November 22, 2023 with Joey Tomlinson on “Serious Joy: Reflections & Devotions on Jonathan Edwards’ Seventy Resolutions”

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland.

County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are

listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a

Wednesday on this day before Thanksgiving, November

22nd, 2023.

I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who has written

a book that I believe everyone listening should have in their library.

His name is Joey Tomlinson.

He's an author and pastor of Deer Park Fellowship of Newport News, Virginia, and today

we're going to be addressing this book, Serious Joy, Reflections and Devotions,

on Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions.

I almost said revolutions.

70 resolutions.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Joey Tomlinson.

Chris, thank you so much for.

Having me, my brother.

It's a pleasure and honor to be back on with you.

And why.

Don't you let our listeners know about Deer Park Fellowship?

Absolutely.

So Deer.

Park Fellowship is a confessionally Reformed Church, 1689 London Baptist

Confession of Faith is our statement of faith church where we are

celebrating two years this November, and so we are thankful to God for that.

But we are in Newport News, Virginia, and we have been,

I was just telling our congregation this just this week, we have been immensely blessed by the

Lord over these past two years, just as the Lord has knitted us together as a church body,

just by His Word and Spirit.

So I'm honored to pastor such a wonderful church body, and I'm honored to elder

alongside of some some wonderful elders there.

Well praise God.

For that, and if any of our listeners either live near Newport News,

Virginia, or they are traveling through there, or if they have family, friends, and loved ones

who live in or near that area, and you want to discover more about this

congregation, and in fact hopefully visit there sometime for worship, the website

is dpfellowship .org.

D for deer, P for park, fellowship .org, and God willing we'll be repeating that

information toward the end of the program.

Well your book has a title that at first glance

appears to be oxymoronic, Serious Joy.

Tell us about that title before we even get into Jonathan Edwards

and his 70 resolutions.

Absolutely.

So the title honestly came through more of

the more Edwards that I've read over the years, and I'm by no means an Edwardian

scholar.

There are men that are much more studied on the person that is at Edwards and on his

preaching ministry and his writing ministry, and so I don't claim to be an Edwards expert by

any stretch of the imagination, but I have engaged with Edwards

for many years.

I've read a lot of his sermons that have been published.

I've read things that he's written that have been published, and the

connective tissue through that, and through his life, through his writings, through his

ministry, through the way that he carried himself, was this idea of joy.

But it wasn't, it's not a weightless joy.

It's a joy that is grounded in the glory of

God, a desire to see and exalt

the triune God in all areas of life, and that at the same time being the thing that fuels

one's joy.

And so the more I've read Edwards, the more I see that, but that's not unique to Edwards.

That's something that we pick up in the New Testament as well.

We see there being joy where one is

mindful of and concerned with the glory of God.

And so as I thought through these resolutions, and

as I thought through Edwards' life, and as I thought through, you know, Edwards really picking up on what is

a New Testament concept, this idea of serious joy, joy being

grounded in the glory of God, just seemed like an appropriate title.

So it's joy with weight.

It's joy whose chief concern is.

The glory of God over everything.

Now I would guess that most often people use the

words joy and happiness as synonyms, but is that always the

case?

No.

You know,.

Interestingly, it's interesting that you ask that, because even this coming week I'm preaching on Psalm

1 to our congregation, and the psalmist begins with

the first few words of Psalm 1, chapter 1, is, blessed is the man.

And so we know that we're about to hear about what the blessed

life is, and the Hebrew word that's translated there for

blessed is literally, oh the happiness.

But the word happiness for us as Christians, it's foreign because I think

we have this idea of happiness that's

very, trying to think of the best way to put it,

it's just tethered to emotions.

It's just up and down, you know, there's nothing there that's anchoring it.

Joy perhaps better captures this idea of something that

is grounded, this experience, this

sort of experience that one

has that's anchored in God that allows you to

weather the different seasons of life.

And so, you know, whether things are good, whether things are bad, one can have joy.

And I think the psalmist in Psalm 1, when he's talking about blessed, or he's talking about the happy life,

what he was communicating there is what we would associate more with joy than what our

culture's definition of happiness is, right?

When we think of happy, we think, man, this makes me happy, you know, or money makes me happy, or

we attach it to all of these fleeting things, if you will.

But the happiness that the scriptures speak to, which again, has more in

common with joy, is something you can't be robbed of no matter what your

circumstances are.

Because the joy that you experience isn't grounded in circumstances, it isn't grounded

in things like health or wealth or prosperity, it's grounded in the

unchanging character of God and his disposition toward you in Christ Jesus.

Yeah, and in Matthew we have those wonderful, precious words, "...Blessed are you when

they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely.

For my sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.".

I don't think that Matthew was recording a

promise that when we are being persecuted, we're supposed to

just walk around with a big smile on our face and thank those that are

persecuting us.

Thanks for making my day by persecuting me and slandering me, but we are

in any circumstance able to praise

God because we know that Romans 8

28 is true.

It's a promise that all things shall work together for the good, for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose.

That's not a promise for everyone, as some people wrongly misuse that precious

text in Romans 8 28.

It's only for those who.

Love God, those who are the called.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, this Christian joy or Christian happiness or this blessed life

that the Scriptures speak of, it isn't, as you're saying, it's not trivial.

It's not pretending that things

are okay or necessarily treating

things like suffering and as good or flippant or, you know,

approaching it in some light -hearted way, but it is, again, it is the ability

to put your hope in the Lord, to put your confidence in the Lord, to, as the

psalmist says elsewhere, Psalm 37, to delight yourself in the Lord.

And those are things that can be done this side of eternity despite the things that you go through.

And when you know the character of God, as you were just mentioning, you know, Romans 8 28 there,

knowing that for believers, the things that happen in our lives,

even those those terrible things, those really difficult things that we face in our life,

God doesn't waste even those things.

God uses those things in our lives to prepare us for eternity, to conform us more

into the image of His Son Jesus Christ.

And so for those reasons, we really can have serious joy this side of eternity

because we have the ability through Christ to know and be connected

to the God who made us and the God who is near us no matter what we face.

And.

For some reason, immediately popping into my head while discussing this,

are the Oxford martyrs who were martyred for their

faith in October of 1555, Latimer and

Ridley, where Latimer said, be of good

comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man.

We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as shall never be put

out is certain.

This is right before they were burned alive, that he could muster up by the grace of God

such a precious remark.

Yeah, that's convicting.

Yes, because we typically whine and complain about the most trivial

matters, and I know that I am a champion of that.

Me as well.

I'm making mountains out of mohills in my life.

But now let's hear a little bit about Jonathan Edwards.

Now I'm fairly certain the majority of my audience has a

reasonable historical understanding of who Jonathan Edwards was, but we

have people who listen to this program that are new converts.

We have people who listen to this program who are not even Christian at all.

We even occasionally hear from Muslims and Jews and atheists and so on, or people

outside of Protestantism who would have no reason

to know who Jonathan Edwards was, although I must say that he is such an

important figure even in American history, that there are secular

scholars and professors who recognize the great impact that Jonathan Edwards had upon

this nation.

In fact, I know of one person, and not only do I know one person, but I've also heard this

from at least one other guest that I interviewed, but my friend

Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens.

He was raised in a Christian home, but it was an Arminian Christian home, and while attending

a secular university, a professor who was not even a Christian began to

teach on Jonathan Edwards because of the

inseparable place he had and role he had

in what had become the United States of America as far as our worldview and

ideology, that he brought up Edwards in a class, and that provoked

my friend Ed Moore to find out more about what he believed, and the Lord used that to draw him into the doctrines

of sovereign grace.

But tell us about this great figure, Jonathan.

Edwards, of church history.

Yeah, absolutely, and interestingly, as you were talking, it reminded me of something that Chris

Wiley, C .R. Wiley, was kind enough to write the foreword to the book.

Yes, I know Chris.

Yeah, and in his foreword, he talked about a friend of his

who is married to someone who is, well,

actually his friend, her father, is not a Christian, and when her father goes to church

with her mother, who is a Christian, he brings along a sermon from

Jonathan Edwards, and when asked why he brings along a sermon to read while actually, you

know, attending a church service, he said, well, I at least want to read the

work of a man whose mind I admire.

And so, you know, to your point, even non -Christians have an

admiration for Jonathan Edwards, and so, you know,

he most definitely had an impact, a shaping influence on

America, and so he's not a figure that could, can easily be

ignored.

But Jonathan Edwards, you know, for those who may not be familiar with him,

he was a colonial pastor considered by many people to be one of

the last Puritans, if not the last Puritan, but he was born in Windsor, Connecticut, early 1700s,

1703, I believe, and he was the only boy of

11 kids, and he was the son of a pastor whose dad was named

Timothy Edwards, who was a minister in Connecticut, and so Jonathan Edwards, he,

from a very young age, he had a Christian upbringing, and,

but it wasn't until later in his life,

you know, I'm sure if we sat down and interviewed Edwards,

just based on what we know about him, there's probably not a time where he didn't

confess that Christ was Lord, but his conversion, what seems to be his

conversion, happened after reading one day

a passage of Scripture that was

1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 17, unto the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only

wise God, be honor and glory forever.

And as he recounts it, and I even have this passage pulled up in front of me, he says, as I read these

words, there came into my soul and was, as it were, diffused through it a sense of the glory of

the divine being, a new sense quite different from anything I'd ever experienced before.

Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did.

I thought with myself how excellent a being that was and how happy I should be if I might

enjoy that God and be wrapped up to Him in heaven and be, as it were, swallowed up in Him forever.

I kept saying, and as it were, singing over these words of Scripture to myself and went to pray to God that I

might enjoy Him and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to pray with a new sort of affection.

But it never came into my thought that there was anything spiritual or of a saving nature in this.

And so there's a lot of Edwardian scholars label this as Edward's conversion.

And the conversion point, you know, and this brings, again, joy back to the forefront, was that

he began to enjoy and delight himself in the Lord.

And so Edwards was converted, and

he eventually becomes a pastor.

And, you know, we all know him, and perhaps he's most known for the role that

he played in the First Great Awakening and in his kind of steady

theological voice throughout these revivals.

But before Edwards was, and maybe your listeners may know him really, maybe the more

severe parts of it, or what could be labeled as severe parts, you know, when people hear Edwards, probably what

comes to their mind is the sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which is really a good sermon.

But before Edwards was the Jonathan Edwards that we know him to be, you

know, he was a 19 -year -old boy who attended these 70 resolutions,

who sought to bring his character, his life into obedience to

Christ by bringing his life, his thinking, his body into obedience to the Word of

God.

And so, you know, a high -level view of Edwards, right?

He was raised in a Christian home, converted a

little bit, you know, into his early teens, it seems perhaps,

or a little bit later, you know, a little bit later into his teens, and was

influential in the Great Awakening.

And he, you know, died relatively young, died in his early 50s from the

misadministration of the smallpox vaccination,

but most definitely a man that cannot be ignored, both

from a Christian history perspective, but also, as you mentioned earlier, Chris, from

just American history.

Well, we're going to go to our first commercial break right now.

If anybody has a question for Joey Tomlinson on Jonathan Edwards, and more

specifically, the book that we are addressing today, published by

Founders Press, Serious Joy.

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R

-N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away.

We're going to be right back with Joey Tomlinson after these messages.

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We're now back with our guest today, Joey Tomlinson.

And as I mentioned at the outset of the program, we are discussing his new book, Serious Joy,

Reflections and Devotions on Jonathan Edwards, 70 resolutions.

If you have a question, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

And by the way, I want to read a commendation for this book written by my friend Dr. Tom

Askell, who is pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, and also the president of Founders

Ministries.

Jonathan Edwards is arguably the greatest mind ever produced on the North American continent.

His writings cover a wide range of topics from theology to philosophy to nature and natural science.

But infused in them all is his sense of reverence and awe to be living before

the presence of his God.

That Edwards wrote 70 resolutions as a teenager to govern his life

is commonly known to those who have spent much time studying his life and work.

Few, however, have taken the time to read those resolutions carefully, much less to meditate

through them.

In this work, Joey Tomlinson has made doing both much easier by demonstrating the

biblical thinking out of which each resolution arises.

He provides us not only insight into Edwards' mind, but also opportunities to have our own

shaped more practically by scripture.

I highly commend this book to all who aspire to do whatever would bring God most glory

and bring to themselves their greatest good, profit, and pleasure.

A really powerful endorsement indeed.

So tell us about the circumstances

in Jonathan Edwards' life at this youthful age that provoked

such a undertaking as to write these 70 resolutions.

Yeah, well, you know, he wrote the resolutions when he was

only, again, only 19 years of age, which you know, I think about myself at

19 years of age and compare that with where

Edwards was.

At that same age.

I definitely prefer not to think of myself.

Yeah, yeah.

Big difference there.

And so, you know, just the fact that he was 19 years old when he was thinking through really

trying to, really how the gospel should shape his moral

character is just extremely convicting.

And so, and he at that time, he was preparing for ministry

through his, these early pastorates, these kind of interim pastorates that he was

doing, and he was in the midst of tutoring as well.

And so he was not only trying to

govern himself, but he was in the early days of even thinking through

what it would be like to shepherd people.

And, you know, as Christians,

we should see that self -governance or self -control is the prerequisite to

any other sort of governance.

And, you know, in order to be a good husband, you need to be a man that's

self -controlled.

In order to be a good father and to lead your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, you need to be

one who exhibits self -control.

The same with elders, right?

How will you, how can you manage a local church if you cannot manage your

own home?

How can you manage your own home if you can't manage yourself, right?

So a lot of what we see early on with the writing of these resolutions is

Edwards seeking to bring himself into subjection to the Lord.

And the nature of these resolutions are, they're very

earthy.

They're very practical.

And so I was talking about this, funny enough, with Pastor Tom Askell

just the other day, but Edwards was not interested in a

theology that isn't applied, right?

Unapplied theology does no one any good.

And so he really sought to bring the Word of God to bear on his life.

And so you read through this list of 70, and you

see really how, again, how earthy they are, how blue -collar they are.

And, you know, when you read them, you see also how

relevant they are.

Like my initial studying of them was for my own benefit, and I was surprised

by, you know, how much, how the resolutions were

relevant to my own life.

But it wasn't because Edwards was prophetic, although Edwards in a lot of ways was

prophetic, but it was because the proclivities of the human heart are nothing new.

And so you have a young man, early days in ministry, early days with

thinking through what his life was to be like seeking to honor

God by walking in obedience according to the Word of God.

And, you know, what people often don't know

when they read the resolutions, at least I have found this to be the case, is that Edwards also

wrote a preamble to his resolutions.

And the preamble really is the very thing that makes

the resolutions worth his pursuing.

And let me just read quickly the preamble.

He says, being sensible that I'm unable to do anything without

God's help, I do humbly entreat Him by His grace to enable me to

keep these resolutions so far as they are agreeable to His will for Christ's

sake.

And then he says, remember to read over these resolutions once a week.

And so, you know, Edwards had a preamble to his 70 resolutions, and in the

preamble itself, there's a confession that he can't do anything apart from the grace of God.

He can't do anything independent of God.

And he even goes as far as to say he wants these resolutions to fail

if they aren't agreeable to the will of God.

And so, you see this humility in 19 -year -old Edwards.

You see this eagerness to honor the Lord, and you see this

mindfulness of Edwards' dependence upon the

Lord, which in our day and age, we need to be regularly reminded of that.

You know, we operate as if we're autonomous so often.

We operate as if we are creatures that are independent of God, you know, functional

atheists, even amongst Christians, if you will.

And so, Edwards, even at 19, has a lot to teach about being a people that are

dependent upon God for everything.

And he knew that anything good produced in him, even his ability to keep any of his resolutions for any

significant amount of time, is sheer grace.

Well, we would definitely not have enough time today in a two -hour.

Program to address all 70 of the resolutions, but why don't you highlight some of the ones that

you.

Believe are most prominent among the 70?

Oh, sure, yeah.

So, you know, the first two resolutions, you know, is a

good place to start.

You know, it's not another preamble, but it really is, it would be

proper to think about the first resolution in particular to be a sort of umbrella to the

other resolutions.

And one of the things that I did in the book is I gave the,

I put, I showed the original way that Edwards wrote the resolutions, and then beside that, I gave my

own translation of it for people who may have difficulty with reading

Edwards.

I, you know, was hoping to make him a little bit more approachable for the modern reader, but let me read the

first resolution, and then maybe I'll just point to a couple of other resolutions that stood out to me

personally as I worked through the book, worked through the resolutions.

But his first resolution, it says this, resolved that I will do whatever I think will bring

God the most glory, which is to my own good, profit, and pleasure.

For as long as I live, I'll do these things no matter how long it takes me to do them.

Resolved I will do whatever I think I must do that will provide the most good for mankind in general.

Resolved to do this no matter the difficulties or the severity of those difficulties.

And then the resolution two is tied into that, doing whatever he can to promote the things mentioned in resolution one.

But what I like about it, and it gets to what we were talking about at the beginning of the program, Chris, is this

idea of, you know, what is serious joy, and why is it appropriate to

title a book on Edwards' resolution Serious Joy.

And right out of the gate, the very first resolution, we see this acknowledgment that this

19 -year -old kid had about God's glory and our

good being inseparably connected to one another.

And for us to be concerned about the glory of God,

that should be our chief concern.

And at the same time, and this is the struggle this side of eternity, so this is certainly easier

said than done.

It's easier said than done when you're suffering with illness, when you've been

afflicted and things go sideways and life doesn't play out the way that

you would have wanted it to play out.

But this idea that the glory of God, which, you know, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, what is the chief

end of man?

To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

But for us to be concerned about glorifying God, seeing that we were

created to glorify God, and that the glorifying of God is at the same time

the best thing for us, because our glory and His good

are inseparably connected.

And so, you know, so Resolution 1, I think, is a good resolution to

consider, one that has stood out to me, that has been helpful to

me.

You know, another resolution, Resolution 5, which is Edward's

commitment to redeem the time, resolve never to waste even a moment of time, but to redeem time to the best of my

abilities.

And so we know Edward's to be a productive man, and he was concerned about stewardship, and

he saw that time was a gift from God to be, again, leveraged for the glory of God.

And so we should do things, we should be mindful

of the way in which we spend our days.

Resolution 22, resolve to try to obtain for myself as much happiness in the

other world as I possibly can with all the power, might, strength, and passion, even force that

I'm capable of or can bring myself to exert in any way that can be

thought of.

And so this idea that happiness in the other world has an impact on how one

lives now, right, to set our minds on Christ, who's at

the right hand of the Father, that has an impact on our disposition in

the here and now.

And so it isn't, man, I live miserable for 70 plus years, and then I'm happy in the

other world.

It was, man, even in the midst of living in a fallen, broken world, living in a fallen, broken

body, the happiness that I can have in the other world now has an

impact on my living now in this world.

And so prayer,

resolution 29, resolve never to count my prayer or petition as genuine

if I make it without the hope that God will answer it.

I will also not consider my confessions as genuine if I do not confess with the hope that God will accept my

confession.

And so this idea of praying in faith, and John Calvin

once said that doubtful prayer is no prayer at all.

And so the priority of

prayer in the life of Jonathan Edwards, and I can go on and on and on with giving us different ones, but

those are three, four, five different ones that really stood out to me

as I studied the document.

Okay, we have a listener in Warner Robins, Georgia, Caroline,

and Caroline asks, do you know whether or not Jonathan Edwards

later came to regret anything that he wrote in those resolutions

since he wrote them as such a young man?

He may have had changes in his theology over those years, or perhaps just because of his

youth,.

May have regretted something that he wrote.

That's a fantastic question.

So, you know, the answer to that, so there is no evidence that Edwards had a

practice of keeping the resolutions in the sense that he was auditing

his character to the intensity that he was doing so at the beginning

stages of crafting these resolutions.

And so he had a habit of evaluating himself sometimes at the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the

month, the end of the year.

And you see in Edwards, young Edwards, not just an example of someone trying to

bring their lives into submission to the word of God, but you also see a cautionary tale

in Edwards.

There, one of the things I do in the book is I harmonize his diary where I was able with

the dates in which he was penning particular resolutions.

And you can see a struggle with despair at times.

You can see a struggle where Edwards would forget perhaps that he was positionally right before the

Lord and think that his keeping of the

resolutions would maybe increase his right standing before God.

You see these wrestles with young Edwards.

And so I don't think Edwards, as he grew and as he matured,

that he was looking at the resolutions or seeking to review them in the

ways that he did at the age of 19.

I think that there's much that he would have looked at in his older days and said that he

would have still agreed with.

But there are things that I noticed as I gave

consideration to particular resolutions where you could tell in his

youthfulness, and I can't remember the one off the particular resolution off the

top of my head, but there was one in which it seemed like

Edwards was getting at, if I ever resolved to

confess my sin quickly, if that happens again, if I stumble

again.

And I think even in the book, and again, I'm paraphrasing.

I'm not getting exactly right what it is that he says, and nor can I remember the exact resolution.

But in the book, I kind of said it's not, maybe in his youthfulness and

in him being enraptured just in the joy of the Lord, it was if I stumble.

And it's not if I stumble, but it's when I stumble, in which I think an older, more mature Edwards

would have even just changed the wording of that particular

resolution.

So in short, he didn't review the resolutions in his older days the way that he did in his younger days.

I'm sure that he would make changes.

He would have made changes to them.

But, overarchingly, I do ground the resolutions.

I think that there's biblical warrant for each of the resolutions, and so I think they were worthy

biblical resolutions.

Nonetheless.

Well, Caroline, guess what?

You have won a free copy of the book we are addressing, Serious Joy, by my guest, Joey

Tomlinson, compliments of our friends at Founders Ministries, and also

compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be actually

shipping that book out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

So please make sure you give us your full mailing address there in Georgia, and we will have

CVBBS .com ship the book out to you.

We have, well, perhaps I'll read this question and have you answer it when we come back from the break, because we've

got to enter into our midway break very shortly,

but we have a listener in Woonsocket, Rhode

Island, named Chuck, and Chuck asks, have you ever

heard the accusation that Jonathan Edwards often unintentionally was

guilty of eisegesis because he used his fertile imagination on occasion

to embellish what the scriptural record actually said?

So we'll have you reply to that question when we return from our midway break, and I

ask of my listeners to please be patient with us, because the midway break is a bit longer than the other breaks in

the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break

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Away.

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Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small

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Before I return to my guest Joey Tomlinson and our discussion of his book

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That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Joey Tomlinson on Jonathan Edwards and on

his 70 resolutions.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And Joey, before the break, you may recall that Chuck in Woonsocket,

Rhode Island was wondering if you had ever heard of the accusation against Jonathan Edwards that

he frequently embellished upon the text of Scripture using his fertile imagination

to unconsciously isogeet things into the text that weren't there.

Have you ever heard that?

And what would your response to that be?

I don't recall hearing that criticism exactly.

I mean, I've heard various criticisms related to his

preaching, related to some particular theological positions that he

had.

However, Douglas Sweeney, who who is an Edwards

scholar, he wrote a book a number of years ago called Edwards, the exegete biblical

interpretation in the Anglo Protestant culture on the edge of the Enlightenment that

dealt with Edwards hermeneutical approach.

I mean, in that book.

So Edwards never he never published, to my knowledge, a book on his

own hermeneutical approach.

And so Sweeney's his scholarship here really was him pulling together

various sermons that Edwards had preached,

even some things that I think hadn't been transcribed or

worked through.

And in Edward and he kind of comes up with what he a pattern

that he sees as it relates to Edwards approach to interpreting and then

preaching the scripture.

And but when we think about Edwards hermeneutical approach, it's important to put him in

the context of his time.

And he was he was growing up kind of on the edge of the

Enlightenment, in the beginning stages of the Enlightenment.

And much of our Bible reading, our interpretation, even the preaching

that fills many pulpits today have has been impacted more by Enlightenment

thinking than we often realize in my book.

I mentioned I don't spend any I don't spend any significant time on this, but I do

mention that Edwards was a seemingly a

pre -modern expositor of the Word of God.

And we know that he found writings by people like Owen and John Owen and

Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, Francis Turidan, he also found extremely helpful.

And he seemed to have elements of a historical, grammatical,

exegetical method, but also a theological hermeneutical approach

that's which is what is often lost in modern pulpits

today.

But Sweeney's book gives, he kind of

traces the exegetical practice of Edwards by saying he had a

canonical exegesis, which is, if we think about scripture being the best interpreter

of itself, the analogy of faith.

And so he would use scripture to shed

light on other passages of scripture.

He had a Christological approach to interpreting scripture, which I would say, along with Spurgeon,

if we're preaching in our pulpits Christless sermons, then we

perhaps shouldn't be preaching.

I heard a professor in seminary one time criticize

people who preach Christ from all texts of scripture, and he

didn't call it eisegesis, he called it eisegesis.

And he was trying to be, he was making a joke by saying that.

But if we do believe that all of scripture points to Christ, that should certainly

color the way in which we're exegeting the Word of God and proclaiming the Word

of God.

We should show that Christ is at the center of

scripture's, it's what scripture is testifying about, is Christ and his person and his work and

him redeeming us and making us right with God.

And so Edwards had a Christological approach to his sermons.

He also sought to trace the redemptive historical narrative throughout scripture.

And so he had this spiritual meta -narrative that colored his preaching.

And then there was a kind of a tropological

or a moral sense in which, you know, much like we see with the resolutions, he was seeking in his preaching

to bring the Word of God to bear on the moral character of

people.

And I would just add too, I think you see in the writings and the preaching of

Edwards, this kind of

eschatological mindfulness that there was a

theme of the consummation of Christ,

everything finding its consummation in Christ, that seemed to be a theme in Edwards'

life.

It seemed to be a theme in the things that he wrote.

It seemed to be a theme in the way that he preached as well.

And so, you know, did he get sermons wrong?

Did he exegete things poorly at times?

I'm sure he did, as we all did.

But, you know, I think there's a far cry difference between him getting some

things wrong and him being someone that played loose and fast with the scripture.

He wasn't one that played loose and fast with the scripture.

Yeah, it seems that everyone who is critiquing someone that they

disagree with, everyone that is a Christian that may have a tendency to

accuse the other of eisegesis because they disagree with what they are finding

in the Bible.

But thanks, Chuck, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

Please give us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book

Service, can ship you out a free copy of the book we are addressing, Serious Joy.

And we want to thank Founders Press, again, for donating a limited number of copies of this

book for our listeners who submit questions today.

We have Champ, as in Champion, a Champ in

Bosque Farms, or perhaps it's Bosque Farms, or perhaps it's Bosque

Farms, New Mexico.

And Champ says, you were speaking earlier about Edward's

understanding that we must pray with faith.

It seems to me, on occasion, that we Reform people are the most guilty

of not following that reason of thinking, because sometimes, it

seems, we use the phrase, if it be God's will,

just to excuse the fact that we are not expecting the prayer to be answered as

we desire.

Now, I know and fully agree and believe that we are to pray according to God's will, but do

you see where I'm coming from?

That sometimes, when people are praying, especially if they are praying for someone else, they

may insert, if it be God's will, almost to be dismissive of

expecting a prayer to be answered the way that we desire it to be.

I mean, that's a good observation, and I certainly have been guilty of that before.

You know, I think one of the things to keep in mind is, you know, people that

are Calvinists, more than Calvinists, but people that are, you know, to

be Reformed is so much richer than just five points of Calvinism, but

to confess that God has ordained the ends,

that, you know, that He's truly sovereign over all things, we should, at the same time, confess that He's ordained

means, and one of the means by which He accomplishes His ordained ends

is through prayer, and so God really does work through the prayers of His

people, and so, you know, the sovereignty of God should

drive us to pray all the more, knowing that we're praying to a God

who accomplishes all His holy will, right?

He does all His holy will, and that He's kind in inviting us to

participate in His accomplishing of His holy will, and so I think we should be more

mindful, you know, I agree that God works through His prescribed means,

and we get to participate in that.

Well, thanks, Champ.

Give us your full mailing address, and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

will ship that book out to you that we are discussing, Serious Joy, and once again,

thanks to Founders Ministries for providing these copies.

Let's see, we have Stacey in

Cohoes, New York, and Stacey asks, what are

the books that you most highly recommend written by Jonathan Edwards?

That is a great question.

So, a good place, I would say, to start, perhaps, if

you're unfamiliar with Jonathan Edwards, or if you, you know, you haven't read anything

that he has written before, a great place to start would be Religious Affections, and so,

you know, Religious Affections is, I think

you will find a lot of what we've been talking about in this conversation as it just relates to

finding joy and happiness and delight in the Lord God, you will find that

theme amplified in that book, Religious Affections.

I would also say, reading some of his sermons could also be,

you know, of encouragement to someone that isn't familiar

with Edwards, and in the book, I list a few sermons, and you know, I can give them to you now, but

God Glorified in Man's Dependence, you know, is a sermon, or God's

Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,

today, and forever, safety, fullness, and sweet refreshment to be found

in Christ.

And so, reading, you know, reading some of his sermons, and again, starting

with Religious Affections would be my encouragement.

Great.

Well, thanks, Stacy, and please send us your full mailing

address also so that you can receive a copy of the book we are addressing, Serious Joy,

published by Founders Ministries, Founders Press, and also, which will be shipped to you

by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, cvbbs

.com.

This comes up a lot in my interaction, especially with non -Reformed folk,

but Reformed folk aren't the only ones that, on occasion, are

guilty of hero worship.

I mean, I believe that almost any Christian could be guilty of that, even if it's their own pastor.

But how do we put a balance as Christians

to, obviously, putting the Word of God first and foremost as our authority in our lives,

and dedicating more time to the study of Scripture than non -canonical books,

without at the same time dismissing great men like Edwards, and not thinking so

highly of these men that we can even change our

theology just because of our fondness for the

historical figure?

And I know that this may offend some of our Presbyterian brethren,

but it just seems to have happened in my own personal experience amongst my Presbyterian friends

more than elsewhere, where I know Presbyterian brothers and sisters

who have become Pado -Baptists just because they have become enamored with

great figures from history like Edwards, or John Calvin, or John Knox,

or George Whitefield, or we could go on and on, that I have actually heard people

say things, like when I've asked them about why they made the change from Credo

-Baptism to Pado -Baptism, well, so many of the great

figures from history and all of the Reformers were Pado -Baptists, so how could they be wrong?

So don't we have to tap the

brakes sometimes when we are gleaning from great men like Edwards and others?

Yeah, I think so.

So maybe the best way to tackle that question is, I

was thinking just from a practical standpoint, if there's someone

that's listening, that maybe that is them.

Maybe they see a figure like Jonathan Edwards and they're so enamored by Edwards

that it really is casting a shadow on the Word of God.

I would say, how much time are you spending reading the Word of God

versus reading good books by godly men who have gone before us?

Works by these men, sermons by these men, they're good, but

they're still fallible, they're still sinful.

Again, one of the things I get into in the book is I highlight Edwards as a

cautionary tale, as someone who's sinful, and as someone who's stumbled.

For me, I'm not doing that saying, you know, look at this guy who sinned and stumbled, so more of like, you know,

here is a man like us seeking

to honor God and seeking to walk with the Lord in a manner that's

pleasing to Him.

But we're deceiving ourselves when we put men on

pedestals and we find ourselves being

influenced in decisions such as what church should I join

because of particular talking heads or figureheads versus the Word of God.

Now, they can be helpful to us as it relates to being

conversation partners and guiding us in truth in the Word of God, you know, helping us to

rightly divide the Word of God.

But I would just say if you find yourself being obsessive about

the Puritans, and again, good things to engage with, if you find yourself being obsessive with people like Jonathan

Edwards or maybe someone that's living, like you said, someone living, you know, that's a pastor now, I would just

remind yourself that there's one Savior, that's Christ.

There's one perfect man, that's Christ.

There's one perfect book, that's the Word of God.

And everything else comes under that.

And if you find yourself out of balance, it could be because you've

elevated these good treasures that God's given us, these good godly men in their writings

and their preaching ministries, you've elevated them to a place they were never supposed to be elevated

at to begin with.

So hold it open -handed as a good gift from God, but don't fashion

men into idols, even godly men.

Don't make them into idols, and don't test everything according to the Scriptures.

Well, I'd like you to, before we go to our final break,.

To highlight some of the things that you really don't want our listeners to miss.

That you include in this book.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, first and foremost, my hope is that we

live in such an age of, I find, despair and

anxiety.

And we look at things that are going on in our world, and we have the propensity to think things have

never been worse.

And some of that is just we don't have a sense of history.

And some of it is, you were saying earlier, Chris, we can sit on our couch and be real comfortable

and turn on the news and see something going on and think things have never been worse.

And the martyrs who were burned at the stake had more...

Hello, brother, you seem to have cut out.

Yes.

To point people back to...

I want people to be able to establish those that have an irregular rhythm with just spending time with the Lord.

And so each resolution is grounded in a passage of Scripture.

So it's not just the resolutions you're thinking through.

It's trying to point you back to the Word of God.

But my hope is that people will see the fixed foundation that

is Christ Jesus, that every Christian stands on, that we're positionally right before the Lord, and that from

there, we should be delighting ourselves in the Lord using the means that He's

given us.

And we should be laboring by His grace

in very practical ways to bring our lives underneath the Lordship of Christ.

And as we do that, we are able to not run into this ditch of

despair.

We're able to see light in an otherwise dark world.

And we begin to carve out a path for what it means to thrive as Christians.

And so my hope would be that people grab this book, they are able to glory in the Gospel of God, and

they're able to see some practical ways on how to thrive and not despair

as Christians.

Well, we are going to our final break right now.

And once again, if you do have a question that you'd like to submit for our guest

today, Joey Tomlinson on Jonathan Edwards, or more specifically on his book that we are

addressing, Serious Joy, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at

gmail .com.

And as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and

your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And always keep in mind, only remain anonymous if your question involves

a personal and private matter, like if you disagree with your own church over

something we're discussing today, or if you're even a pastor and you disagree with your fellow elders

over something we are addressing.

We would understand things like that would compel you to remain anonymous.

But if it's a general question on Jonathan Edwards, a general question on the Scripture, a

general question on Edwards' 70 Resolutions, please give us your first name at least, city and state,

and country of residence.

Don't go away,.

We're going to be right back after these messages.

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Well, Joey, we have Cookie Mwinuski of

Vermont, and Cookie asks, what are

the most valuable things that you believe you have learned.

From the writing and legacy of Jonathan Edwards?

Great question.

So I think, first and foremost,

it is that, forgive me if I'm

repeating myself by saying this, but what's striking to me

is the joy, the happiness, the delight that genuinely

can be found in the triune God, and it's one that is unshakable.

And so, again, that comes up constantly reading Edwards,

and it's always edifying to me.

Another, something else I've been encouraged by, just

in my own reading of what was a private document, Edwards never, he didn't put the 70

resolutions out to be published, but it was

just how far -reaching the lordship of Jesus Christ is, and so there's no area in

my life which should be off -limits to Christ and

what his lordship necessitates.

And so, and as Christians, you know, a part of the Christian world should be one where we are,

as we grow in sanctification, we're mortifying sin, we're, you

know, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, and as we're growing in

conformity with Christ.

And so, again, these resolutions, they're very diverse in the just different things

they cover, and what that demonstrates is just, again, how far -reaching

the lordship of Christ is.

And then, going back to Edwards being a

cautionary tale, and this being true in my own life, you know, so I

read this and I thought, man, this is my struggle, and it is just how easy

we can, as Christians, we can say that we're saved by grace through faith in Christ

alone, that it's not of works, but the way in which we

function just in the comings and goings of our lives can also, can

so easily be, it can be as if we've

forgotten that, that okay, we've been gifted salvation, but it's now my job to keep my

salvation by my own works, and that, and we see that struggle

with Edwards just times, just the times in which he forgot, again,

functionally speaking, that he was positionally right because of the

person and work of Jesus Christ alone.

And one of the markers, I think, of spiritual maturity is when we, as Christians, we

should grow in our mindfulness of our sinfulness, the apostle Paul, toward the end of his life,

peak spiritual maturity, described himself as the chief of sinners, the worst sinner that ever

lived, and he was able to say that without despair because at the same

time, his view of the cross, his view of the gospel of God was being

increasingly enlarged, and so when we minimize the

gospel and we maximize our sinly despair, when we minimize our sin,

we abuse the gospel of God, and so those are some areas that I was encouraged in as

I read through the resolutions, as I've read through other works of Edwards, and I've

found that those things I'm encouraged in, it's, again, not because it's unique to me or unique to

Edwards, it's because these are the things that we all need to hear,.

And we all need to remember.

Let's see, we have Bryson in Soda Springs, Idaho, who

says, didn't Jonathan Edwards have some kind of a serious theological

conflict with his own father -in -law?

Yes, that became more prevalent

after the death of his father -in -law.

His father -in -law, Solomon Stoddard, the church that

he pastored was rather large, and one of the

things which, and I, again, I just briefly mentioned, I briefly mentioned this in the book.

This would be, you know, for, you know, perhaps

much has been written about the controversy, but there were some particular areas

as it related specifically on how to conduct the church, you know, who should be taking the Lord's Supper,

for instance, that Edwards would be at odds with his father -in

-law, and eventually, oh, go ahead.

I was just going to say, what position did Edwards hold?

So there were people who were not demonstrating genuine faith that

were coming to the Lord's table, you know, people that were not walking with the Lord that were coming to the

Lord's table, and Edwards was sought to fence the

Lord's table, and so he knew about things going on in the lives of the individuals that would make up the church,

and his fencing of the table became quite a point of

conflict that eventually led to the overwhelming majority of the church kicking him

out after 20 years of pastoring.

So if you want to be encouraged, you know, Jonathan Edwards was kicked out of his father -in -law's church after pastoring the church for 20

years.

But a lot of it had to do with, you know, there were other things, but a lot of it had to do with

the way in which he went about doing the Lord's Supper, him refusing to admit it to people that just

didn't demonstrate genuine faith despite the.

Fact they were baptized.

So it's interesting that the older father -in -law would have had a looser view

on the Lord's table.

Well, we only have a couple of minutes left.

I want you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

Yes.

Find your joy in the Lord, right, in the midst of whatever it is that's going on in your life, in

the midst of what it is that you survey, you know, when you look at

society at large.

Find joy in the triune God.

Seek to continually bring your life into conformity to His Word, and labor in hope

knowing that the God who saved you is the God that's working all things according

to the purpose of His own good, sovereign will, and

don't despair.

And so, you know, anybody that's grabbing a copy of the book and picking it up, my prayer is that it would further drive you

just to delight yourself in the Lord.

Amen.

Well, I want to thank you so.

Much for being such a superb guest once again.

I look forward to you returning for many future visits and future

interviews on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

I want to remind our listeners of how they could get in touch with you.

The church website where my guest Joey Tomlinson

is the pastor of Deer Park Fellowship in Newport News, Virginia.

The website for that congregation is dp, for Deer Park, fellowship .org,

dpfellowship .org.

And for those of you who did not win a copy of the book Serious Joy that we have been

discussing today, or maybe even want a copy and you want to purchase more to give away,

the website for Founders Press, who published that fine work, is

press .founders .org, press .founders .org.

I also want to once again remind our listeners of the urgent need of

one of our largest sponsors and most faithful sponsors, Solid Ground Christian Books, the urgent need for their book

sales to increase.

I urge you please to make your first stop for all your Christmas shopping, solid -ground

-books .com, solid -ground -books .com, and mention Chris Arnzen

of Iron Trip and Zion Radio when making your purchase.

Please visit that site frequently and purchase generously.

Well, I hope all of you have a wonderful, relaxing, refreshing,

safe, Christ -honoring Thanksgiving gathered with family, friends, and

loved ones.

I hope that you have opportunity to share the precious gospel

with those gathered around you without igniting arguments and

shouting and so on.

But at the same time, we should not refrain from being bold about our

faith.

I hope that this celebration provides you with many opportunities to, in love and humility,

share the gospel.

And I hope that you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus

Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.