New.Demonstration
- Random Quote
Which of you, having a slave plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, “Go and sit down to eat?” and will not rather say unto him, “Make ready that I may eat, and gird yourself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward you shall eat and drink”? Does he thank that slave because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, “We are unprofitable slaves: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
— , Luke 17:7-10
Don’t get your vision of God secondhand.
Don’t even let Edwards or Packer be your primary source of divinity. This was the example Edwards himself sets for us. His early biographer Sereno Dwight said that when he came to his pastorate in Northampton, “he had studied theology, not chiefly in systems or commentaries, but in the Bible, and in the character and mutual relations of God and his creatures, from which all its principles are derived”1.
Edwards once preached a sermon entitled “The Importance and Advantage of a thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth.” In it he said, “Be assiduous [!] in reading the Holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected.”2
And he set an amazing example in his own diligence in studying the Bible itself. I was out at Yale’s Beinecke library last October where Edwards’ unpublished works are stored. They took me down to the lower level and into a little room where two or three men were working on old manuscripts with microscopes and special lighting. I was allowed to see some of Edwards’ sermon manuscripts (including “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) and his catalogue of reading, and his interleaved Bible.
He had taken a big Bible apart page by page and inserted a blank sheet of paper between each page and resewn the book together. Then he drew a line down the center of each blank page in order to make two columns for notes. On page after page in the remotest parts of Scripture there were extensive notes and reflections in his tiny almost illegible handwriting.
I think there is reason to believe that Edwards really did follow through on his 28th resolution while he was at Yale.
Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
I find this resolution to be a rebuke, and a great incentive to take stock in my pastoral priorities and my reading priorities. 2 Peter 3:18 [show] But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (ESV)
says, “Grow in the . . . knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So Edwards resolved to study the Bible so “steadily and constantly and frequently” that he could see growth.
How many of us have a plan for growing in our grasp of the whole terrain of Scripture? Don’t most of us use the Bible as a source for getting sermons and devotionals and personal devotional help? But do we labor over the Scripture in such a way that we can plainly see that today we understand something in it that we did not understand yesterday?
I fear that many of us work at reading books on theology and church life with a view to growing, but have no plan and no sustained effort to move steadily and constantly forward in our understanding of the Bible. Edwards’ second exhortation is, this ought not to be so.
Study the Bible so steadily and constantly and frequently that you can clearly perceive yourself to grow in them.
—The Pastor as Theologian: Reflections on the Life and Ministry of Jonathan Edwards, a sermon delivered on April 15, 1988 by John Piper at the 1988 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors.
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Read the whole of this most Christ exalting sermon on the apprehension of a greater and more glorious vision of God in our own personal lives, in ministry and in Christian living in general off the life of Jonathan Edwards, here. This sermon on Mr. Edwards’ life, divinity, and ministry has been a great rebuke and help to me. It is my hope and prayer that you would be far more blessed than I have in your reading or listening to this sermon. You can download it here also in mp3.