Tuesday, January 08, 2008

What It Means to Hear and Be Influenced by Jonathan Edwards

Here are the closing summary statements from Josh Moody's book, The God-Centered Life: Insights from Jonathan Edwards for Today, pp. 183-184. Each point is expanded in the book.

1. To hear Edwards means to resist the temptation to dumb down church to an organization solely given over to marketing religion.

2. To hear Edwards means embracing a fully biblical understanding of revival.

3. To hear Edwards means refusing to limit our horizons narrowly to this local geographical space in which God has placed us, but lifting our eyes and our energy towards the global harvest of the gospel.

4. To hear Edwards means to develop a personal devotional life that is the intense, joyful, and beyond the normal expectations of our paper-thin contemporary piety.

5. To hear Edwards means avoiding iconic worship of Edwards himself, or any other human forebear, but accept their testimony to God himself.

6. To hear Edwards means to honor the institution of the family and, if married, to invest in our families as a primary arena for our godliness to be expressed.

7. To be influenced by Edwards may mean to have to face "strange providences" in our lives, unforeseen tragedies or surprises, and face them with confidence that God will bring good out of the situation.

8. To be influenced by Edwards means, above all, to live a life of worship in which, instead of worshipping our work, working at our play, and playing at our worship, we radically and truly understand that the greatest experience and joy of life is found in God and him alone.

For more on the book, see its website.