Category Archives: Jot’s Bookshelf

I just finished reading The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards by Steven J. Lawson. It took me a while to read this relatively short book. I wanted to read it slowly and really think about what I was reading.

I was first introduced to Edwards when I was a junior in high school. I had to read his famous sermon Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God in my American Literature class. I wonder if they would still include that sermon in a classic American literature books anymore? My teacher assigned it for us to read and assigned a paper in which we were to give our thoughts about Edwards’ sermon. I wonder why he assigned that paper?

I was a student of Robert Schuller, so to speak, at the time. My view of God was one of hearts and flowers and everything thing cuddly and bunny-like in the world. I gave very little thought to justice, judgement, eternal damnation, and such; although I did believe hell existed. I just couldn’t comprehend any thoughts of God that included anger as one of his attributes. I guess I thought hell existed for the really stubborn or bone-headed people whose free will would resist God till the bitter end.

And so I raked Mr. Edwards’ sermon over the coals. I wrote a scathing paper vehemently denying everything in what I viewed at the time as a most hateful sermon. I can’t remember what grade I got on the paper. I guess it doesn’t matter now. Hopefully it rests in some landfill rotting away.

Years later, when I finally chucked my youthful naiveté about God and sought to understand both his grace and justice more fully, I let go of my bias toward Edwards and other Puritan pastors. I eventually stumbled across the Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings website and found a treasure trove of solid biblical teaching.

A few years ago I read Marriage To A Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards by Elisabeth D. Dodds. Ms. Dodds focused on Sarah Edwards life in this biography. It is slightly biased against the Edwards in a few places. I found myself disagreeing with Ms. Dodds on the points she seemed critical of the Edwards. I came away with even more respect for this brilliant man and his wife. Their legacy alone is a testimony of their time well spent here on earth. And by legacy I don’t mean just the sermons and other writings but their children and grandchildren that came after them. God’s Word says that children are a heritage or legacy from the Lord. This legacy of the time and effort they put into the lives of their many children is attested by the number of productive individuals that were born from their lineage years later. I found this quote on this website:

In 1900, A. E. Winship studied what happened to 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah by the year 1900. He found they included 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians and a dean of a medical school, and 80 holders of public office, including three US Senators, mayors of three large cities, governors of three states, a Vice-President of the United States, and a controller of the United States Treasury. They had written over 135 books and edited eighteen journals and periodicals. Many had entered the ministry. Over 100 were missionaries and others were on mission boards. Winship wrote:

“Many large banks, banking houses, and insurance companies have been directed by them. They have been owners or superintendents of large coal mines… of large iron plants and vast oil interests… and silver mines…. There is scarcely any great American industry that has not had one of this family among its chief promoters….”

Dodds updated book  with a forward by John and Noel Piper held the same accounts as the ones stated above but with the addition of the lineage of a contemporary of Edwards. I can’t recall the man’s name but he was a drunkard and scoundrel. His lineage didn’t fare as well as Edwards did. (I cannot look up the name of the man in my copy of the book because I loaned it to a woman who doesn’t like me. She asked to borrow the book and I lent it to her hoping to bridge the gap between us. Obviously it didn’t work and she has kept my book to this day. For all I know she could have burned it, stuck pins in it and used it as a voodoo doll, or used it as an altered book. Whatever the case it is no longer in my possession.)

And so I have just read the book by Mr. Lawson which dealt mainly with Jonathan Edwards’ seventy resolutions and portions of his journal. It left me wanting to know even more about Mr. Edwards. It seems he struggled with many of the same issues I struggle with, mainly the assurance of salvation. He was very concerned about that. He understood God’s grace, mercy, and justice very well. He also understood the depravity of man very well and how one’s heart can be deceived by oneself very easily as Jeremiah 17:9 states. I find it interesting that verses such as this impacted him in much the same way they have impacted me. He wondered if he might be fooling himself to thinking he was regenerate while actually he may not be.

He took his spiritual life and duties very seriously. Something that overall seems to be lacking in our American Christianized culture today. Too often it seems like people are urged to just not worry about their spiritual state before God. Did you say this sweet little prayer and get baptized, they will ask. If you did all is well with your soul, they will sooth. Meanwhile church goers walk in darkness such as 1 John speaks of and expect to go to heaven at the end of the day when 1 John says explicitly they will not. This lax attitudes disturbs me greatly in the church.

I was so inspired by Edwards’ resolutions and journal that I have decided to keep a journal again, something I haven’t done in a very long while. I am also thinking about doing resolutions pf my own in another notebook. I think mine won’t be as formal as his were but a bit more relaxed in writing style. In the meantime, I’m recommending this book by Lawson to anyone who loves the writings of Jonathan Edwards or those who would like to read him for the first time.