Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word

Earlier this year I saw an interview that John Piper did of Rick Warren.  During the course of their conversation one thing that came up and stuck in my mind was their admiration for Jonathan Edwards (1702-1758), and their mutual opinion that his was perhaps the greatest mind, in any discipline, to emerge from America in the time since it was colonized by Europe.  My own exposure to Edwards’ work at that time was quite limited, consisting of reading one collection of his sermons.  Edwards was a preacher par excellence and his sermons are as powerful as any preacher of any age, from the apostle Paul onward.  His exposition was firmly grounded in the Bible, his explanation was clear and easily understood, and the application spoke to the concerns of our own time as well as his.

Those thoughts of Edwards’ were in mind as I began reading Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word by Douglas A. Sweeney, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).  Sweeney is a scholar who has written extensively on Edwards and is very familiar with both the vast body of work written by Edwards as well as the tremendous amount of literature written in the time since Edwards’ death about him and his work.  In this volume Sweeney’s task is not academic but eminently practical, providing “a state-of-the-art discussion of his life in order to use him as a model of Christian faith, thought and ministry.” (17)  Sweeney does this by briefly reviewing each major stage of Edwards’ life, not merely as biography but also with one eye on the Bible, showing its role in shaping all parts of Edwards’ ministry.

Sweeney begins with an introduction to the world in which Edwards grew up, demonstrating similarities and points of difference between his world and our own time.  One main difference was the place that the church had in society and the relative familiarity that the average person may have had with the contents of the Bible.  Another difference was in regard to college education.  Sweeney estimates that in early 18^th century New England roughly 1 in 1,000 people, (presumably all men) had a college education and that most of those so educated received education for the purpose of going into the ministry. 

Edwards was born into a preacher’s family and began to prepare for that profession at an early age.  His father was a pastor and so was his maternal grandfather and he began studying Latin at home at age 6.  His parents must have been a bit more open-minded about educating women than my own great-grandfather was, because Edwards’ ten sisters were all taught Latin, while my grandmother and her sisters were forbidden from attending high school.  Edwards entered Yale at age 13 and graduated at 17.  Over the next six years he completed a master’s degree, was a tutor at Yale, and served briefly as pastor of two small congregations.  At the age of 23 he was called to be an associate pastor of the church in Northampton, MA, serving alongside his grandfather for three years, and then as the congregation’s only pastor for 21 years.

Throughout his pastorate Edwards preached three times a week.  He spent much time studying the Bible and was passionate in bringing forth its truth in the lives of his church members.  He believed the Bible was the essential lens for viewing the entire world, writing “all that is visible to the eye is unintelligible and vain, without the Word of God to instruct and guide the mind.” (92)  Sweeney explains that “for Edwards, God’s Word and Spirit illuminate our worldly wisdom, rendering our knowledge more clear, beautiful and real than ever before.” (93)  For the Christian, this knowledge and use of the Bible remains of critical importance, as we live in a world that is both fallen and soaked in sin and yet also under the lordship of the resurrected Christ.  Writing this morning of the human problem with evil, Paul Tripp said “Evil doesn't always look evil, and sin often looks so good---this is part of what makes it so bad. In order for sin to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil.”  Only the Bible exposes evil and reveals our only possible redemption from it.  Speaking of Christ, John 1:4-5 says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

One of the central points of Edwards preaching and teaching was that union with Christ is essential to the act of salvation.  Salvation is more than a verbal “yes” to God’s offered redemption.  In saying “yes” to God we are joined to Christ and filled by the Holy Spirit.  Ephesians 1:13-15 says, “In him [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”  As a result of our assent to God’s invitation “the Holy Spirit inhabits our bodies, reorients our souls by uniting them with Christ, lets us share in the Lord’s righteousness and bears fruit in our lives.” (117)  Today there is a renewed emphasis on the idea of union with Christ and its importance in strengthening our faith as we serve Christ in the world.  Just last month J. Todd Billings and Robert Letham each published a book on this topic, both of which were reviewed by The Gospel Coalition. (Disclaimer: I studied systematic theology with Dr. Billings.)

Despite the high view that Piper and Warren hold of Edwards, those feelings were not held by the members of his congregation, which removed him as their pastor in 1750.  What was perhaps his congregation’s loss was of great benefit to the Christian world, both then and now.  Freed from the responsibilities of preaching and congregational care with a large church, both of which he dearly loved, he eventually landed a position as pastor of a mission to the Native Americans in Stockbridge, MA.  Sweeney shares many details of Edwards’ service in Stockbridge that demonstrates that he was truly and deeply involved in ministry there, including extensive advocacy on behalf of his Native American congregation.

Stockbridge was also the place where Edwards could devote sufficient time to a number of writing projects he had sketched out earlier.  These include his major theological works, Freedom of the Will, Original Sin, and Two Dissertations: I. Concerning the End for Which God Created the World. II. The Nature of True Virtue, as well as many other writings. 

One thought that was persistently present in Edwards ministry was the idea of “spiritual affections,” or the idea that those who call themselves Christian should lead lives that are changed and are different in noticeable ways from the non-Christians they may live among.  Conversion to Christ was more than something spoken once and then forgotten but was to be embodied in life.  Sweeney describes Edwards theology on conversion this way: “…God is real and vitally active in our world, that he designed us to cooperate in his kingdom purposes, and that we need his Spirit to do so” adding later “There is such a thing as conversion, Edwards recited ceaselessly, a divine and supernatural light available to us even now. It can show you divine truth.  It can liberate your will from self-destructive inclinations.  It can help you find fulfillment in the things that truly satisfy.  It can put you in touch with God, save your soul and make your daily life exciting and important.” (164)

In early 1758 Edwards was appointed to the position of President of the school that would become Princeton University.  His presidency was short-lived, as he died from complications of a smallpox vaccination two months after taking office. 

In his closing chapter Sweeney presents seven theses that modern readers of Edwards can use to understand and apply his theology in their own settings.  I will touch just briefly on three of these.  Theses 1 and 2 are “Edwards shows us the importance of working to help people gain a vivid sense, an urgent impression, of God’s activity in our world” and Edwards shows us that true religion is primarily a matter of holy affections.”  In my mind these two ideas are closely linked.  God is alive and active today.  He is not some remote, absent being who started the world and left it run until its battery goes dead.  This living God has called, and continues to call, people to himself, and those who are called should manifest his presence in their lives.  Their lives should bring “salt and light” to the world.

And thesis 7 is “Edwards shows us the necessity of remaining in God’s Word.”  While on the one hand it may seem patently obvious that the Christian should do this, nearly every person who walks a Christian life with intentionality can look back and see times in their life when they began to stray from the path, and they know that those were times when they were not continually taking in God’s Word.

Sweeney’s book is short, 200 pages, and does not require advanced theological education to understand.  It is thoroughly footnoted, to guide the interested reader to a deeper understanding of Edwards’ theology.  It has whet my appetite to read more deeply of what has come from Edwards’ pen.  Edwards was a prolific author, writing long-hand a body of work that most of us would find daunting to even consider.  Two excellent places to read his work, without spending any money, are the CCEL and the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale. 

Reading the collection of Edwards’ sermons that I noted earlier has shaped my own preaching, for the better.  I am glad for Sweeney’s overview of Edwards’ life of ministry, as it reminds me of the importance of grounding ministry biblically and theologically on an ongoing basis, and it gives me a taste for a pastor and theologian, who in the words of Hebrews 11:4b, “And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”

Come of Age

Maybe you became a Christian after hearing the Good News of Jesus and choosing to respond to him.  Perhaps God powerfully grabbed a hold of you and compelled you to believe the Gospel.  Or maybe you are a Christian because you have always been one, neither remembering a time when you weren’t one or being able to imagine the possibility that you could not believe.  Maybe you came to Christ in some other manner.  Or maybe you are still on the fence, unsure what to make of Jesus.  No matter how you may have come by the label of “Christian,” nearly all who claim it would agree with the idea that it is not merely something you are, but it is also an identity that calls you to grow within it.  Growth as a Christian is the subject of Angus Buchan’s Come of Age: The Road to Spiritual Maturity. (2011: Monarch Books; 382 pp).

Buchan is from South Africa, where for over 30 years he has been both a farmer and an evangelist.  I had never heard of him before reading this book but apparently he is very well-known in his home country and he has also traveled widely through Africa, England and Australia.  He has founded a men’s ministry that started small but in 10 year’s time drew about 200,000 men to its rally in 2009.  It is the 2009 rally that serves as the jumping-off point for Come of Age. 

The typical pattern of the rally is to have worship on Friday evening and twice Saturday, with men only, and then to have wives and families join the closing session on Sunday.  In 2009 Buchan fell ill shortly before he was scheduled to preach on Saturday and was airlifted to a hospital.  While he appeared to have one, and possibly two, heart attacks, he was released from the hospital and able to preach for the final event on Sunday, with no medical evidence of any damage to his heart.  He was 61 years old at the time but this event brought to him an acute awareness of the brevity of human life and the need for him to live as a mature Christian and to call other Christians to maturity as well, hence the title, Come of Age.

In the first chapter Buchan writes of the 2009 rally and his heart attack and the way that it caused him to take a new look at his life and his ministry.  After that he writes topically, touching on many aspects in which a believer in Jesus can grow as a person of faith.  Some chapters are brief and some are longer but all are easy to read and not weighed down with sophisticated theology.  Buchan started out as a farmer and in the shift to becoming an evangelist and mentor he has remained eminently practical.  One of his strengths is that he has a deep love for both his Savior and for the Bible, something that is evident on nearly every page.  He longs for people to come to faith, for people to see God at work in their lives, and then to share that knowledge with others.

While I sincerely believe that his heart is in the right place it seems as if his passion occasionally clouds his view and subtly subverts his intended goal of spiritual maturity.  An example is the chapter addressing marriage, where he rightly points out the ways in which at its best Christian marriage points us to the joy Christians will know in heaven.  On a Saturday at one rally five men felt so convicted of the error of their lifestyle, i.e. living with women while not being married to them, that they asked Buchan to marry them at the Sunday morning worship, a request that he complied with.  It struck me that as a mature Christian it may have better to counsel the young men to change their living arrangements, and then guide them to prayerfully seek God’s will about the relationship.  As mature Christians we should learn to wait upon the Lord, rather than to shape our lifestyles to fit what we presume to be the shape that is most pleasing to God.

As I read the book I found that I increasingly liked Buchan and his passion for the Gospel but that the guidance he was offering was fairly superficial.  Spiritual maturity is something that all Christians should strive for when they come to faith and it should be the place where they live until they are called to join the Lord in heaven.  The Bible calls this process discipleship and Jesus commanded it of his followers, saying in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” True maturity as a Christian benefits from several things.  One of them is intentionality and another is community, and I mean community not in the sense of those people that one worships with each week but a small group that regularly meets for the purposes of growth and accountability.

Early in my life as a Christian God led me to such a group and we used a number of things to shape our activity together.  One of these was a covenant, which we wrote together to give a meaningful shape to our group time each week.  The covenant kept us “on track,” reminding us of our purpose and reducing the likelihood that our time together would degenerate to wandering, instead of following a path to a destination.

Another thing our group regularly used were books written to guide spiritual formation.  While Buchan correctly points out that to be a Christian means to be intentional in growth, there are many books available that do a better job than his of engaging minds and hearts as they follow the Lord.  Some veteran authors of this genre that I have read and recommend are Beth Moore, Jerry Bridges, Paul Tripp and Eugene Peterson.  A visit to a Christian bookstore will provide a number of others.  One thing Come of Age has done is to whet my appetite to pick up a book by one of the authors listed that I’ve read before and see how it speaks freshly into my life today.  And also to read it with an eye to the clearest source of spiritual wisdom the God has given us, the Bible. 

Heaven is for Real

Imagine being the parent of a 4 year-old who has survived a medical crisis in which your child was critically ill, to the edge of death, and then survived.  As time unfolds after this emergency the child lets out bits and pieces of information that appear to be a first-hand account of a trip to heaven, a trip that happened as his earthly life appeared to be fading away.  Such a parent is Todd Burpo, who is also a husband, small business owner, community volunteer, and pastor, and whose young son, Colton, is the witness to the story underlying Heaven is for Real. 

Frankly, I was skeptical when I first heard of the book and had the opportunity to read it.  I’m a Protestant Christian, firmly grounded in the theology of the Reformation.  Luther, Calvin and Augustine all believed in heaven.  So did Paul and John the Evangelist.  Jesus believed in heaven too, and if the one I call Lord and Savior believed it, then I will as well.  So of course heaven is for real.  What could I learn from this book that I did not already know from reading The Book? 

On the other hand, I don’t think that my understanding of heaven, which is grounded in my intellect, and its promise of eternal peace in the presence of God, which is firmly embedded in my heart, is the same understanding of heaven that is found in many of our churches or more broadly through American culture.  There seems to be a hunger for knowledge of heaven, or at least a market for that knowledge.  In addition to Heaven is for Real, which I understand to have sold very well, other recent titles are 90 Minutes in Heaven, The Boy Who came Back from Heaven, a refutation titled Heaven is for Real: The Book that Isn’t, as well as a purportedly first-hand account of heaven’s opposite, 23 Minutes in Hell.  So I re-thought my initial position and read this book, for the primary purpose of understanding popular theology and how it may be used as an entry to guiding people to deeper theological truth, the kind of truth that sustains you in the very difficult circumstances that Todd Burpo and his family found themselves in when Colton became ill.

Colton’s story and the knowledge that he learned of heaven unfolds slowly, in small pieces.  First is an incident several months after his illness, where in the firm way in which he expresses his understanding of salvation, albeit in the language of a 4 year-old, (i.e. Jesus has to be in your heart), along with his persistent manner of talking of Jesus in the present tense, that causes Todd, and his wife, Sonja, to suspect that their son may have experienced a supernatural trip to heaven and back.  Over time they tease out details, being very intentional not to ask questions that lead to predictable answers but to let Colton answer in an open-ended manner.  Much of what Colton reports are the kinds of things that the Bible supports directly, or that may be reasonably inferred.  An example of the former is Jesus’ delight in children, while the latter comes in Colton’s description of the vast beauty found in heaven, including the presence of colors that can’t be imagined by those living on earth but could very possibly exist in the dwelling of the divine presence.  One factor that adds credence to Colton’s reports of heaven is that while his information is consistent with the Bible they are not the kinds of things that are taught to 4 year-olds in Sunday school. 

Eventually Colton describes two people he met in heaven, which for his parents is certain evidence that his account is true.  One person is his grandfather, who had been dead for many years.  To verify this Todd shows Colton a number of pictures of the grandfather, but the only one where he recognizes him in is one from his younger adulthood. This also suggests to Todd that the bodies we will have in heaven will be the ones we would consider to be in our physical prime.  Additionally, the news that the grandfather is in heaven eases several minds.  Knowledge of the grandfather’s attendance at a revival meeting shortly before his death, and his confession of faith there, is not widely known and learning that he is in heaven is greeted by his family with great relief.

The other person he meets is his older sister, an unnamed child of Todd and Sonja who was lost in a miscarriage.  Colton appears to have no way of possibly knowing of the existence of this child until he encounters her in heaven.  The experience of losing their baby was a wrenching one, on a level of emotional and spiritual pain that I have never personally known, and quite naturally the Burpo’s find some peace knowing that their grief, and their child, has been held by God all along. 

In the final analysis I find the premise of Colton’s story wanting.  A young boy goes to heaven, comes back, and shares his experience there with his family, and then the world.  But for what purpose?  As Todd tells Colton’s story it seems to me that the story continually points back at us.  We learn of the beauty of heaven.  We are reassured by the people who are present there.  We even get a glimpse of the final battle between the forces of good and evil, learning that all those present in heaven will have a role in it.  Do any of the things that are in Colton’s story really prepare us for heaven?  Do they spark and deepen our desire to be there?

In the Bible there are several first-hand accounts of the experience of heaven.  They are all relatively brief, particularly when compared to the number of books that have been written recently on the subject.  The key texts that come to my mind are from 2 Corinthians 12, Isaiah 6 and the Revelation of John.

In his letter to the church at Corinth Paul writes of knowing of a person who was taken up to heaven, saying in 12:3-4 “And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”   Paul does not dwell on the knowledge that might be gleaned from hearing a first-person report of heaven but instead considers this to be knowledge that should be kept private, something that is not intended to be shared.

Isaiah’s experience is a bit different, as he tells of being in the very presence of God, where he heard God’s voice and beheld his glory.  What stands out in Isaiah’s account is not what formerly living persons he may have seen or the beauty that we might expect in heaven, but a very real sense of his own unworthiness as a sinner in the presence of a holy God.  And God’s response to Isaiah’s confession was to provide forgiveness.  In v. 7 Isaiah hears “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”  In his vision of heaven Isaiah experiences first-hand God’s grace.

And in his Revelation, John the Evangelist gives perhaps the broadest biblical account of heaven, providing several brief sketches of the people present, the physical splendor, and what I consider to be most important, the activity of heaven.  In John’s telling, heaven is indeed beautiful in ways that are beyond our merely human imaginations.  And there are a great many people there, all of whom “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14)  But more importantly than the place and the people is what the people are doing.  They are engaged in worship.  They are gathered around the throne of God, praising him as they exclaim “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10)

As the book title proclaims, heaven is indeed for real.  God has given us testimony to that fact in the Bible, with enough detail that we can look forward to the time when God will call us to the very place where we will eternally dwell with him.  Books such as this one, and the many others in a similar vein, may make us feel good but they don’t really seem, to me, to be able to deepen our faith.  Reading such books is not likely to encourage us to love God, to serve God, or to long for God, in a way that proclaims his kingdom and his glory in the world in which we live.  Reading God’s word will do this, and in addition it will remind us of his covenant promise to always hold us, through life’s deepest and most painful moments, until the time of his choosing, when he will bring his children to the only place where they are truly home.  Heaven is for real and it is all in God’s hands.  Thanks be to God.