mourns, and, upon some hope of mercy from the promise, and examples of those that have obtained mercy, he is stirred to hunger and thirst after it.
Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, Banner of Truth Publishing, p. 6 of pdf, 2007 (originally published in 1630 or 1631). (highlights mine)
The subtitle of The Bruised Reed is “a Smoking Flax.” Sibbes gives his understanding and use of this second phrase as follows:
But grace is not only little, but mingled with corruption; therefore a Christian is said to be smoking flax. So we see that grace does not do away with corruption all at once, but some is left for believers to fight with….
ibibid., selections from p. 11, 12 (highlights mine)
In smoking flax there is only a little light, and it is weak and unable to flame, and it is mixed a little with smoke. The observations from this are that, in God’s children, especially in their first conversion, there is only a little measure of grace, and that little bit is mixed with a lot of corruption, which like smoke, is offensive; but Christ will not quench this smoking flax….
Let us not therefore be discouraged at the small beginnings of grace, but look at ourselves as elected to be “holy and without blame” (Eph. 1:4). Let us look at our imperfect beginning only to encourage further striving toward perfection, and to keep us in a low opinion of ourselves. Otherwise, in case of discouragement, we must consider ourselves as Christ does, who looks on us as those he intends to make fit for himself. Christ values us by what we shall be, and by what we are elected to.
Note, in particular, the final bold highlight phrase re “low opinion.” As we shall see, humility of spirit toward God, and our fellow travelers, is attendant to one self-recognition of being a bruised reed and one yet a smoking flax (wick).
Text of the Book The Bruised Reed
The Bruised Reed (hereafter, TBR) is available in multiple forms: various printed book editions, electronic editions (e.g. Kindle), and as freely-available pdfs. Two of such pdfs are linked below:
● The Bruised Reed by the Banner of Truth publications. This pdf is an edited and rearranged edition of TBR, updating and simplifying the English, and includes an introduction to Sibbes and the book.
● The Bruised Reed by Monergism publications. This pdf is essentially a copy as Sibbes had written it.
‘The Spine’ of The Bruised Reed
In a separate post on this website I have provided the primary highlights I made from my reading and rereading The Bruised Reed. These highlights are in sequential order of the book as published in the Amazon e-book format. They are available here and form what can be considered as ‘the spine’ of Sibbes’s book.
The Primary Biblical Source Texts of The Bruised Reed
The underlying text of TBR comes from two passages, a foretelling in the OT Book of Isaiah, and the forth-telling in the NT Book of Matthew.
The OT Foretelling of “The Bruised Reed…and Smoking Flax”
The Prophet Isaiah foretells the work of the coming Messiah. (“Christ” is the NT Greek translation of the OT Hebrew word from which we get “Messiah”). The context of the Messiah’s future coming revealed to Isaiah was to kindle a people who were as “a bruised reed…a faintly burning wick,” the latter phrase in the King James Version (KJV) was puts as “smoking flax.”
Messiah was not foretold as One coming to lead a band of ‘victors’ but of ones nearly extinguished.
The relevant passage from Isaiah is found in Chapter 42, the section of that Book that began in Ch 40 with the promise of renewed hope even in the face of dire adversity. Note in particular the verse highlighted below at Isaiah 42:3 (note there is a typo in the Banner of Truth pdf that says, mistakenly, Isaiah 42:13):
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick [or, “smoking flax“] he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.5 Thus says God, the Lord,
Isaiah 42:1-9 ESV
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
As given in Isaiah 42:3 above, Sibbes makes recurrent reference to the phrase “bruised reed and smoking flax” in reference to our condition as true believers, but ones needing encouragement, comfort on our struggling journey of life.
Link of Isaiah’s “A Bruised Reed” to Jesus in the NT
The subject of Isaiah’s text, the “Him,” the “Servant” of God the Father / Lord / Creator, in Whom God the “Spirit” resides, we learn from the NT to be Jesus Christ, God the Son, Eternal God and born truly man, heir to the Covenant Promises in Abram and David (Matt. 1:1).
The above passage links then to the dramatic moments recorded in Matthew Ch 12 upon Jesus healing on the Sabbath, and by demonstration of miraculous power and great compassion claimed to be “the Lord” of the Sabbath, in effect saying that as “Lord” (Koine Greek: kurios) He was the foretold and revealed One in the OT as YHWH, the Hebrew sacred Tetragrammaton, translated as Jehovah or Yahweh, the God of Creation and of the Covenant with Adam and Noah, and then Abraham and David, as well as Being the Son / Descendant of David. The passage from Matthew 12 quotes back to the above text from Isaiah 42:
17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
Matthew 12:17-21 ESV
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
20 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick [or, “smoking flax“] he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
Significance of the Reference to “A Bruised Reed”
Why, and how, did Richard Sibbes think, and manage, to write an entire book stemming from a three word phrase–“a bruised reed?” The full answer will require us to work through Sibbes’ book. But we are given a deep insight by Chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel.
The opening section of Mat 12, vs. 1-8, gives the scene of Jesus with His disciples eating grain that they plucked from the unharvested edges of a field, perhaps of barley. Spying on the scene were Jewish Pharisees ultra-strict observers of the Mosaic Law, as so they thought of themselves. Such Law had been given, first by type in Genesis 1 and later by God to Moses, as a gift of rest that would lead to a weekly re-appraisal of the fullness of God’s Creative gift and gifts, in the context of cessation of work or any form of self-effort. Such had been corrupted by The Religious Industry (TRI) that emerged and surrounded Jewish religious practices making the Sabbath into a day of duty / obligation which public fulfillment (so it was thought and taught) founded one’s righteous behavior and standing before Yahweh.
So by such Pharisaic judgment, Jesus was not only a law-breaker, but a law-defier, and even worse, a leader–a false ‘Rabbi’–of followers to do the same. Putting it in simplest terms, the contention was that if Jesus could not comprehend and follow even this most straightforward, and doable command, especially in public, he was flagrantly scorning God and His most-faithful followers (as the Pharisees themselves claimed to be).
This Pharisaic Judgment was deeply, fundamentally, and fatally flawed. Such is the conflict between God’s Way and “The Religion Industry” (TRI), a subject I deal in depth elsewhere. There could be no accommodation between the true Truth of the OT, as was being exemplified by Jesus on that Sabbath, and TRI’s proscriptions of self-righteousness.
As a further even more infuriating demonstration of the chasm between the Pharisees and Jesus immediately follows in the Matthew text, Ch 12:9-14. There Jesus in their very synagogue on the very Sabbath day, He does an even greater work, and a perceived even greater violation of TRI’s rules, namely that of healing a man with a withered arm on that Sabbath Day. He further does so shaming the Pharisees by noting how, in their preserved doctrines of the Sabbath allowed for them to do a certain “work” to help one of their physical / baa-baa-baa sheep to safety on the Sabbath, but healing a human, a much more significant ‘sheep’ of God, in their religious system, TRI, such healing act was sin, because (in their view) it was a flagrant violation of the Mosaic Law, and Jesus’s defense of such Sabbath miracle was, further, blasphemous and deserving of execution (Matt 12:14).
What immediately follows in Matthew is then the above cited passage quoting Isaiah that reveals Messiah’s mission, exemplified by both the true Sabbath demonstration and by the particular healing on the withered arm.
Then Chapter 12 has a closing section that records Jesus healing a demon-possessed man, moving the scene of God’s power, and grace, from the physical domain–grains for food, and restoring a withered hand–to the deeply spiritual domain of the war of Satan leading to the very possessing a man’s soul. This reality of the vileness of such war was just demonstrated by the offense of TRI leading to its commitment to murder the very Messiah standing before them. Thus began the Passover plot, culminating in the great dealmaking of TRI with The Political Industry (TPI) embodied by the Roman Pontus Pilate, resulting in the Lord’s Crucifixion in accordance with the combined desires and intentions of TRI and TPI.
The Outworking of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5)
Prior to the above described events of Matt Ch 12, we need to understand the connection with the famous passage known as the Sermon on the Mount, which begins in Matt Ch 5. Let us set the context for such Sermon by observing In Matthew’s Gospel, the veil on Jesus Christ slowly, purposefully lifted, in its five opening scenes:
- The genealogy of Jesus Christ demonstrating, even before and by the miracle of His physical birth, His claim to Being the unique Heir of the Abramic and Davidic Covenants. (Matt. 1:1-17)
- The prophetically foretold and miraculous circumstances of the birth of Jesus who was Immanuel, God with us, and attested to even by those outside the Mosaic Covenant (i.e., those who came from the East as witnesses) (Matt. 1:18-2:12)
- The immediate rejection of Christ as King by TPI exemplified by the Roman vessel King Herod. (Matt. 2:13-23). Such rejection will recur at the very end of Christ’s mission on earth by Herod’s successor, Pilate. But first must come the Lord’s presentation of His claims as Messiah to the Jewish people and receive the ultimate and final rejection of TRI by the union of the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes.
- The forth-telling of Jesus as the Son of God inaugurating the Kingdom of Heaven, proclaimed by John the Baptist, in accordance with the prophetic words of Isaiah, and the accompanying call to “repentance,” a fundamental change of mind (frame) as to any grounds of righteous self-attainable by means of perceived adherence to the Mosaic Law. (Matt. 3:1-17).
- The attack of the Devil by three dealmaking propositions: (1) as to the the physical needs of an incarnated being–by eating the Devil’s bread, (2) as to the dramatic unveiling of His Divine Being–miraculous temple jumping by the Devil’s challenge,(3) as to His taking hold, through a short-cut, of His rightful Kingship–by the worship of the Devil himself. (Matt. 4:1-11). Variants of such dealmaking propositions had been used by the Devil and accepted by TRI, as is evidenced fully in the Gospels.
At Matt 4:11 the entire structure of the narrative changes. Jesus Christ becomes the Great Actor–not as a performer, or pretender, but as the Initiator of action, as to fulfilling His Great Purpose for Being. Beginning in Matt 4:12, and throughout the rest of the Gospel of Matthew until again, at the end He becomes the one acted at the culminating judgments and union of TRI and TPI.
From Matt 4:12, we see the preparation for the Lord’s great declarations of Matt Ch 5 -7, and in particular the opening four “beatitudes”, namely:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Mt 5:3–6). (2016). Crossway Bibles. (Highlighting mine)
What is is to be “Blessed?”
As discussed elsewhere, the Koine word that begins each of the above sentences is makarios. In most translations it is given as “blessed;” some translations use “fortunate.” Both words are inadequate, even confusing.
We can think of “blessed” as meaning something like words of high praise, a well-wishing or claim conveyed upon the person(s) in question. That is not the idea behind makarios. There is another Koine word, eulogia, from which we get the word “eulogy,” which does mean, literal, good (“eu”) words (“logos” or “logia”). Makarios is not the synonym of eulogia.
Another kind of confusion results from the translated word “fortunate.” First, the word “fortunate” is basically the same word as “lucky,” as they each derive from the same idea namely that certain random, unknowing events has resulted in a condition of one’s liking, something like ‘the luck of the draw’ in a card game leading to table-winnings. Such is not the idea behind makarios.
What then do we do with makarios? Perhaps the best approach for a rich Koine word is to simply learn it as a Greek word that we know in its full meaning and so leave it untranslated as we do certain other words such as “baptize” and even “Jesus.” This goes against the spirit of our age which has taught Bible expositors to not make reference to the very words in which God has chosen to reveal His Word. As I’ve written elsewhere, in my view this is a mistake on many levels including the assumption that even a ‘lay’ audience is stupid and lazy. People who have a love of something, learn all kinds of vocabulary specific to the subject of their love. Think of fisherman, football fans, lovers of music, and a hundred other examples of passion. There are literally thousands of specialized vocabularies associated with each of such interest areas. People learn by desire that which they love.
So, let us replace “blessed” with makarios. Returning to the Sermon on the Mount let us first just focus on the first ‘half’ of each verse–the “A” part, the protasis, contrasting the “B” part, the apodosis, that ends each phrase. We then have:
markarios are the poor in spirit…markarios are those who mourn…makarios are the meek…makarious as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Matt 5:3-6 (modified ESV translation)
Now this leads us to seek a deep understanding of what exactly does the single Koine word makarios represent, and how, in particular, does it relate to the four related ideas to which is is connected: poor, mourn, meek, and hunger / thirst?
Very briefly here–I’ve dealt with this subject elsewhere–makarios represents the great gift we have received from God Himself in our inner / new nature that separates us from the world’s thinking / values into a state of intrinsic dissonance with the ‘music’ of our time and place (much like Odysseus used ear plugs to avoid the otherwise irresistible lure of the sirens).
We know by feeling and experience something fundamental inside us–and, powerfully, the world surrounding us–is not right, and not fixable. We all see death and to varying degrees have direct experience with death even as we yet live. We know that as the ultimate outrage for sentient beings is the irreversible transformation from the great gift of existence, self-awareness, and a myriad of connectedness (to people and the full range of human experience) to non-being, most often by painful, sorrowful endings.
But death when we die is not the only form or experience of death. Death–another word that could use more careful thought–is at a fundamental level about separation. In the conventional sense of death it is separation from being to non-being (as we consider circumstances purely in apparent physical terms). But death is also that unfixable separation of what represents our deepest longings from our experiential reality of being.
For those gifted by God-awareness–namely, makarios–such is that death experience while yet living physically but spiritually dead as to God. Such was that experience of Adam and Eve upon their fall in Gen. 3 despite the continuance, for a time, even a long time, of physical life. Perhaps a useful parallel is that of a prisoner in solitary confinement, the ‘hole’ as it is known, under a multi-life sentence with no possibility of parole; in human material form that prisoner lives and yet is dead while alive before he finally dies completely. Such is the condition of a person longing for that union with God, and experiencing fully the love and grace of God’s approval while knowing that even now, at this very moment, and as far as it appears for all moments to come, even the eternity of ages upon endless ages, such experience is absent by a form of death, namely spiritual death.
Such extended description of makarios helps with understanding the above connections to poor, mourn, meek, hunger.
But how does it then connect to the second half of each of these phrases, which conveys a good that arises from the ‘bad,’ the apparent bad, of the first half led by the word makarios?
The answer to that question is the very message of the Gospel. It’s the heart of the NT, the ultimate meaning of the Cross and the phrase “Christ came to save sinners.” How so? It is by the deep perception of one’s poverty, experience of mourning, conclusion of rightful meekness before God, and the hungering for deliverance that leads one to Christ away from the TRI’s claim that law-keeping, by Moses or any other, gets one to a state of righteousness and peace with God.
The issue we face is not being better, in some way, than the worse we might otherwise be. Or the plan to end up with more stuff, or experiences, or honors that others who are trudging the earth in our time, or for true glory-hounds over even those who trudged in previous times.
The true issue of life is being in right relationship with our Creator, the God who made us, the God of the Universe and everything beyond, the God of Eternity. It is to be our central question: what about our existence with the One, True God in the boundless eternity beyond the present and full extent of all spacetime?
Makarios is the gift from God that turns us away from the abominable teaching flaw of both TRI and TPI to the only hope, the ‘work’ that must be done outside of us, extra nos, and only by Grace, unmerited and free. That, friends, is the deepest possible state of blessed, well beyond the conventional understanding of meaning of that translated word.
Makarios in the OT
The opening word, of the opening Psalm, is the word makarios, as given in the Koine version of the OT, known as the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). Consider the opening paragraph of Psalm 1 below:
1 Blessed Makarios is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law[b] of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.3 He is like a tree
Psalm 1:1-4 (ESV, with makarios added; highlights mine)
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Here we see clearly by the three-fold distinction of “not / nor” given in the opening of all the Psalms, namely: not in the counsel of the world’s wicked (turned from God), not in the way of sinners (turned toward self), not sitting in the judgement-seat of scoffers (sitting in self-satisfaction). Instead, we are by means of makarios, recipients of the great Grace of God in separating us from the instinct we all naturally self-determination, self-direction, and self-judgment of self-satisfaction from following various organized paths of man’s attempts at self-salvation, be it TRI or TPI, or some combination.
Makarios and Bruised Reed / Smoking Flax
Thus we can see the connection of blessedness / makarios with Sibbes’s use of the Biblical phrase “bruised reed and smoking flax” in reference to us.
We can use the following two lenses for reading Sibbes:
- The reality of our condition as being Bruised Reeds and still of value to God, and especially so because of the proper humility such condition leads us to have.
- The rightful, proper hope we should hold because, as smoking flax, God is at work in and with us for an ultimate purpose / end that is beyond just the smoldering beginning that is our present experience.