Comfort
King James Scripture and plain counsel for a death, an illness, a breaking marriage, or danger at home.
First things
The Gospel
There is no better news in all the world. To see why, you need to hear something about God and about his Son. And something about yourself.
God made you. He is holy, and he is good, and everything you have came from his hand. He has the right to your whole life. That is not a hard saying. It is the most reasonable thing in the world.
You have not given him that. Neither have I. We have gone our own way and made small gods out of things we could manage. Scripture does not soften this and neither will we.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:23 (KJV)
Sin is not a mistake to be excused. It is a debt, and a just judge does not let debts go unpaid. The wages of sin is death, and beyond death there is a judgment and a wrath that is real. Hell is not a scare tactic invented by preachers. It is what God says is coming for sin that is never dealt with.
Then God did the one thing no one would have dared ask. He sent his own Son. Jesus Christ, true God and true man, lived the obedient life you owe and did not live. He went to a Roman cross and there he took the guilt of his people on himself, and the wrath that belonged to them fell on him instead. He was buried. On the third day he rose bodily from the grave, and he lives now, reigning at the Father’s right hand.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (KJV)
Our sin counted to him. His righteousness counted to us. A sinner stands before God on that ground and no other. Not your church attendance, and not your resolve to do better. Christ, and Christ received by faith. The gospel page sets out how that righteousness is credited to a man.
So the call goes out. Turn from your sin and trust him. Repentance and faith are not two payments you make. They are gifts, and God gives them so you can take hold of his Son. Stop defending yourself. Stop managing your guilt. Come to him as you are, today, and he will not turn you away.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
John 6:37 (KJV)
There is no sinner so far gone that Christ will refuse him, and no sinner so respectable that Christ is optional.
This offer is free and it is for you. If you are reading this, you are among those to whom Christ is offered. Come.
The name
Why Gentle King
Zechariah 9:9 tells Zion to shout, because her king is coming, righteous and having salvation, and he arrives humble on a donkey. Centuries later Jesus rode into Jerusalem in just that way (Matthew 21:5). Kings of that age came on warhorses. This one did not, and Isaiah saw it coming.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
Isaiah 42:3 (KJV)
He is a real King with real authority. He reigns now, and he will judge the living and the dead. Yet when he calls the weary to come to him, he tells them why they need not be afraid.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:29-30 (KJV)
The word the Authorized Version renders meek is the same word newer Bibles render gentle. It is the King telling you what he is like before you come to him. The King with every right to break you has come to carry you instead. If you have come here in a hard hour, there is Scripture gathered for it.
Fighting Sin
A greater love for Christ, the daily work of putting sin to death by the Spirit, and an assurance that rests on Christ and not on a winning streak.
Where this site stands
What We Hold
Gentle King is a free ministry site, and it is confessionally Reformed and Presbyterian. Scripture alone is the final authority, and we read it with the church, not apart from her. The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Shorter and Larger Catechisms are held as a faithful summary of what the Bible teaches, and this site quotes them by name and section.
That means grace from first to last. God chose a people before the world was made, Christ actually accomplished their redemption at the cross, the Spirit raises them from spiritual death so that they repent and believe, and not one of them is lost. It means one covenant of grace running from Genesis to Revelation in two administrations. It means worship shaped by God’s own directions, and the ordinary means of grace, the word preached, the sacraments, and prayer, treated as the usual way Christians grow.
Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 33
Good works grow out of that verdict. They do not earn it.
Doctrine
Election, the atonement, covenant theology, the law and the gospel, and what the Reformed hold together about the last things. Written for the person who wants the substance, not a slogan.
Apologetics
Straight answers to the objections raised against the faith, and comfort for the Christian who is afraid he has lost it.
A gift for pilgrims
Sojourner
A free Bible study companion for Windows that holds Scripture, the commentaries, and the confessions on one shelf, on your own machine, with the network off.
Most of us study the Bible in the cracks of an ordinary week. Early morning before the house wakes up. A lunch break. Twenty minutes after the dishes. The tools we reach for are scattered. A Bible in one hand, a notebook somewhere, a browser tab full of things you will never find again. Sojourner gathers that work into one place and leaves it there, where you can come back to it next year and still find it.
Thirteen translations, the Hebrew and Greek beneath them with the great lexicons, Calvin and Matthew Henry and Spurgeon, the Westminster Standards with their proofs, and an encyclopedia of nine thousand articles. Open a verse and the commentary, the cross references, the confession proofs, the atlas, and the people it names all turn to it at once. For the household there is a guided page for family worship, with a short reading, a psalm to sing, a catechism question, and prayer.
No account. No subscription. No connection. Everything you write lives in one file that belongs to you.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalm 119:105 (KJV)
No program does that. But a good tool can keep you from setting the lamp down.