Showing posts with label Jonathan Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Edwards. Show all posts

Monday, March 1, 2010

Making Jonathan Edwards Accessible


Let's just admit it. It is not easy to read Jonathan Edwards. Every now and then we try having heard John Piper or others extol the virtues of reading Edwards. So we sit down with a copy of "The End for Which God Created the World" or we open up volume one of his collected works and after struggling through the first few paragraphs decide to lay the good reverend aside.

This is why I am excited about a new collection of works by Jonathan Edwards that have been edited by Strachan and Sweeney. If you would like to read one of the most important theologians since the Reformation then this new collection is the place to begin.

“Everyone says Jonathan Edwards is important. Quite frankly, however, his writing style is pretty dense by contemporary standards, so few pastors and other Christian leaders have invested much time reading him. Edwards is one of the “greats” of whom everyone has heard and whom relatively few have read. This new series tackles the problem. Here is the kernel of much of Edwards’s thought in eminently accessible form.”

—D. A. Carson

“In The Essential Edwards Collection, Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney play the role of the good friend who pulls the book down off the shelf. With knowledge and excitement, they open the large and intimidating tomes, and point to some clear and searching section which illuminates God’s truth and searches our hearts. In this collection, Edwards is introduced to a new generation of readers. His concerns are made our concerns. This is a worthy effort and I pray that God will bless it.”

—Mark Dever

“Jonathan Edwards is surely one of the most influential theologians of the eighteenth century, yet until now a representative sample of his work has required the reader either to wade through poorly printed double-column editions or to purchase incredibly expensive scholarly editions. Now at last we have a wide-ranging and representative sample of his work published in an attractive, accessible and, most important of all, readable form. The authors are to be commended for the work they have put into this set and I hope it will become an important feature of the library of many pastors and students of the Christian faith.”

—Carl R. Trueman

Monday, June 15, 2009

"Shaping God's People with the Word"


I found the following helpful post over at Justin Taylor's place:

This weekend I started reading the new book, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought (IVP, 2009), by Doug Sweeney, Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding.

Just in reading the Preface and the Introduction: The Word in Edwards'World (both available free on the IVP site), I found myself resonating with Sam Storms' blurb, who wrote, "I love this book! . . . I highly recommend it!" (Read the full blurbs here.)

The book closes with seven theses for discussion. Sweeney writes, it is naive to think that we should try to replicate his ministry. His world was different from ours. We face new challenges today. The question is not how we might clone him. Rather, the question is how to live in our own, twenty-first-century world, loving the people whom we serve, but using insights and examples gleaned from Edwards' life and ministry to enhance our Christian faith and fortify our gospel witness. (p.197)

Here are the seven theses (the book contains an explanation of each):
1. Edwards shows us the importance of working to help people gain a vivid sense, an urgent impression, of God's activity in our world.
2. Edwards shows us that true religion is primarily a matter of holy affections.
3. Edwards shows us the advantages of keeping an eschatological perspective on our lives.
4. Edwards shows us how God uses those who lose their lives for Christ.

5. Edwards shows us that theology can and should be done primarily in the church, by pastors, for the sake of the people of God.
6. Edwards shows us that even the strongest Christians need support from others.
7. Edwards shows us the necessity of remaining in God's Word.

I want to draw attention to one of Sweeney's theses in particular (see the previous post): #5, namely, that "theology can and should be done primarily in the church, by pastors, for the sake of the people of God" (p. 199). Sweeney writes:

In the early twenty-first century, when many pastors have abdicated their responsibilities as theologians, and many theologians do their work in a way that is lost on the people of God, we need to recover Edwards' model of Christian ministry. Most of the best theologians in the history of the church were parish pastors. Obviously, however, this is not the case today. Is it any wonder, then, that many struggle to think about their daily lives theologically, and often fail to understand the basics of the faith? I want to be realistic here. A certain amount of specialization is inevitable in complex, market-driven economies. And the specialization of roles within God's kingdom can enhance our Christian ministries. But when our pastors spend the bulk of their time on organizational matters, and professors spend the bulk of their time on intramural academics, no one is left to do the crucial work of shaping God's people with the Word. Perhaps our pastors and professors, Christian activists and thinkers, need to collaborate more regularly in ministry. Perhaps the laity need to give their pastors time to think and write--for their local congregations and the larger kingdom of God. [my emphasis]


It looks like I have another book to work into my summer reading.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Soft Thoughts Vs. Hard Truth

In his outstanding book, Sinners in the Hands of a Good God, David Clotfelter carefully distinguishes between the god of sentimental western moralism and the holy God who reveals Himself in Scripture. The author presents George MacDonald, the great 19th century writer as representative of the former while Jonathan Edwards as representative of the later. The book helpfully distinguishes between these two competing visions of God and effectively defends Edwards as being most faithful to the biblical witness.

The title of the book is in no way meant to belittle Jonathan Edward’s famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Rather it defends the truth that God’s wrath toward sinners in no way diminishes His goodness. MacDonald firmly dismissed the clear teachings of Scripture concerning God’s judgment of the wicked as being inconsistent with His being a loving Father. MacDonald wrote angrily against any notion that God would punish anyone in hell for eternity. MacDonald reasoned that in hell, “God is triumphantly defeated, I say, throughout the hell of His vengeance. Although against evil, it is but the vain and wasted cruelty of a tyrant.”

Commenting on the theology of George MacDonald which is incarnated in much of contemporary evangelicalism, David Clotfelter writes:
“I would like very much to think that God views all people as His children. I would like to believe that the only punishment any person will receive is that which is tailored to promote his or her repentance. I would like to believe that all finally will be saved. I find, however, that the Bible keeps getting in the way.

“The fundamental problem with MacDonald’s theology is his insistence that the analogy of fatherhood provides a sufficient basis for understanding God’s relationship with human beings: ‘Men cannot, or will not, or dare not see that nothing but His being our Father gives Him any right over us – that nothing but that could give Him a perfect right.’ Scripture does not back him up at this point. While God is acknowledged to be the creator of all (Isa. 45:12) and the judge of all (Gen. 18:25), the analogy of the parent-child relationship is almost always restricted in the Bible to God's relationship with with Jesus, His relationship with Israel, and His relationship with the individual Christian believer…To say that God treats all people as His children goes far beyond the actual assertions of the Bible and undermines Scripture’s teaching about the spiritual status and privileges of believers.”

As he goes on, Clotfelter helpfully comments on the difference between our sentimental notions of God and what the Bible actually declares. In the church today it is common for preachers and laity alike to speak copiously on their own feelings and opinions about God. What is lacking is faithful understanding of and submission to God’s Word.

“The truth, I believe, is that we can rightly understand God only if we forswear the temptation to draw our own extended conclusions from the analogies He gives us, and stick as close as possible to what He has actually said…We may not always find it easy to reconcile the various truths of the Bible. Nevertheless, we must humbly keep in check both our desire for logical consistency and our outrage at truths we do not like…We may be quite sure that all that God does is, in fact, logical and self-consistent. But we should not presume to reject that which we have not had the patience or humility to accept on God’s own terms.”