my burg

See parts 1, 2, and 3 below... Preaching for conversion .   JE makes a clear distinction between the converted and the unconverted.  He paints the two very different destinies of each.  He calls for self-examination:  “Let this put persons upon examining themselves whether or no they are not unbelievers.”  Perhaps he looks back wistfully on the “little” awakening of 1734-35.  He is aware of blessings in Europe through Whitefield, the Wesleys, and Hermann Francke (in Germany).  Whitefield would in fact arrive soon in New England (1740).   JE preached for conversion.  He longs for awakening, for revival, for a time when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14) We must ask ourselves :  We do not want to alienate our hearers; we want to identify with, relate to, and build bridges to unbelievers.  But in an effort to be relational, do we make enough of the distinc...

See parts 1 and 2 below... It is typological preaching .  JE believed that God is a communicating Being who delights to reveal the beauty of his perfections in many ways.  He uses images from nature to adapt his teaching to us in a way that is enjoyable and pleasurable.  “Types, then, are a part of the divine aesthetic, the way in which God unites pedagogy and aesthetics.” ( Theology , 122-24)  And Edwards himself confessed, “I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas, and the divine constitution and history of the holy Scriptures, be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words” (WJE, Types , Vol. 11:152).   His sermon is rich with the beauty of springtime.  He is preaching in May, and perhaps even as he spoke people looked out the windows.  I can imagine the congregation may have especially enjoyed this pause from his more didactic sermon series on the history of redemption.  His preaching is full...

"It seems far preferable to me to state the theology of the Bible on its own terms, and to reject it, if one must, than to conform it to alien principles that make scriptural truth something less than Moses, Isaiah or even Jesus recognized it to be.  The biblical insistence that the true and living God still speaks in universal general revelation, and that the fall of humanity requires special once-for-all revelation as well, illumines our world dilemmas, I believe, more consistently and coherently than any and all rival views.  Only the self-revealing God can lead us even now toward a future that preserves truth and love and justice unsullied; all other gods are either lame or walk backward."   ~ Carl F. H. Henry, Preface (Thanksgiving, 1982) of God, Revelation and Authority , Vol. VI. 

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (Malachi 4:2 ESV)  Continuing the characteristics of Jonathan Edwards' sermons... It is analytical preaching .  Edwards organizes his sermons with consistency:  passage, context, doctrine, outline, and application.  I find his carefulness a helpful example in making sure every angle of a particular doctrine is viewed and considered.  Reading JE’s sermons is a great antidote to fuzzy thinking.  One of the most difficult tasks I face in preparing a sermon is to get the final homiletic outline right -- that it is understandable, clear, uncluttered, and as comprehensive as possible to do justice to the truth being preached. So we must ask ourselves : We want people to think, as well as feel.  Many people just want to feel well without having to think well.  How do we preach so as to engage the minds ...

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.  (Malachi 4:1-2 ESV)  I have been reading the sermons (and other works) of Jonathan Edwards for many years now.  Recently, a group I meet with discussed “Christ the Spiritual Sun” (preached by JE in May, 1739) from Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742 (WJE Online Vol. 22), ed. Harry S. Stout.  As presenter at the meeting I sought to summarize several characteristics of Edwards’ sermons that I think we as preachers should emulate.  His preaching is Biblical preaching .  One thing I have learned from Jonathan Edwards, and others like him, is that a preacher has no authority apart...

"Marriage and family can easily become just a respectable form of selfishness... If we marry mainly to meet our own needs, then our marriages will be just that: good-looking masks for selfishness. It is a short step from 'loving you' to 'loving me and wanting you.' It is too easy for Christians to think of marriage as a discipleship-free zone. So that outside of marriage we talk about sacrifice, taking up our cross, and so on. But inside marriage we just talk about how to communicate better, how to be more intimate, how to have better sex, how to be happy." ~ Christopher Ash, Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be (Crossway, 2016).

"...that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us..." (Acts 17:27 ESV) "They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts..."  (Romans 2:15 ESV) "The alternative to the reality of deity is that people have made up the belief because their nature needs it. But this explanation contains within it a contradiction. For if people’s nature is solely the creation of their environment, as the atheist affirms, how does it come about that the real environment has created in humans a need which can only be satisfied by something which does not exist—a need so real and basic that no human race has existed without its fulfillment in religious belief? The environment has not done this for any other form of life. How are we to believe then that it should do so simply for human life?"  ~ Broughton Knox, The Everlasting God (Matthias Media, 2012)