​The new year has launched and along with it new plans. Part of those plans include a read-along for Lent diving into the works of Charles Spurgeon. Coming from a low-church background, a liturgical calendar hasn’t been a formal part of my worship. But I’ve mentioned that I’ve had a little bit of my own liturgy for a number of years as I read through the Psalms during the Counting of the Omer, the time between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost/Shavout.

But observing Lent will be a new thing for me, I’m not Catholic. During the past year and a half of publishing book review videos, I’ve met several Christians in the “BookTube” space. One of those people, Christy Luis, invited me to participate in a read-along for Lent, reading John Ploughman Talks by Charles Spurgeon. We will be joined by two other book reviewers, Allen at The Library of Allenxandria and Victoria at A Musical Bookworm.

What is Lent?

So what is Lent? As I said, I’ve always been in “low” churches without liturgy. Discussing this with a friend once, they said, “All churches have liturgy.” No, they don’t. Baptists and Quakers don’t have liturgy. We don’t do Lent. I had heard people discuss what they were “giving up for Lent,” but I had no idea what the purpose was or what it was supposed to symbolize. I didn’t know what Ash Wednesday was until I read a news article about Rick Santorum and the ashes on his forehead and I didn’t realize Mardi Gras had any connection to Christianity until a friend wrote about the history of Mardi Gras.

In liturgical churches, Lent is the 40-day period before Easter dedicated to repentance and reflection. While fasting and a time of observance had long been part of church practice, those practices and the length of time varied until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD which determined the Lenten observance would be 40 days.^[1] This 40-day period was in memory of Jesus’s own preparation for his ministry with his 40-day fast and temptation in the wilderness. (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13)

His ministry and work included the congregation which he grew from a couple hundred members to almost 6,000, an orphanage, a monthly magazine, a seminary, and more than 50 written works. Known as the “Prince of Preachers,” he was so popular that 60,000 people came to pay their respect when he died.^[3]

About John Ploughman’s Talks

John Ploughman’s Talks: Everyday Advice Based on Biblical Truth is a collection of essays that uses common sayings and homilies tying them to Biblical truths. Talks, published in 1869 was very popular and was followed up in 1881 with John Ploughman’s Pictures.

From the Preface of John Ploughman’s Talks

In John Ploughman’s Talks, I have tried to talk for ploughmen and common people, Hence refined taste and dainty words have been discarded for strong old proverbial expressions and homely phrases. I have aimed my blows at the vices of the many, and tried to inculcate those moral virtues without which men are degraded and miserable. Much that needs to be said to the toiling masses would not suit well the pulpit and the Sabbath; these lowly pages may teach thrift and industry all the days of the week, in the cottage and the worshop; and if some learn these lessons I shall not repent the adoption of the rustic style.

Ploughman is a name I may justly claim. Every minister has put his hand to the plough, it is his business to break up the fallow ground and cast in good seed. That I have written in a semi-humorous vein shall need no apology if thereby sound moral teaching wins a hearing from the million. There is no particular virtue in being seriously unreadable.

 

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