Read Some Edwards This Summer…

If you are looking for some summer reading, add some Jonathan Edwards to your list…

Sermons

Perhaps you read his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” back in high school English class (as I did in Charlotte, NC). I’d suggest that you return to it, reading it this time with the eyes of faith. Another convicting sermon I’d suggest reading is “Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer.” More sermons can be found here and here.

Charity and Its Fruits: Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life (online here). Edwards sermons on 1 Cor. 13. They culminate in the beautiful final sermon, “Heaven, A World of of Charity or Love.”

Theological Treatises

The Religious Affections (online here). Edwards answers these questions: “What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are in favor with God, and entitled to his eternal rewards? Or, which comes to the same thing, What is the nature of true religion? And wherein do lie the distinguishing notes of that virtue and holiness that is acceptable in the sight of God?”

The Freedom of the Will (online here). This treatise is Edwards’ statement on human free will. How is the will of man free? “A man never, in any instance, wills anything contrary to his desires, or desires anything contrary to his will.”

Other Books

The Life and Diary of the Reverend David Brainerd (online here). This book, compiled and edited by Jonathan Edwards, is the journal of David Brainerd, a godly young man who was a missionary to the American Indians. His piety and affection toward God are a challenge to our luke-warm hearts.

Books about Edwards

Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography by Iain Murray. Virtually everything Murray writes is worth reading–this is no exception.

Revival & Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858 by Iain Murray. This book works through the history of the Great Awakenings, comparing and contrasting the First, which involved Edwards, and the Second. After reading R&R you will understand the American Evangelical landscape better than you did before.

Websites

Desiring God: Jonathan Edwards. Piper stole most everything he preaches from Edwards.

The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. They keep up with everything Edwardsian and publish his complete works.

 

Wifely Wednesday: Dear Diary…

I haven’t written in a diary for years, but when I did, I would be so repulsed by what I had written that I would inevitably tear out pages and burn or shred them. The only journals I haven’t destroyed are those which didn’t chronicle my feelings, but which recorded what I was praying about, what I was thanking God for, and what I was reading in the Bible. I have often puzzled about my inability to keep a diary, and was thrilled recently when I picked up Elisabeth Elliot’s Passion and Purity (a book I haven’t read for years) and read the following paragraph, which put words to my jumbled thoughts.

I was very cautious about what I put in the journals. I don’t think it was because I feared someone else would discover my secrets. I think I was afraid to articulate, even for myself, feelings I might have to get rid of. Better to stick with what God was saying to me than what my heart was saying. It seemed the safer course. I do not repudiate it now. The only way to build a house on the rock is to “hear” the Word (I couldn’t have heard it if all I listened to was my feelings) and then try to do it.

Now you might expect me to say at this point that I have given up journaling forever. However, I’ve actually been thinking lately that it’s time to buy a fresh composition book, find my favorite pen, and start up again. But I think I will take the Puritan model for my method this time. The Puritans were great ones for keeping diaries. But theirs were mostly focused on recording the providence of God, thanks for God’s provision, specific answers to their prayers, how God was working out their personal sanctification, and Scripture passages that were working on their hearts. They wanted to have a memorial to God’s goodness, much like those made with piles of stones by the Israelites. It would be a great encouragement to be able to open an old diary and call to memory the myriad workings of God’s providence in my life over the years. I have forgotten much more than I can remember. And what a great exercise it would be for me to record some new thanksgiving each morning. Those would be diaries I would be happy to have my children read when I die, because they wouldn’t be about me, they would be about God.

~Sarah Dionne

Wifely Wednesday: A Case of Bad Priorities

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Most of us have probably been in a Bible study or heard sermons which discuss how we are tempted to put other things in the place that God alone deserves. I’m sure we could quickly come up with our own personal list of those things which creep into our hearts and turn them away from the worship of God, or those things which we spend so much energy and strength on that our worship is weak. These temptations are usually very attractive on the outside, seducing us by the pleasure they offer. Money, Health, Relationships, Recreation, Entertainment, etc.

Recently, however, I realized that there is another way I am tempted to put something else in God’s place. And unlike those seemingly beautiful things which would lure me away from God, this particular temptation is not attractive at all. It goes by many names: Worry, Concern, Frustration, Anxiety, Disappointment, etc. Just a few days ago the Lord helped me to see that a difficult situation He has placed us in had taken so much of my attention and emotional energy that I had elevated it to an idolatrously high position. The situation that was simply a problem had become my “Precious.” Through worry and disappointment, I had given this problem too much affection, allowing it to move into my heart, dampen my spirit, and sap the strength that should have been the Lord’s alone. It never occurred to me that something I wouldn’t necessarily choose to go through, something I would never say I love, could cause me to disobey Deuteronomy 6:5.

I am learning to remember that difficulties are never bigger than God, and they don’t deserve my heart, soul, or strength. In fact, my problems should drive me to love God even more, knowing that He is my only source of comfort. “I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 16:8

~Sarah Dionne

 

Tuesday Tour of Links

Five Reasons You Should Go to Your Local Abortion Mill by RC Sproul Jr. The nearest clinic to our church is in Greenville and has been slaughtering children since 1976. You can legally kill your child for around $500 at the Greenville Women’s Clinic. We should be there…

Monergism. If you have searched online for any theological writings, Google undoubtedly has taken you to monergism.com. It is a treasure trove of good, Reformed resources.

Should We Give To Beggars? by Pastor Joseph Bayly. That’s a good question. The answer he gives is yes–but the challenge comes in giving goods instead of cash. This sort of effort is more difficult but would be caring for Jesus (Matthew 25:40). If you are uncomfortable with handing out cash, thinking it could be used to fuel addictions, carry around a few $5 gift cards in your wallet.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. This classic is a must-read book for understanding our culture. Here’s one gem from it:

The distance between rationality and advertising is now so wide that it is difficult to remember that there once existed a connection between them. Today, on television commercials, propositions are as scarce as unattractive people. The truth or falsity of an advertiser’s claim is simply not an issue. A McDonald’s commercial, for example, is not a series of testable, logically ordered assertions. It is a drama — a mythology, if you will — of handsome people selling, buying and eating hamburgers, and being driven to near ecstasy by their good fortune. No claims are made, except those the viewer projects onto or infers from the drama. One can like or dislike a television commercial, of course. But one cannot refute it.

Indeed, we may go this far: the television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products.

 

Wifely Wednesday: Could’ve Been So Beautiful

I have a “could’ve been” story. It goes like this: I could’ve been an opera singer, living in Germany or some other glamorous location. That’s what I was educated for, anyway. But here I am, driving my 12 passenger van and homeschooling my small brood of children! That’s my “could’ve been” story. Do you have one?

Now I will be the first person to tell you that I thank God for my educational history, since it put me in the right place to meet my husband and to sit under our pastor’s transforming preaching. God was very kind to lead me down that path. Yet there are pitfalls in whipping out my “could’ve been” story, or in sharing other women’s “could’ve been” stories.

I often hear conservative, Christian women pointing out the wives and mothers in our communities who could have been brilliant scientists, concert pianists, or lawyers. We like to say, “See So & So over there? She has a PhD, but now she stays home with 8 children!” Now, to be fair, I believe that we do this with good intentions. I think our goal is to bring honor to our calling as wives and mothers in a world where these jobs are often seen as undesirable. Our logic is that if a woman is capable of doing something else well, but gives it up to be a wife and mother, then being a wife and mother must really be glorious. But the fact is, doing what God calls us to do is good and glorious without the need for comparing it to what the world values. To use the world’s ideas of success as a benchmark for the value of being a helpmate and a mother is like gilding the proverbial lily.

Brushing Crayola poster paint over the Mona Lisa.

Squirting Cheese Whiz on herbed havarti.

Hanging fuzzy dice in a Jaguar.

~Sarah Dionne

Tuesday Tour of Links

It’s my hope to do a weekly run of links to articles that piqued my interest. Some of these links will be theological and pastoral, some will be nifty stuff I stumbled across. I’ll generally add a bit of commentary to each link…

Are Males the New Second Sex? As the feminist agenda redefines our culture, fatherhood and masculinity are disparaged. It is the one safe place to heap on ridicule without the nags of society getting offended. This article doesn’t offer any good solutions, but, of course, the Scriptures have answers, all of which center on men imaging forth the Fatherhood of God (see next link).

Father-Hunger. Pastor Doug Wilson’s recently published book, Father-Hunger: Why God Calls Men To Love and Lead Their Families, goes a long way in offering solutions to the fatherlessness of our society and churches (I’m about 80% through my first read). He writes, “Our understanding of fathers, and our subsequent understanding of everything else, cannot be put right until we rediscover the Father” (3). The original link is to a series of sermons he has been preaching on the topic.

Gap Issues (ClearNote Church Bloomington). Another link on fatherhood…and the issues of the day. Each day and age has its particular battles to fight, and faithful men must be found fighting on those fronts. Today, our culture and her elites are attempting to destroy Scripture’s teaching on anthropology. A faulty view of man and who God made us to be distorts our views of the sanctity of life, sex, sexuality, headship and submission, and fatherhood.

Some Standing Here Will Not Taste Death—The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology. Ever wonder what Jesus meant when He said, “‘For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to His deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom’” (Matthew 16:27-28)? This link provides a possible explanation.

How much water is there on earth? Not much…but way more than Mars. A visual representation.

Wifely Wednesday: Pressing On

As I type this I’m watching a rather tense drama unfold outside my front window. A little Titmouse couple built a nest over the light that hangs above our front door. Not the wisest of moves on their part. Not only do we keep that light on all night long, but we are constantly going in and out the front door during the day.  Even worse, the top of the light slopes downward and is not a stable spot for a pile of twigs to rest. So it was no surprise to look out the door this morning and see the nest smashed to the ground. The baby birds are still too small to fly, and are tottering around the front walk. Mama Bird is frantic, flitting about trying to help. I wonder how long it will be before our cat finds the babies. I wonder if the hot sun will take them. I wonder if the UPS man will step on them. I wonder if maybe, against all odds, the mother will be able to protect and feed them until they are big enough to take off by themselves. It’s a rather dismal scene.

And yet…in the middle of it, I am impressed with Mama Bird’s tenacity. She (and presumably Papa Bird) made a bad choice, building the nest in a precarious place. And because of it, her babies’ lives are at stake. Yet she doesn’t despair, give them up for loss, or sit by and watch as nature, “red in tooth and claw,” claims its victims. Instead she is doing what she can to rectify the situation – to protect and provide. Right now she is divebombing the large jays that are grazing on seeds too close to her babies. She screams and flies at them, even though they are double her size. And if we so much as stand by the door to look out the screen, she scolds us loudly, warning that we better not come one step closer. It might be her fault that those babies are on the ground, but she is not giving up just yet.

Now you know I’m going to turn this all into a metaphor for parenthood, and here goes: I frequently build nests in the wrong places, only to have them crash to the ground and send my children spilling out into danger. For example, I sin by snapping at my kids and they imitate me by yelling at each other. Or instead of disciplining my child for rolling his eyes I repeatedly ignore it and he becomes rebellious. Or I park my kids in front of a dumb movie and they learn a coarse word or, worse yet, a sinful attitude. All of this is bad. But what is even worse is that I often don’t deal with my mistakes and the consequences that they have on my children. Sometimes, I don’t want to admit that their sin was learned from me, so I overlook it. After all, to really root it out of their lives would require me to root it out of my own life as well. Sometimes, I’m just too lazy to roll up my sleeves and deal with long-overlooked discipline problems. After all, it’s much easier to write it off as a personality trait in my child. Sometimes, I don’t want to take the blame for letting in sin via an outside source (television, a movie, a song, etc.) because guilt is just painful. After all, they would learn it eventually in the real world…

But God does not call us to work this way. He calls us to repent and move forward. Books could be written on the subject of how to persevere after we have sinned and see the consequences of our sin. But to put things simply, we are to follow the words of Philippians 3:13-14. “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” So we clean up the smashed nest, gather our little ones close, and press on in the grace of our gracious Redeemer.

~Sarah Dionne