Best of Jonathan Edwards

What else would you expect from the famous preacher (1703-1758) who keeps rocking the church with his best known sermon, SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD? It was the subject of final Jeopardy! on 1/17/07 and all three contestants nailed the question. I liked that a lot, but not the notion of Jonathan Edwards as a cranky old Puritan. Who wants to be a one-dimensional character or some sort of caricature? His writings reveal a warm pastoral heart and a first-rate intellect. I loved getting better acquainted with this true man of God and found his "hard sayings" easier to digest than Christ's. If the church wants to be relevant in this culture of dumbed-down "spirituality," it had better recover a biblical fear of God. In response to Edwards' piece on "God hates Sin" on page 116, I wrote, "This is a tough cut of meat to chew on. I fully agree with the basic premise that Jesus Christ must be my First Love and that His Atonement speaks volumes - far tougher than this! - about God's hatred of sin. Yet God loves the sinner enough to woo and warn him and grace would not have me walk on egg shells." Jonathan Edwards fosters the "old-fashioned" self-examination promoted by Psalm 139:23-24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"