The Essential Jonathan Edwards

You've heard his name, you've probably heard your pastor quote him, but who is he really? 250 years later, Jonathan Edwards, America’s consummate pastor-theologian, continues to capture the attention of Christians around the world. Yet Edwards left us over 1,200 sermons and thousands of pages of other publications, not to mention the literal thousands of books that have been written about Edwards since he died. Where does one even begin? That’s why we created The Essential Jonathan Edwards. It serves as a perfect introduction to Edwards’s life and thought. It explores Edwards day-to-day life, and his views on beauty, true Christianity, heaven and hell, and the good life. Strachan and Sweeney strike the perfect balance between necessary background information and giving Edwards’s own works room to speak. Whether you’re an Edwards fan already or only know Edwards because of “that Angry God sermon,” this book will lead you to drink deeply of Scripture and gaze longingly at God.

This set includes all five books of The Essential Edwards Collection: Jonathan Edwards Lover of God, Jonathan Edwards On Beauty, Jonathan Edwards On Heaven and Hell, Jonathan Edwards On the Good Life, and Jonathan Edwards on True Christianity. Jonathan Edwards was a colonial, philosophical preacher and theologian. To many he stands as the preeminent theologian and thinker of the American tradition. This series of five books covers Edwards' life and major writings opening an accessible window into the heart and mind of the man credited for starting the First Great Awakening. By way of introduction, presentation and reflection, the authors unearth the choicest treasures of Edwards' writings for lay people to discover. Eminently readable and understandable, The Essential Edwards Collection proves you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy and benefit from the writings and life of Jonathan Edwards.

Beauty is hard to describe, but easy to identify. It resides in expected and unexpected places in our world. Beauty is present in our world in a variety of forms. Yet while the average person might think about the reality of beauty from time to time, few people would think about the source of beauty. Where does beauty come from? Why is it here? Several hundred years ago Jonathan Edwards did some thinking of his own on this difficult subject. This volume explores his meditation on the subject and lays out a Christian framework for understanding and experiencing the beauty God has planted in His world. Edwards found in the study of beauty the person of God. Where Edwards saw beautiful images and acts, he saw a representation, a small picture, of a reality too great to comprehend, a God too majestic to adequately adore. He sets in motion a path of glory that begins with the Lord, moves to creation, continues to the incarnation of Christ, moves to the church, and ascends to the glory of heaven, where the Holy Trinity dwells. Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.

The question of the afterlife is, for many today, one of preference. Christians trained to evangelize unsaved people with the query, “If you were to die today, do you know where you would go – heaven or hell?” have grown befuddled when met with the response, “I don’t believe in heaven or hell.” Something in our culture has changed. The ground has shifted beneath our feet. We did not feel it. But change has come, just the same. We must reacquaint modern Christians with the eschatologically driven preaching and teaching of Edwards. This word “eschatological” may trip some readers up at first encounter, but it refers simply to “last things”, things of eternity and ultimate significance. We exhume Edwards' scripturally fired material on the reality of the afterlife, the terror of hell, the glories of heaven, and the shape life must take in light of these realities. If we accept the Word as our authority, and if we will allow Edwards to serve as our faithful and imaginative guide, we will find that God is alive. He is Lord of heaven and earth, the sovereign ruler of all Creation. He is not small. He can be found. He is not silent on the afterlife, and His testimony calls for our attention, our concern, and our whole-hearted worship and trust. Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.

What is a true Christian? What is the church? Though these are fundamental questions they often go unanswered in our current evangelical context. Far too many pastors and thinkers celebrate the trappings of faith and the mere benefits of Christianity, ignoring the biblical testimony on true conversion that shouts from countless texts from Scripture. This has fed an age-old problem: nominal Christianity. Though Edwards is sometimes presented as a scourge, a mean-hearted parson who lived to belt out thunderous damnations, a careful study of the historical record and of Edwards’ writings shows that he was in fact a Christian man devoted to the cultivation of true and saving faith in a spiritually fickle people he tenaciously loved. The problem of noncommittal Christianity did not end with Edwards. It not only survives but thrives in the current day. In studying it then, we are studying ourselves. We see that nominal Christianity, a considerable challenge today, has historic roots. We need not face this problem alone, growing more discouraged by the day, flailing as we try method after method to address the problem. Instead, we can find solace, instruction, and encouragement from the biblically saturated life and ministry of Jonathan Edwards. Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.

What is the good life that we so often hear talk of in our modern age? Is it cars that drive fast, houses that resemble castles? Is it unbounded sexual pleasure, unrestrained personal gratification of all one’s desires? Is it quiet and solitude, individual removal from the storm and thunder of modern society? Or is it obedient Christian faith that causes spiritual corpses to burst forth with godly passion and holy worship that transforms one’s own life, one’s environment, and one’s eternal destiny? This other way of life proceeds from an ancient book that lifts life in this age and all mothers to another plane. This is the truly good life, the path plotted for the steps of mankind by almighty God. It involves sacrifice, and hardship, and hard work. It means self-denial, self-abasement, and an others-centered mindset. It is radically God-centered and deeply rooted in Scripture. This, and no other path, offers the souls of humanity lasting happiness. For Jonathan Edwards, submission to God and His will was the path to true fulfillment and the good life. Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.

Scholars and laypersons alike regard Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) as North America's greatest theologian. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards is the most comprehensive survey of his theology yet produced and the first study to make full use of the recently-completed seventy-three-volume online edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. The book's forty-five chapters examine all major aspects of Edwards's thought and include in-depth discussions of the extensive secondary literature on Edwards as well as Edwards's own writings. Its opening chapters set out Edwards's historical and personal theological contexts. The next thirty chapters connect Edwards's theological loci in the temporally-ordered way in which he conceptualized the theological enterprise-beginning with the triune God in eternity with his angels to the history of redemption as an expression of God's inner reality ad extra, and then back to God in eschatological glory.The authors analyze such themes as aesthetics, metaphysics, typology, history of redemption, revival, and true virtue. They also take up such rarely-explored topics as Edwards's missiology, treatment of heaven and angels, sacramental thought, public theology, and views of non-Christian religions. Running throughout the volume are what the authors identify as five basic theological constituents: trinitarian communication, creaturely participation, necessitarian dispositionalism, divine priority, and harmonious constitutionalism. Later chapters trace his influence on and connections with later theologies and philosophies in America and Europe. The result is a multi-layered analysis that treats Edwards as a theologian for the twenty-first-century global Christian community, and a bridge between the Christian West and East, Protestantism and Catholicism, conservatism and liberalism, and charismatic and non-charismatic churches.