Green Pastures: The Ordinary Means of Grace (US)

J. Ryan Davidson

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Green Pastures: Ordinary Means of Grace for Ordinary Believers

“This book will be for your soul what the diamond ring hidden inside a velvet presentation box is to a bride-to-be: pure delight. In simple, well-illustrated language, Pastor Davidson teaches us how the covenant Lord blesses His people with lavish gifts of grace. Pastors should distribute Green Pastures to their people, and God’s people need to wonder and delight in its truths. I wish that I had read this book forty years ago!” James M. Renihan

What is This Book About?

This new and revised edition of Davidson’s pastoral study “Green Pastures” gets to the heart of how God works in the world – it discusses the ordinary means of grace by which God will save and sanctify His church. You may have never heard the phrase “means of grace” before, but it is deeply important that you not only know its meaning, but also understand its implications for us today. The means of grace lie at the heart of reformed doctrine, they are taught, exemplified and present throughout the scriptures, and without them the Christian is greatly deprived.

So, what are means of grace? And why are they important? In “Green Pastures: Ordinary Means of Grace for Ordinary Believers” J. Ryan Davidson show us why God has not just promised that He will build His kingdom, but also how he will build His kingdom. The ways by which he will do it are called “means of grace” because they are the means or tools by which God will save, sanctify, edify and preserve his people. This book is for every person that prays, takes the Lord’s Supper, and preaches or listens to preaching – in other words, it is for every Christian!

Read this book and be emboldened in God and His glorious Word of grace (Acts 20:32).

“In a day when church growth works line the shelves of bookstores and Amazon warehouses, and in a time when many dear believers are looking for everything in their church besides the ordinary means, the call of the Scriptures is to be ever-reforming according to biblical patterns of belief and worship. What an opportunity the church has, to assemble with the primacy placed on the ordinary channels of grace. For many pastors, the idea of numerical growth… by cutting corners can be so tempting, however, the flock of the Lord needs to be fed in the green pastures that he has ordained. Let us run then to his pastures… and to him.” – J. Ryan Davidson, From the Preface

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About the 'Confessional Perspective' Series

The Confessional Perspective series is dedicated to doing theology for all in the church. The books within will explore the doctrines of the Christian faith from a confessional and pastoral perspective, and their aim is to provide readers with rich yet accessible content that introduces them to confessional theology. This series is committed to the Second London Baptist Confession, its contemporary application and the recovery of sound doctrine in our day for Christ’s church around the world.

We pray that you will be blessed by the truths of God’s word found within these rich resources!

About the Author

J. Ryan Davidson, PhD, has been serving as the Pastor of Grace Baptist Chapel in Hampton, VA since 2008. He is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at International Reformed Baptist Seminary (IRBS) and is teaching with IRBS UK in July 2024. He has been married to his wife Christie for nearly two decades and they have four children. Ryan writes of this work in the preface, “My hope and prayer is that this little book will serve as a helpful springboard for richer and deeper study into the matter [the means of grace]. Why would we not want the sweet communion promised in these means and the very voice of Christ proclaimed within them?”

One of the things that binds confessional Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists together is their common commitment to a ministry shaped by the ordinary means of grace. Such a ministry is not a matter of arbitrary personal taste but driven by our understanding of exactly what God’s grace is and how it becomes a reality in the lives of Christians. This short book helps in that regard, offering short, sound accounts of the Word, sacraments, and prayer in a manner that will help all of those seeking a ministry that reflects biblical priorities and teaching.

The proverbial 'good things come in small packages' is an appropriate word for Ryan Davidson’s Green Pastures: A Primer on the Means of Grace. This book will be for your soul what the diamond ring hidden inside a velvet presentation box is to a bride-to-be: pure delight. In simple, well-illustrated language, Pastor Davidson teaches us how the covenant Lord blesses His people with lavish gifts of grace. Pastors should distribute Green Pastures to their people, and God’s people need to wonder and delight in its truths. I wish that I had read this book forty years ago!

Many current foundations for Christian growth are based on trendy pastors, the latest conferences or pragmatic programmes. This book by J. Ryan Davidson is different, because it points us to the biblical pattern of the church and the ordinary means of grace which God has provided for Christian growth. Davidson shows that Christians primarily grow in grace and mature in the faith as we participate in the life of the local church, attending God’s chosen channels through which he dispenses grace by faith. This was a joy to read and re-read and to be reminded that God has provided all that we need in Christ, not only to be saved by grace through faith, but also to be sanctified by his ongoing grace, maturing in the faith, as we participate in the ordinary means of grace in the life of the local church.

This is a wonderful book to help Christians recognize and utilize the provisions that our Lord has made for our spiritual health and growth. Too often believers are tempted to look for big, unusual events or experiences for spiritual strength and encouragement while neglecting the regular, comparatively unimpressive provisions like Scripture, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. Yet it is precisely these latter, “ordinary” provisions that the Lord Jesus has given to utilize to build us up in faith and establish us in his grace. Just as physical health is better pursued by commitment to careful nutrition rather than remedial medical intervention, so the pathway to spiritual health is dependent on the ordinary means of grace and not occasional, extraordinary experiences. J. Ryan Davidson understands that and wants God’s people to understand it as well. He clearly explains what the Bible teaches about the importance of the ordinary means that Christ has provided for his church. This book is pastorally wise, confessionally faithful, and spiritually helpful. I highly recommend it.