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

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this day before Thanksgiving, November 22nd, 2023.

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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.

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His name is Joey Tomlinson. He's an author and pastor of Deer Park Fellowship of Newport News, Virginia.

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And today, we're going to be addressing this book, Serious Joy, Reflections and Devotions on Jonathan Edwards' Seventy Resolutions.

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I almost said revolutions. Seventy Resolutions. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Joey Tomlinson.

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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?

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Absolutely. So Deer Park Fellowship is a confessionally reformed church. 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith is our statement of faith church where we are celebrating two years this

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November. And so we are thankful to God for that. But we are in Newport News, Virginia.

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And we have been I was just telling our congregation this just this week.

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We have been immensely blessed by the Lord over these past two years, just as the

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Lord has knitted us together as a church body, just by his word and spirit.

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So I'm honored to pastor such a wonderful church body. And I'm honored to elder alongside of some some wonderful elders there.

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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, in fact, hopefully visit there sometime for worship.

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The website is dpfellowship .org. D for deer,

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P for park, fellowship .org. And God willing, we'll be repeating that information toward the end of the program.

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Well, your book has a title that at first glance appears to be oxymoronic, serious joy.

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Tell us about that title before we even get into Jonathan Edwards and his 70 resolutions.

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Absolutely. So the title honestly came through more of the more

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

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There are men that are much more studied on the person that is at Edwards and on his preaching ministry and his writing ministry.

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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.

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I've read a lot of his sermons that have been published. I've read things that he's written that have been published.

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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.

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And but it wasn't it's not a weightless joy.

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It's a joy that is grounded in the glory of God, a desire to see and exalt the triune

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God in all areas of life. And that at the same time being the thing that fuels one's joy.

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

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That's something that we pick up in the New Testament as well. We we see there being joy where one is mindful of and concerned with the glory of God.

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And so so as I thought through these resolutions and as I thought through Edwards life and as I thought through, you know,

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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.

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So it's joy with weight. It's joy whose chief concern is the glory of God over everything.

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Now, I would guess that most often people use the words joy and happiness as synonyms.

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But is that always the case? No. You know, interestingly, it's interesting that you ask that because even this this coming week,

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I'm preaching on Psalm one to our congregation. And and the psalmist begins with the first few words of Psalm one.

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Chapter one is blessed is the man. And so we know that we're about to hear about what the the blessed life is in the the the

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Hebrew word that's translated there for blessed is literally, oh, the happiness.

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But the word happiness for us as Christians, it's foreign because I think we have this we have this idea of happiness.

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That's very. Think of trying to think of the best way to put it, it's it's it's just tethered to emotions.

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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.

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This this this experience, this this if this sort of experience that one has that's anchored in God that allows you to weather the different seasons of life.

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

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And I think the psalmist in Psalm one, when he's talking about blessed or he's talking about the happy life, he's what he's what he was communicating there is what we would associate more with joy than what our culture's definition of happiness is.

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Right. We when we think of happy, we think, man, this makes me happy or, you know, or money makes me happy or we attach it to all of these fleeting things, if you will.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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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.

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That's right. That's right. And thank those that are persecuting us. Thanks for making my day by persecuting me and slandering me.

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But we are in any circumstance able to praise

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God because we know that Romans 8 28 is true.

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

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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.

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It's only for those who love God, those who are the called. That's exactly right.

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Yeah. This this Christian joy or Christian happiness or this this blessed life that the the scriptures speak of.

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It isn't as you're saying, it's not trivial. It's not it's not pretending that that things are

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OK or smart necessarily treating things like suffering and and as good or flippant or, you know, approaching it in some lighthearted way.

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But it is, again, it is the ability to put your hope in the

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Lord, put your confidence in the Lord to as the psalmist says elsewhere, Psalm 37, to delight yourself in the

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

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

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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 the son,

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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

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

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And for some reason, immediately popping into my head while discussing this are the

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Oxford martyrs who were martyred for their faith in October of 1555,

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Latimer and Ridley, where Latimer said,

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Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as shall never be put out is certain.

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

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Such a precious remark. Yeah, that's convicting.

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

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And I know that I am a champion of that. Me as well. Making mountains out of mohols in my life.

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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

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Jonathan Edwards was. But we have people who listen to this program that are new converts.

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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

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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.

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In fact, I know of one person and not not only do I know one person, but I've also heard this from at least one other guest that I interviewed.

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But my friend, Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, he was raised in a

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Christian home, but it was an Arminian Christian home. And while attending a secular university, a professor who was not even a

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Christian began to teach on Jonathan Edwards because of the inseparable place he had and role he had in what had become the

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United States of America as far as our worldview and ideology. That he brought up Edwards in a class, and that provoked my friend

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Ed Moore to find out more about what he believed, and the Lord used that to draw him into the doctrines of sovereign grace.

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But tell us about this great figure, Jonathan Edwards, of church history. Yeah, absolutely.

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And interestingly, as you were talking, it reminded me of something that Chris Wiley, C .R.

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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

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Christian. And when her father goes to church with her mother who is a

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Christian, he brings along a sermon from Jonathan Edwards. And when asked why he brings along a sermon to read while actually attending a church service, he said, well,

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I at least want to read the work of a man whose mind

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I admire. And so to your point, even non -Christians have an admiration for Jonathan Edwards.

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And so he most definitely had an impact, a shaping influence on America.

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And so he's not a figure that can easily be ignored.

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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

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Puritans, if not the last Puritan. But he was born in Windsor, Connecticut, early 1700s, 1703,

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I believe. And he was the only boy of 11 kids, and he was the son of a pastor.

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His dad was named Timothy Edwards, who was a minister in Connecticut.

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And so Jonathan Edwards, from a very young age, he had a Christian upbringing.

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But it wasn't until later in his life, you know,

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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

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Lord. But his conversion, what seems to be his conversion, happened after reading one day a passage of Scripture that was 1

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Timothy 1, verse 17. And as he recounts it, and I even have this passage pulled up in front of me, he says,

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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And so there's a lot of Edwardian scholars label this as Edwards' conversion. And the conversion point, and this brings, again, joy back to the forefront, was that he began to enjoy and delight himself in the

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Lord. And so Edwards was converted, and he eventually becomes a pastor.

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

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First Great Awakening and his steady theological voice throughout these revivals.

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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Word of God. And so, you know, a high -level view of Edwards. He was raised in a

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Christian home, converted a little bit into his early teens, it seems perhaps, or a little bit later into his teens, and was influential in the

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Great Awakening. And he, you know, died relatively young, died in his early 50s from the misadministration of the smallpox vaccination.

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But most definitely a man that cannot be ignored, both from a

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Christian history perspective, but also, as you mentioned earlier, Chris, from just American history.

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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.

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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.

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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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today and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio. We're now back with our guest today,

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Joey Tomlinson, and as I mentioned at the outset of the program, we are discussing his new book,

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Serious Joy, Reflections and Devotions on Jonathan Edwards, 70

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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In this work, Joey Tomlinson has made doing both much easier by demonstrating the biblical thinking out of which each resolution arises.

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He provides us not only insight into Edwards' mind, but also opportunities to have our own shaped more practically by scripture.

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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.

34:42

Really powerful endorsement indeed. So tell us about the circumstances in Jonathan Edwards' life at this youthful age that provoked such an undertaking as to write these 70

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Resolutions. Yeah, well, you know, he wrote the resolutions when he was only 19 years of age, which, you know,

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I think about myself at 19 years of age and compare that with where Edwards was at that same age.

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I definitely prefer not to think of myself at 19. Yeah, a big difference there.

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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.

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And so, and he at that time, he was preparing for ministry through these early pastorates, these kind of interim pastorates that he was doing, and he was in the midst of tutoring as well.

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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.

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And, you know, as Christians, we should see that self -governance or self -control is the prerequisite to any other sort of governance.

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

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

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Lord, you need to be one who exhibits self -control. The same with elders, right? How can you manage a local church if you cannot manage your own home?

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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

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Edward seeking to bring himself into subjection to the

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Lord. And the nature of these resolutions are—they're very earthy.

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They're very practical. And so I was talking about this, funny enough, with Pastor Tom Askell just the other day.

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But, like, Edwards was not interested in a theology that isn't applied, right?

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Unapplied theology does no one any good. And so he really sought to bring the

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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.

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And, you know, when you read them, you see also how relevant they are.

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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.

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

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But it was because the proclivities of the human heart are nothing new. And so you have a young man, early days in ministry, you know, early days with thinking through what his life was to be like seeking to honor

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God by walking in obedience according to the

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Word of God. And, you know, what people often don't know when they read the resolutions— at least

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I have found this to be the case—is that Edwards also wrote a preamble to his resolutions.

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And the preamble really is the very thing that makes the resolutions worth his pursuing.

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And let me just read quickly the preamble. He says,

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And then he says,

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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.

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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.

40:15

And so you see this humility in 19 -year -old

40:21

Edwards. You see this eagerness to honor the Lord. And you see this mindfulness of Edwards' dependence upon the

40:36

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

40:41

You know, we operate as if we're autonomous so often. We operate as if we are creatures that are independent of God.

40:50

You know, functional atheists, even amongst Christians, if you will. And so Edwards, even at 19, has a lot to teach us about being a people that are dependent upon God for everything.

41:04

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.

41:16

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?

41:30

Oh, sure. Yeah. So, you know, the first two resolutions, you know, is a good place to start.

41:38

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.

41:50

And one of the things that I did in the book is I gave the—I showed the original way that Edwards wrote the resolutions, and then beside that,

42:02

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

42:09

Edwards. I, you know, was hoping to make him a little bit more approachable for the modern reader.

42:14

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.

42:25

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

42:31

God the most glory, which is to my own good, profit, and pleasure. For as long as I live,

42:37

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.

42:46

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

42:52

Resolution 2 is tied into that, doing whatever he can to promote the things mentioned in Resolution 1.

42:57

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 what is serious joy, and why is it appropriate to title a book on Edwards' resolution

43:11

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.

43:30

And for us to be concerned about the glory of God, that should be our chief concern.

43:39

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

43:46

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.

43:58

But this idea that the glory of God, which the Westminster Shorter Catechism, what is the chief end of man?

44:06

To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But for us to be concerned about glorifying

44:13

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.

44:29

And so resolution one, I think, is a good resolution to consider, one that has stood out to me, that has been helpful to me.

44:42

Another resolution, resolution five, which is Edward's commitment to redeem the time.

44:51

Resolve never to waste even a moment of time, but to redeem time to the best of my abilities. And so we know

44:57

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.

45:07

And so we should be mindful of the way in which we spend our days.

45:17

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.

45:36

And so this idea that happiness in the other world has an impact on how one lives now, right?

45:44

To set our minds on Christ, who's seated at the right hand of the

45:50

Father, that has an impact on our disposition in the here and now.

45:55

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

46:02

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.

46:18

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.

46:33

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

46:39

And so this idea of praying in faith, and John Calvin once said that doubtful prayer is no prayer at all.

46:50

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.

47:12

Okay, we have a listener in Warner Robins, Georgia, Caroline. And Caroline asks,

47:21

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?

47:33

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.

47:43

That's a fantastic question. 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.

48:06

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.

48:13

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.

48:27

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.

48:35

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

48:44

Lord and think that his keeping of the resolutions would maybe increase his right standing before God.

48:54

You see these wrestles with young Edwards. And so I don't think

49:01

Edwards, you know, as he grew and as he matured, I don't think that he was looking at the resolutions or seeking to review them in the ways that he did at the age of 19.

49:13

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.

49:21

But there are things that I noticed as I gave consideration to particular resolutions where you could tell in his youthfulness.

49:35

And I can't remember the one of the particular resolution off the top of my head.

49:41

But there was one in which it seemed like Edwards was getting at if I ever resolve to confess my sin quickly, if that happens, if I stumble again.

49:59

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

50:07

I remember the exact resolution. But in the book, I kind of said it's not, you know, maybe in his youthfulness and in him being enraptured just in the joy of the

50:17

Lord. It was if I stumble, but it's not if I stumble, but it's when I stumble, in which

50:23

I think an older, more mature Edwards would have even just changed the wording of that particular resolution.

50:32

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

50:38

I'm sure that he would have made changes to them.

50:46

But overarchingly, I do ground the resolutions. I think that there's biblical warrant for each of the resolutions.

50:53

And so I think they were worthy biblical resolutions nonetheless.

51:00

Well, Caroline, guess what? You have won a free copy of the book we are addressing,

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Serious Joy, by my guest Joey Tomlinson. Compliments of our friends at Founders Ministries.

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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.

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

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CVBBS .com ship the book out to you. We have—well, perhaps

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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.

51:51

But we have a listener in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, named

51:59

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?

52:19

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

52:25

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

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And also, send in your questions to Joey Tomlinson on Jonathan Edwards and his 70

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Resolutions to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages.

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Serious Joy, Reflections and Devotions on Jonathan Edwards' Seventy Resolutions, I have some important announcements to make.

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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.

01:12:50

Have you ever heard that? And what would your response to that be? I don't recall hearing that criticism exactly.

01:13:00

I mean, I've heard various criticisms related to his preaching, related to some particular theological positions that he had.

01:13:12

However, Douglas Sweeney, who is an

01:13:17

Edwards scholar, he wrote a book a number of years ago called Edwards, the Exegete Biblical Interpretation in the

01:13:25

Anglo -Protestant Culture on the Edge of the Enlightenment that dealt with Edwards' hermeneutical approach.

01:13:34

I mean, in that book, so Edwards never, he never published, to my knowledge, a book on his own hermeneutical approach.

01:13:43

And so Sweeney's, his scholarship here really was him pooling together various sermons that Edwards had preached, even things that I think hadn't been transcribed or worked through.

01:14:05

And Edwards, 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.

01:14:20

But when we think about Edwards' hermeneutical approach, it's important to put him in the context of his time.

01:14:28

I mean, he was, he was growing up kind of on the edge of the

01:14:33

Enlightenment, in the beginning stages of the Enlightenment. And much of our Bible reading, our interpretation, even the preaching that fills many pulpits today has been impacted more by Enlightenment thinking than we often realize.

01:14:51

In my book, I mention, I don't spend any, I don't spend any significant time on this, but I do mention that Edwards was seemingly a pre -modern expositor of the

01:15:07

Word of God. And we know that he found writings by people like Owen and, you know,

01:15:13

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

01:15:20

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.

01:15:39

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, right?

01:15:57

The analogy of faith. And so he would use Scripture to to shed light on other passages of Scripture.

01:16:07

He had a Christological approach to interpreting Scripture, which I would say, you know, along with Spurgeon, if, you know, if we're preaching in our pulpits

01:16:15

Christless sermons, then we perhaps shouldn't be preaching.

01:16:21

I heard a professor in seminary one time criticize people who preach

01:16:28

Christ from all texts of Scripture. And he didn't call it eisegesis.

01:16:34

He called it eisegesis. And, you know, he was trying to be he was making a joke by saying that.

01:16:42

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.

01:16:55

We should show that Christ is at the center of Scripture's test.

01:17:02

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.

01:17:10

And so Edwards had a Christological approach to his sermons. He also sought to trace the redemptive historical narrative throughout

01:17:21

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

01:17:29

And then there was a kind of a tripological or a moral sense in which 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.

01:17:49

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, of everything finding its consummation in Christ.

01:18:17

That seemed to be a theme in Edwards' life. It seemed to be a theme in the things that he wrote.

01:18:23

It seemed to be a theme in the way that he preached as well. So, did he get sermons wrong?

01:18:30

Did he exegete things poorly at times? I'm sure he did, as we all did, but 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.

01:18:47

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

01:19:00

Christian that may have a tendency to accuse the other of exegesis because they disagree with what they are finding in the

01:19:09

Bible. But thanks, Chuck, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

01:19:17

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,

01:19:28

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.

01:19:41

We have Champ, as in Champion, a Champ in Bosque Farms, or perhaps it's

01:19:50

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.

01:20:07

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

01:20:23

God's will, just to excuse the fact that we are not expecting the prayer to be answered as we desire.

01:20:31

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

01:20:47

God's will, almost to be dismissive of expecting a prayer to be answered the way that we desire it to be?

01:20:57

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

01:21:04

I think one of the things to keep in mind is people that are

01:21:11

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

01:21:40

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

01:22:01

God who accomplishes all His holy will, 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,

01:22:17

I agree that God works through His prescribed means, and we get to participate in that.

01:22:24

Well, thanks, Champ. Give us your full mailing address and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CVBBS .com

01:22:32

will ship that book out to you that we are discussing. Serious joy, and once again, thanks to Founders Ministries for providing these copies.

01:22:43

Let's see, we have Stacy in Coho's, New York, and Stacy asks, what are the books that you most highly recommend reading written by Jonathan Edwards?

01:23:00

That is a great question. So, a good place,

01:23:06

I would say, to start perhaps, if you're unfamiliar with Jonathan Edwards, or if you haven't read anything that he has written before, a great place to start would be

01:23:19

Religious Affections. And so, Religious Affections is,

01:23:27

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

01:23:39

Lord God, you will find that theme amplified in that book,

01:23:45

Religious Affections. I would also say reading some of his sermons could also be of encouragement to someone that isn't familiar with Edwards.

01:24:00

And in the book, I list a few sermons, and I can give them to you now, but God glorified in man's dependence is a sermon, or God's sovereignty in the salvation of men.

01:24:16

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Safety, fullness, and sweet refreshment to be found in Christ.

01:24:27

And so, reading some of his sermons, and, again, starting with Religious Affections would be my encouragement.

01:24:37

Great. Well, thanks, Stacey, and please send us your full mailing address also, so that you can receive a copy of the book we are addressing,

01:24:48

Serious Joy, published by Founders Ministries, Founders Press, and also, which will be shipped to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:25:01

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.

01:25:22

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

01:25:39

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.

01:26:08

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

01:26:19

Presbyterian friends more than elsewhere, where I know

01:26:25

Presbyterian brothers and sisters who have become Pato Baptist just because they have become enamored with great figures from history like Edwards or John Calvin or John Knox or George Whitfield or we could go on and on, that I have actually heard people say things like when

01:26:46

I've asked them about why they made the change from Credo Baptism to Pato Baptism.

01:26:54

Well, so many of the great figures from history and all of the Reformers were

01:26:59

Pato Baptists, so how could they be wrong? So, don't we have to, you know, we have to tap the brakes sometimes when we are gleaning from great men like Edwards and others.

01:27:14

Yeah, I think so. So, you know, maybe the best way to tackle that question is, you know,

01:27:23

I was thinking just from a practical standpoint, you know, if there's someone that's listening that maybe that is them, you know, maybe they see a figure like Jonathan Edwards and it's, they're so enamored by Edwards that it really is casting a shadow on the

01:27:45

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

01:27:50

Word of God versus reading good, you know, good books by godly men who have gone before us?

01:27:56

Like, works by these men, sermons by these men, they're good, but they're still fallible, they're still sinful.

01:28:06

You know, again, one of the things I get into in the book is I highlight

01:28:12

Edwards as a cautionary tale, as someone who's sinful and as someone who's stumbled, and for me,

01:28:18

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

01:28:31

God and seeking to walk with the Lord in a manner that's pleasing to him, but we're deceiving ourselves when we put, you know, men on pedestals, and we find ourselves being influenced in decisions such as what church should

01:28:53

I join because of particular talking heads or figure heads versus the word of God.

01:29:00

Now, they can be helpful to us as it relates to being conversation partners in guiding us in truth and the word of God, helping us to rightly divide the word of God, but I would just say if you find yourself being obsessive about the

01:29:19

Puritans and, again, good things to engage with, but if you find yourself being obsessive with people like Jonathan Edward or someone living, like you said, a pastor now,

01:29:30

I would just remind yourself that there's one

01:29:35

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 and 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 test everything according to the

01:30:23

Scriptures. Tim 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.

01:30:38

Oh, sure, yeah, so first and foremost, my hope is that we live in such an age of,

01:30:48

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,

01:31:05

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 joy.

01:31:20

Hello, brother, you seem to have cut out. Yes, to point people back to,

01:31:29

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

01:31:50

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

01:32:00

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

01:32:13

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.

01:32:44

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 guests today,

01:32:55

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

01:33:01

Serious Joy, send it to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

01:33:08

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

01:33:18

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

01:33:53

Resolutions, please give us your first name, at least, city and state, and country of residence, don't go away, we're waiting for you.

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01:49:03

Cookie and Winooski 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?

01:49:23

Great question. So I think, first and foremost, it is that, you know, 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

01:49:52

God, and it's one that is unshakable. And so, you know, that comes up constantly, reading

01:50:00

Edwards, and it's always edifying to me. Another, something else

01:50:09

I've been encouraged by, just in my own reading of what was a private document, you know,

01:50:15

Edwards never, you know, he didn't put the 70 resolutions up to be published, but it was just how far reaching the

01:50:25

Lordship of Jesus Christ is. And so there's no area in my life which should be off limits to Christ and what

01:50:35

His Lordship necessitates. And so, and as Christians, you know, a part of the

01:50:42

Christian walk 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.

01:50:58

And so, again, these resolutions, they're very diverse in just different things they cover, and what that demonstrates is just, again, how far reaching the

01:51:10

Lordship of Christ is. And then the, 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 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.

01:52:18

And one of the markers, I think, of spiritual maturity is when we, as Christians, we should grow in our mindfulness of our sinfulness.

01:52:28

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 sin, we despair.

01:52:58

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

01:53:13

I'm encouraged in, it's, again, not because it's unique to me or unique to Edwards.

01:53:18

It's because these are the things that we all need to hear and we all need to remember.

01:53:27

Let's see. We have Bryson in Soda Springs, Idaho, who says,

01:53:34

Didn't Jonathan Edwards have some kind of a serious theological conflict with his own father -in -law?

01:53:43

Yes, that became more prevalent after the death of his father -in -law.

01:53:57

His father -in -law, Solomon Stoddard, the church that he pastored was rather large, and one of the things which, and again,

01:54:11

I just briefly mentioned this in the book. This would be for perhaps much has been written about the controversy, but there were some particular areas as it related specifically on how to conduct the church.

01:54:31

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.

01:54:43

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

01:54:54

Lord's table, people that were not walking with the Lord that were coming to the Lord's table, and Edwards was sought to fence the

01:55:04

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.

01:55:25

So if you want to be encouraged, 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, there were other things, but a lot of it had to do with the way in which he went about doing the

01:55:43

Lord's Supper, him refusing to admit it to people that didn't demonstrate genuine faith despite the fact they were baptized.

01:55:53

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

01:56:00

Lord's table. Well, we only have a couple of minutes left.

01:56:06

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.

01:56:13

Yes. Find your joy in the Lord, in the midst of whatever it is that's going on in your life, in the midst of what it is that you survey when you look at society at large.

01:56:29

Find joy in the triune God. Seek to continually bring your life into conformity to his word, and labor in hope knowing that the

01:56:40

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.

01:56:51

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

01:57:01

Lord. Amen. Well, I want to thank you so much for being such a superb guest once again.

01:57:08

I look forward to you returning for many future visits and future interviews on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:57:15

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

01:57:22

The church website where my guest, Joey Tomlinson, is the pastor of Deer Park Fellowship in Newport News, Virginia.

01:57:32

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

01:57:41

And for those of you who did not win a copy of the book Serious Joy that we have been discussing today, or maybe you even won a copy and you want to purchase more to give away, the website for Founders Press, who published that fine work, is press .founders

01:58:01

.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,

01:58:15

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

01:58:24

Christmas shopping, solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com,

01:58:30

and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio when making your purchase. Please visit that site frequently and purchase generously.

01:58:40

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

01:58:48

Christ -honoring Thanksgiving gathered with family, friends, and loved ones.

01:58:54

I hope that you have opportunity to share the precious gospel with those gathered around you without igniting arguments and shouting and so on.

01:59:09

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

01:59:16

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

01:59:24

And I hope that you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater