Dear friends,

It is with great pleasure that I would like to warmly invite you to the 2025 Puritan Reformed Conference. Set to be held on August 21–23 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this year’s conference will be on the fruitful theme of “Growing in Holiness”—a topic that has been very near and dear to my heart since I began pastoral ministry over five decades ago.

In the seventeenth century, the Puritan Joseph Caryl (1602–1673) wrote these profound words: “Perfect holiness is the aim of the saints on earth, and it is the reward of the saints in heaven.” Holiness is the crying need of the church today, for we live in an age of increasing lukewarmness, shallowness, and worldliness. Such unholiness, we must sadly confess, is present in our own hearts, as well as in much of the professing church.

Holiness is crucial to the Christian life. Without holiness—the imputed righteousness of Christ, as well as a life of vital holiness that demonstrates the reality of saving faith in our hearts—no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). Our pursuit of holiness is progressive and lifelong, and the result of our growth in holiness is that we will “neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8). Above all, holiness is one of God’s chief aims in our lives. William Gurnall (1616–1679) once wrote, “This is the great design of God, to have His people holy. It runs like a silver thread through all God’s other designs.” In a similar vein, John Flavel (1630–1691) observed this: “So in love is Christ with holiness that He will buy it with His blood for us.” And yet holiness is also inseparable from our happiness, both in this life and in the life to come: “Holiness in the seed shall have happiness in the harvest,” wrote Thomas Adams (1583–1652).

In recent years, it has struck me that the godly seem to be growing more holy, while the ungodly seem to be growing more wicked. Living as we are in the last days (in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet”), the antithesis between the church and the world, Christ and Satan, and the godly and the ungodly is becoming more pronounced. For that reason, we need—more than ever—a solid grasp of the foundation (or pillars) of holiness in salvation, the practice of holiness in daily life, and the prospect that in heaven we will finally possess the perfection of holiness. And it is those three themes that will frame the eight plenary addresses and three breakout sessions of this year’s conference.

Lord willing, several speakers from around the country and around the world will serve us at the conference this summer, including Mark Dever, Bartel Elshout, Conrad Mbewe, and Pooyan Mehrshahi, as well as some of our own seminary faculty—Drs. Michael Barrett, David Kranendonk, Adriaan Neele, and myself. For more information on our speakers and the conference schedule, please see the following pages of this brochure.

Joining us at the conference will be Reformation Heritage Books and Puritan Reformed Bookstore with a large selection of new and used books—many of which are written by the speakers, and all at steeply discounted prices. You will likewise enjoy many opportunities to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones.

Please join me in praying that our Triune God will richly bless this year’s conference for the salvation of sinners and the edification of saints—to convict, challenge, and encourage us as we journey in the King’s highway of holiness.

If you can only pick one conference to attend in 2025, this is the one. You will not be disappointed. Through this conference, may the Lord enable us to pray with Robert Murray M‘Cheyne, “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.”

Warmly,

Joel R. Beeke

Chancellor

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary