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The Pastor as Theologian: Life and Ministry of Jonathan Edwards | John Piper · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reform thinking. I am your host and I'm genuinely
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  glad you have tuned in. It's good to be here.
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  We are dedicating this session to digging into the archives of
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  theological history, but with a very specific lens.
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  We aren't here to just memorize dates or, you know, recite
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  biographies. We are looking for the
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  substantial, the heavy concepts that actually shift the center
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  of gravity and how we view God and the world.
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  And that's a good way to put it, A shift in the center of
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  gravity. Because we aren't skimming the
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  surface today. We are tackling a figure who
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  looms absolutely massive over Protestant history, right?
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  And yet he's a man who is often, and I mean very often,
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  misunderstood. We're here to help parse some of
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  the more complex theological concepts that defined his life
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  and hopefully apply them to ours.
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  In our focus, the source material we're looking at is a
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  Seminole message delivered by John Piper.
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  This is back in 1988 at the Bethlehem Conference for
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  Pastors. That's right.
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  The title of the message was The Pastor is Theologian, Life and
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  Ministry of Jonathan Edwards. Now for you, the listener who
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  might be prepping for a meeting, driving to work, or just trying
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  to get a better grasp of church history, I want to be clear.
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  This isn't just a biography. It's a look at how intellectual
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  rigor and pastoral care intersect.
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  It is about the life of the mind and the state of the soul.
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  That intersection is the critical piece.
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  It really is, Piper's address points out that you cannot
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  separate the mind from the heart in the life of Edwards.
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  The source material we have in front of us is essentially a
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  call to look past the cartoons and caricatures of Jonathan.
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  Edwards we have cartoons. Yeah, and understand what Piper
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  calls a God entranced worldview. And that's really the mission of
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  this deep dive. That's the goal.
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  We want to see how that specific worldview, being God entranced,
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  shapes ministry and, well, the whole of the Christian life.
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  And we should note right at the outset, just for the sake of
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  clarity, that this discussion is grounded and Reformed theology.
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  We are adhering to the Westminster Confessions focus on
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  God's sovereignty, which is something Edwards champion.
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  I mean ferociously. This isn't just about a man.
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  It's about the theology that drove the man.
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  We are looking at this through the lens of high sovereignty and
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  deep depravity. OK, so let's unpack this.
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  When most people hear the name Jonathan Edwards, especially if
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  they went to a public high school in America, they have a
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  very specific and usually very negative image in mind.
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  Oh yes, the source material refers to this as the high
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  school history textbook version of Edwards, and I remember
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  reading it myself. Yes, the caricature, it's
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  pervasive. It's the cultural default
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  setting for him. It's almost all anyone knows, if
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  they know anything at all. And the perception is usually of
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  this gloomy, sullen, morose man. You know, the guy in the black
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  coat scowling the fun killer. Exactly, and if you read the
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  standard textbook summary, Edwards is often reduced to a
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  single paragraph, usually. Say something like the Great
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  Awakening was a brief period of religious intensity in the 1730s
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  that caused a lot of church splits.
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  Right, and he's the guy to blame.
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  He's painted as the ringleader of that trouble.
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  He's the villain in the story of rational progress, the guy
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  holding back the Enlightenment. It's a reductionist view,
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  certainly. It's super simplified, and the
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  centerpiece of that reduction is almost always that one famous
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  sermon. You know the one.
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  Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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  There it is. You legitimately cannot talk
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  about Edwards without that coming up.
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  The imagery is just so vivid it burns into your brain.
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  It's designed to be. The source describes it
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  perfectly. God holding a Sinner over the
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  pit of hell, much like one holds a spider or some loot some
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  insect over a fire. The spider image, that's what
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  stick. The language is intense.
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  It says God abhors the Sinner and that the Sinner is worthy of
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  nothing else but to be cast into the fire.
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  It's hard to hear. It is terrifying language.
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  There's no getting around that. And because it's so graphic,
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  it's easy to dismiss Edwards as a pathological misanthrope if
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  you stop there, right? If that's all you know.
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  If that's the only data point you have, you assume he was a
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  man who delighted in being morbid or who's trying to scare
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  people for sport, a kind of sadistic rhetorical exercise.
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  Like he was just trying to be mean spirited or emotionally
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  abusive. But Piper argues in our source
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  material that this misses the point entirely.
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  In fact, it misses the motive. Because it misses the why, we
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  have to pivot to the reason behind that language.
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  This is where we need to put on our theological thinking caps
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  for a second. Edwards was not being morbid.
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  He was laboring to communicate a biblical reality that he
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  believed was objectively true. He was looking at texts like
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  Revelation 19.14 I. Have that reference here.
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  Christ will tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath
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  of God the Almighty say. It again.
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  The fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty.
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  It has a heavy combination of words, fierceness, wrath,
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  almighty. Yeah, that's a pile up of
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  intensity. So look at the reaction Edwards
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  had to that text. He wasn't rubbing his hands
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  together in Glee. He was stunned.
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  He was odd. He noted that the phrase
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  fierceness and wrath implies something infinitely dreadful.
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  So he's responding to the Bible, not inventing something from his
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  own morbid mind. Precisely.
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  He wasn't inventing these horrors to control people.
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  He was trying to find language that could match what he saw in
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  scripture. He felt a burden to be accurate
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  to the text. Piper makes a really interesting
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  comparison here between Edwards and modern preachers.
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  It's a sharp contrast. It is.
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  He points out that Edwards struggle to find images shocking
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  enough to match the biblical reality of hell.
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  He felt language failed him because it was too weak.
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  Whereas modern preachers often do the exact opposite.
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  We search for language that is weak enough, right?
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  Piper says contemporary preachers tend to use
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  abstractions and circumlocutions.
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  We try to move away from concrete pictures of fire and
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  gnashing teeth because they're uncomfortable.
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  We want to soften the blow. We say separation from God
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  instead of fire, which is true, but it's not the whole picture
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  of the Bible paints. And this leads to a diagnostic
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  question that Pipe proposes, which I think is brilliant and
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  arguably the most pointed question for us to answer
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  regarding this sermon. Why the difference?
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  Why did Edward struggle to find scary enough images while we
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  struggle to make them less scary?
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  And pipo suggests the answer is simple.
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  So uncomfortable. What's the answer?
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  Edwards actually believed in hell.
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  That stings a bit. It should.
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  It's meant to. He felt the weight of it.
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  Many contemporaries perhaps do not feel that way, even if they
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  profess the doctrine on paper. It's the difference between a
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  theoretical danger and a real 1. That's it.
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  If you really believed a bus was coming at someone, you wouldn't
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  whisper a warning. You would scream.
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  You wouldn't worry about your tone being too harsh.
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  Precisely. The spider sermon wasn't eight.
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  It was love. It was a desperate warning born
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  out of a deep conviction about reality.
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  But if we only focus on that, if we stop at the spider, we miss
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  the full scope of the man. And frankly, we miss the genius.
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  And the credentials list and the source material is staggering.
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  I mean, it's easy to forget this when you're just thinking about
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  the one sermon. The man was an intellectual
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  giant. Edwards is cited by both secular
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  and evangelical historians as the greatest Protestant thinker
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  America has ever produced. Not just the best preacher, the
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  best thinker. His intellect was formidable.
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  He was operating on a level that most of us can barely track
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  with, let alone replicate. He wrote The Freedom of the
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  Will, which is this incredibly insightful work on sovereignty
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  and accountability. It's still debated in philosophy
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  departments today. Still a standard text.
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  Then there's the religious affections, which I found
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  fascinating because it's a critique of the very revival he
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  helped spark. That's a critical point that
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  often gets lost in the wild revivalist narrative.
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  He wasn't just a cheerleader for the Great Awakening, he was its
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  most penetrating analyst. So he wasn't just caught up in
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  the emotion of it all. No, far from it.
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  He saw the emotionalism, the fainting, the crying out, and he
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  used his theological precision to separate true spiritual fruit
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  from mere religious excitement. He was trying to figure out what
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  was from God and what was just, you know, human height.
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  He was cutting out the cancer. We're trying to save the
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  patient. A very good way of putting it.
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  And we cannot forget his domestic life.
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  The caricature of the angry loner just falls apart when you
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  look at the reality he was a pastor for 23 years. 23 years in
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  one church. A father of eleven faithful
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  children and later a missionary to the Native Americans, This
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  wasn't some disconnected academic in an ivory tower.
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  And he did all of this without modern conveniences.
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  No electric light, no word processors, no antibiotics.
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  He lived a life of rigorous, constant labor.
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  But there's another aspect of his legacy that often gets
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  overlooked, especially when people are just focused on his
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  fire and brimstone reputation. You're referring to is impact on
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  missions. This is one of the most
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  surprising parts of the source material for me.
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  It is surprising for most people.
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  You don't usually hear Jonathan Edwards and think global
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  missions movement. You think?
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  Puritan, Calvinist, New England. Cold, intellectual New England.
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  But Piper makes a strong case that it wasn't just his theology
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  that fueled missions, but a biography he wrote.
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  The Life of David Brainerd. Yes, Edwards edited and
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  published the diary of David Brainerd.
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  Brainerd was a young missionary to the Native Americans who
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  actually died in Edward's house. It's a tragic but powerful
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  story. Brainerd died of tuberculosis,
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  or consumption, as they called it then.
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  It was a messy, painful death. Just a heartbreaking situation.
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  And to add to the tragedy, Edward's daughter Jerusha was
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  nursing him. She contracted the disease from
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  him and died shortly after. It was a House of mourning, a
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  House of deep grief. That is incredibly heavy.
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  Yet Edwards took Brainerd's private journals, the wrestling
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  of his Soul, his depression, his Zeal, and publish them.
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  And the impact of that one book is what Piper calls A roll call
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  of missionary history. The effect was just massive.
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  It really is. It became the handbook for self
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  sacrifice and missions. Take Gideon Holly for instance.
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  He was a missionary protege of Edwards.
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  He carried that book in his saddlebags as he rode through
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  the wilderness in 1753. Holly wrote that when the strain
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  was almost beyond endurance, he needed something more than human
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  support. He said he read his Bible and
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  Mr. Brainerd's life, and they were the only things that kept
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  him going. Wow, that's high praise to put a
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  biography right next to the Bible in your saddlebag.
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  That's about as high as it gets. And it wasn't just Calvinists
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  who were moved by it. John Wesley.
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  The father of modern Methodism. Who definitely disagreed with
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  Edwards on predestination and the specific points of
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  Calvinism, actually published A shortened version of Brainerd's
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  life. He edited himself.
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  He did, and he told his preachers to emulate Brainerd's
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  spirit. He essentially said ignore the
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  theology if you must, but catch the fire.
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  He saw the devotion, the absolute sold outness of
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  Brainerd. It crossed theological lines.
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  Then you have William Carey, the father of modern missions.
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  Henry Martin, Robert Morrison, David Livingstone, Andrew
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  Murray. These are giants of the faith.
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  All of them. And they all point back to this
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  biography as a primary influence.
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  Even into the 20th century. There's a note here about Jim
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  Elliott. He was one of the missionaries
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  martyred by the AKA Indians, now known as the Wodani, in Ecuador
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  in the 1950s. A famous story of modern
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  missions. In his diary, Elliott wrote that
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  Brainerd's life convicted him of pride.
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  He saw Brainerd suffering and realized his own dedication fell
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  short. It spurred him on.
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  It shows that Edwards is the fuel behind 250 years of
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  missionary movement. It's an unbroken chain.
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  It really is. Yet the man himself remains
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  largely unknown to the average Christian, or at least the real
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  version of him does. It seems like Edwards understood
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  that theology leads to mission, and mission runs on prayer.
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  That's a great summary and that brings us back to the core
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  concept. Piper wants to drive home all of
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  this, the preaching, the writing, the missions, it all
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  flows from one source, right? It's what he calls the God
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  Entranced Worldview. This section of the source
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  material starts with a heavy quote from the historian Mark
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  Knoll. He says that American
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  evangelicals ceased thinking about life from the ground up as
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  Christians. That's the tragedy of lost
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  perspective. Noel argues that after Edwards,
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  the American church split. His piety went to The
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  Revivalists, the people who focused on emotion and
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  conversion experiences. OK, the hard people.
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  And his theology went to the academics, the people in the
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  seminaries, arguing about doctrine, the head people.
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  But his God entranced worldview, that holistic way of seeing
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  everything in relation to God, had no successors.
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  We fragmented the mind and the heart.
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  We split them apart. Piper shares his own testimony
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  here. He says Edwards became his
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  compass alongside the Bible. Not that Edwards has the
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  authority of Scripture. Piper is very careful about.
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  That very careful, yes. But that he's a master of it.
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  He is a guide who knows the terrain better than almost
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  anyone. And to explain the need for that
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  guide, Piper uses a very compelling analogy to describe
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  the modern condition of the Church without this worldview.
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  He calls it the 8 foot ceiling. I love this visual, it explains
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  so much of the modern malaise in the church.
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  He describes modern congregants as people living in a room with
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  an 8 foot white plaster ceiling and no windows.
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  They've never seen the blue sky, they've never seen the sun or
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  the mountains. Their entire reality is
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  contained within that small man made box.
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  And the consequences that they feel this sense of littleness
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  and triviality in their souls, but they can't explain why.
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  They're comfortable, perhaps, but they are small.
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  Their world is small. Because they have no grandeur,
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  they are starved for the infinite.
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  And Piper argues that the solution isn't more moral pep
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  talks. It isn't psychological tips on
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  garbage recycling or how to handle divorce.
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  Not that those things are bad. No, not at all.
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  They have their place. But what they fundamentally
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  need, what the human soul craves, is the grandeur of God.
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  They need someone to knock a hole in the ceiling.
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  This implies that everything from garage sales to demons, as
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  Piper says, must be related to God's infinite greatness.
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  If we don't see the connection, we are living under that 8 foot
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  ceiling. And this isn't just theoretical.
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  This is where the rubber meets the road and pastor ministry.
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  This is where it gets very real. Paper shares a heart wrenching
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  story from his own ministry at Bethlehem Baptist that
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  illustrates this perfectly. The story of the abused child.
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  This really drove the point home for me.
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  It stops you in your tracks. Piper recounts that he had
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  decided to preach on the holiness of God from Isaiah 6
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  the. Holy, holy, holy passage.
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  Right, the passage where the seraphim are crying.
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  Holy, holy, holy before the throne.
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  And significantly, I notes that he gave no practical
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  application. He didn't offer three steps to a
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  better Tuesday. He just spent the time unfolding
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  the vision of God's majesty and holiness.
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  He painted the picture of the King on the throne high and
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  lifted up. But practically speaking, there
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  was a crisis in the pews that very every week a family had
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  just discovered their child was being sexually abused by a
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  relative. A nightmare.
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  Police, social workers, doctors, the whole world had collapsed.
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  For them is the worst possible scenario.
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  No pause there. Conventional wisdom and most
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  seminary training would say that what that family needed on
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  Sunday morning was a practical sermon.
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  Absolutely. They needed a talk on coping
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  mechanisms or healing from trauma or something immediately
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  applicable to their pain. They needed empathy and utility.
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  True. If you were advising a pastor,
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  you'd say don't preach high theology today.
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  People are hurting. Get down to earth, meet them
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  where they are. But look at the result.
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  The Father told Piper later that the vision of God's holiness
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  from that sermon was the rock they stood on during the
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  devastation. That's counterintuitive.
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  It seems almost backward. It is, but it's deeply true.
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  A high view of God's sovereignty and holiness provides a
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  stability that practical tips cannot offer.
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  When your one falls apart, when the floor drops out from under
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  you, you don't need a tip. You need an anchor.
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  You need a massive, unshakable God.
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  You need to know that the one in charge is holy and powerful, and
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  that he hasn't lost control even when everything in your life
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  feels out of control. Piper mentions another example
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  of a woman going through a divorce.
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  She needed his stand and vision to survive spiritually.
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  It seems like the God entranced worldview isn't just for
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  intellectuals, it's for survival.
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  It is the bedrock of pastoral care.
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  It's the most practical thing a pastor can give.
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  If you give people a small God, they have nowhere to stand when
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  big problems hit. A small God cannot handle big
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  trauma. Only a massive sovereign God can
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  anchor a soul in that kind of storm.
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  So if we accept that this worldview is essential, that we
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  need to break the 8 foot ceiling, how do we get it?
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  How do we cultivate that? Well, that's the next.
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  Step. The source material shifts into
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  four specific exhortations that Piper draws from Edward's life.
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  The first one is radical single mindedness.
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  This takes us into Edward's famous resolutions as a young
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  man, really just a teenager. He wrote 70 of them, 70.
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  And these weren't New Year's resolutions, like I'll join a
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  gym. These were binding contracts
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  with himself before God about how you would live his entire
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  life. Piper highlights resolution #44
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  and #61 specifically. OK, Resolution 44 says Resolved
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  that no other end but religion shall have any influence at all
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  in any of my actions. That's sweeping.
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  That is all-encompassing, no other end.
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  And #61 talks about refusing to give way to listlessness.
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  That relaxes the mind. Listlessness.
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  That's a great word. It's the drift, it's the feeling
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  of scrolling through your phone for an hour because you can't be
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  bothered to think. It's mental slouching.
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  Piper connects this single mindedness to Second Timothy.
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  Chapter 2. The soldier, the athlete, the
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  farmer. Yes, the idea that a soldier on
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  active duty doesn't get entangled in civilian pursuits.
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  He brings up the concept of a wartime versus peacetime
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  mentality. I think a lot of us can relate
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  to the peacetime description, especially in the modern West.
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  It's the danger of the ministry or the Christian life in general
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  becoming just a job or a hobby. The wartime mentality shifts to
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  a peacetime mentality. We start looking for a cushy
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  lifestyle. We want comfort, we want to be
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  entertained. Piper describes it as evenings
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  filled with harmless diversions, hobbies and television just
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  passing the time. And to be clear, Piper isn't
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  saying there's something inherently wrong with hobbies or
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  REST. The issue is the center of
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  gravity. What is the default mode?
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  It's about the intensity of focus.
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  Yes, Piper argues, the church needs a God besotted man.
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  If the pastor who is charged with knowing God shifts into
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  neutral and stop studying to pursue trivialities, the church
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  becomes. Shallow He argues that if the
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  leader stops climbing the mountain, the people won't see
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  the view. They will be weak in the day of
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  trial because their guide has stopped looking for the path.
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  And Edwards viewed theology as a science.
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  He called it divinity. It wasn't just a side interest.
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  It was the science of the eternal, 3 in one, Jesus as
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  mediator and the work of the Spirit.
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  It requires radical focus. You cannot dabble in divinity
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  and expect to be a great theologian.
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  Any more than you can dabble in physics and expect to be
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  Einstein. This leads directly into the
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  second exhortation labor to know the scriptures.
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  This is about first hand and knowledge.
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  This is so critical. Edwards didn't rely primarily on
• 19:27
  systems or commentaries. He went to the fountain.
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  He wanted to know what God said, not what men said God said.
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  Piper even warns don't even let Edwards or Packer be the primary
• 19:36
  source. Which is ironic given the topic
• 19:38
  of the message, but the point is valid.
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  Go to the Bible itself. Go to the source and Edwards had
• 19:42
  a very specific physical method for this, the interleaved Bible.
• 19:47
  I was fascinated by this description.
• 19:48
  It's such a tactile example of his dedication.
• 19:51
  Piper visited the Yale library where Edwards's unpublished
• 19:55
  works are stored. And he saw this.
• 19:57
  Thing he saw this physical object.
• 19:59
  Edwards had taken a Bible apart. Literally disassembled it.
• 20:02
  He took the binding off. Can you imagine?
• 20:04
  He inserted a blank sheet of paper between every single page
• 20:08
  and then re sewed it back together.
• 20:09
  So it was a page of scripture, then a blank page.
• 20:12
  A page of scripture Blank cage all the way through.
• 20:14
  Think about the effort that takes in the 18th century and
• 20:17
  the intent. He then drew a line down the
• 20:20
  center of those blank pages to make columns for notes.
• 20:24
  And the source says they were filled with tiny, almost
• 20:26
  illegible notes and reflections even in the remotest parts of
• 20:30
  Scripture. He wasn't just highlighting John
• 20:32
  3.1 sick, he was wrestling with Levitical law and genealogies.
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  This proves he was following his resolution #28 to study
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  Scripture so steadily, constantly and frequently that
• 20:45
  he could perceive his own growth in knowledge.
• 20:47
  He wanted to see the progress. He wanted to know he was getting
• 20:50
  somewhere. It wasn't just a duty, it was a
• 20:52
  conquest. He wanted to gain ground.
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  That's a challenge to modern believers.
• 20:57
  I have to ask myself, do I have a plan for understanding the
• 21:00
  terrain of Scripture like that? Do I have a map?
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  Most of us read for a pick me up.
• 21:05
  We want a nugget for the day, something to make us feel
• 21:07
  better. Or a pastor reads to get a
• 21:10
  sermon idea because Sunday is coming.
• 21:12
  Right, it's utilitarian. Edwards read to understand the
• 21:15
  sequence of thought of God. He wanted to gain new ground
• 21:18
  daily. It's a completely different
• 21:19
  orientation toward the text. It's the difference between
• 21:22
  snacking and mining. Snacking is easy.
• 21:24
  Mining is hard labor. Spot on.
• 21:26
  And that mining requires time. Which brings us to the third
• 21:29
  exhortation. Redeem the time.
• 21:32
  This is where we talk about activity versus passivity.
• 21:35
  Resolution number six says live with all my might while I live.
• 21:39
  All my might. That sounds like something you'd
• 21:41
  see on a motivational poster, but Edwards actually did it.
• 21:43
  And resolution #11 is even more specific.
• 21:47
  When a theological problem arises, solve it immediately if
• 21:50
  possible. Immediately.
• 21:52
  That's the kicker. Not I'll get to it later, Not
• 21:56
  I'll put it on my To Do List. No, no, Piper.
• 21:58
  Contrast this with passive reading, which he likens to
• 22:01
  watching TV. That's a great comparison.
• 22:03
  When we read passively, we let the words wash over us.
• 22:07
  We read a paragraph and realize we have no idea what it said.
• 22:10
  We don't ask, Why does the sentence follow that one?
• 22:12
  What's the logical connection? Edwards advocated for active
• 22:16
  reading. Reading to solve problems.
• 22:18
  Reading like a detective on a case.
• 22:20
  And he had a tool for this too, pin in hand.
• 22:23
  Always. He never read without it.
• 22:24
  Piper details at Edwards always read with a pen.
• 22:28
  Why? To write down trains of thought
• 22:31
  to trace arguments. There's a cognitive benefit here
• 22:34
  that is crucial. You cannot sustain a long
• 22:37
  sequence of logical questions and answers in your head without
• 22:40
  writing them down. Your working memory just isn't
• 22:42
  big enough. It gets away from you.
• 22:44
  The writing molds the person into a thinking being.
• 22:47
  If you don't write it, you lose the thread, you lose the
• 22:50
  insight. You can't build on it.
• 22:52
  There's. A great anecdote about him
• 22:53
  thinking while riding a horse. Yes, Sereno Dwight, his
• 22:57
  biographer, tells this. Edwards would often ride into
• 23:00
  the woods for exercise and contemplation if a thought came
• 23:03
  to him while writing. He didn't have a notebook handy.
• 23:06
  So what did he do? He would pin a small piece of
• 23:08
  paper to his coat to remind him of that specific insight until
• 23:11
  he got home. He would literally pin it to
• 23:13
  himself, yes. He might arrive home with his
• 23:16
  coat covered in scraps of paper flapping in the wind, each one a
• 23:19
  thought he refused to lose. That is dedication.
• 23:23
  It is. It shows he valued those
• 23:25
  thoughts more than his appearance or his convenience.
• 23:28
  He treated thoughts about God as precious jewels that he couldn't
• 23:31
  afford to drop. His schedule was grueling, up to
• 23:34
  13 hours a day in the study. 13 hours.
• 23:38
  And he even regulated his diet based on his study.
• 23:40
  He observed which foods made him sleepy or dull and avoided them.
• 23:45
  If his mind was in a good frame for contemplation, he would skip
• 23:48
  dinner rather than be interrupted.
• 23:50
  He chose the spiritual feast over the physical one.
• 23:52
  And he rose early, motivated by the fact that Christ rose from
• 23:55
  the grave early. The discipline was total.
• 23:58
  Now, Piper adds A caveat here. And I think it's important.
• 24:00
  We have to be careful. Edwards might have been wrong in
• 24:04
  some of his pastoral choices. He didn't visit people in their
• 24:07
  homes unless called for. He spent a massive amount of
• 24:11
  time in isolation, which eventually contributed to him
• 24:14
  being dismissed from his church. Right, Piper isn't saying ignore
• 24:17
  your throck and starve yourself. No, he is not saying copy his
• 24:21
  schedule. That's not the point.
• 24:23
  But the lesson is the intensity of the focus, the willingness to
• 24:27
  discipline the body and the schedule.
• 24:28
  For the sake of knowing God, are we willing to be even half that
• 24:32
  disciplined? Which brings us to the final,
• 24:34
  and perhaps most beautiful exhortation Logic on fire.
• 24:39
  This is the Puritan ideal. This ties everything together.
• 24:42
  It's the marriage of reason and affection.
• 24:45
  It's the answer to those who say, don't give me theology,
• 24:47
  just give me Jesus. Edwards would say you can't have
• 24:50
  one without the other. The goal of study isn't just to
• 24:52
  be smart. It's not about winning arguments
• 24:55
  or passing exams. It's for heartfelt worship and
• 24:57
  practical obedience. And to get there, Edwards makes
• 25:01
  a vital distinction between speculative reason and true
• 25:05
  sense. This is the key to understanding
• 25:08
  his entire ministry, his entire thought process.
• 25:10
  OK. Break that down.
• 25:11
  Speculative reason. Speculative reason can convince
• 25:15
  you that God is holy. You can win the argument.
• 25:18
  You can prove it from the text. You can pass the theology exam.
• 25:22
  You know it as a fact. But that's not enough.
• 25:24
  It's not enough. You need what he calls a
• 25:27
  sensible discovery of the beauty of that holiness.
• 25:31
  You have to not just know it's true, but feel that it's
• 25:34
  beautiful. The analogy Edwards uses is
• 25:36
  honey. Yes, it's the classic
• 25:38
  illustration. There's a difference between
• 25:40
  believing that honey is sweet because someone told you, or
• 25:43
  because you analyzed its chemical composition in a lab.
• 25:45
  That's speculative reason. And actually tasting the
• 25:48
  sweetness on your time. Tasting is the true sense.
• 25:50
  Exactly. And Edwards argues that without
• 25:53
  that delight, without that relishing knowledge, is no
• 25:56
  better than what the devils have.
• 25:57
  The demons know God is holy. They know the Bible better than
• 26:00
  we do. They tremble, but they don't
• 26:03
  taste the beauty of it. They hate the holiness.
• 26:05
  They see. We are called to love it, to
• 26:07
  delight in it. This connects directly to the
• 26:09
  concept of Christian hedonism, which is something Piper's
• 26:12
  famous for, but he draws it straight from Edwards.
• 26:14
  It's the ultimate purpose of theology.
• 26:16
  God is glorified not most by being known or obeyed dutifully,
• 26:21
  but by being enjoyed. The quote is powerful.
• 26:24
  God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, but by its
• 26:29
  being rejoiced in. God communicates His glory to
• 26:32
  the mind and the heart. If it stops at the mind, God is
• 26:35
  not fully glorified in us. It has to reach the heart.
• 26:38
  It has to result in joy. If your theology doesn't lead to
• 26:41
  doxology to worship, it's defective.
• 26:44
  Piper concludes this section with a beautiful series of
• 26:46
  metaphors. God is the substance.
• 26:49
  Families and friends are shadows.
• 26:50
  God is the sun, Earthly joys are scattered beams.
• 26:53
  God is the ocean. Earthly pleasures are streams.
• 26:56
  It's a radical reorientation of everything.
• 26:59
  The pastor, the theologian, the learner.
• 27:01
  You must seek to glorify God by enjoying him forever.
• 27:05
  That's the engine that drives the study, the discipline, and
• 27:08
  the missions. We study because we want to see
• 27:10
  more of the one we love. So bringing this all together,
• 27:13
  it's a lot to take in. We've looked at the caricature
• 27:16
  versus the reality, moving past the angry spider to the God and
• 27:20
  trans pastor. We've seen the missionary legacy
• 27:23
  born out of the tragedy of David Brainerd.
• 27:26
  We've discussed the desperate need for a God entranced
• 27:29
  worldview to handle life's tragedies like abuse and
• 27:32
  divorce. The 8 foot ceiling and we've.
• 27:34
  Walked through the exhortations, single mindedness, knowing the
• 27:37
  scriptures first hand, redeeming the time and logic on fire.
• 27:41
  It's a comprehensive challenge. Edwards challenges us to abandon
• 27:44
  triviality. He calls us to pursue a massive,
• 27:47
  holy and sovereign God. He calls us to break that 8 foot
• 27:50
  ceiling and see the sky. And as we said at the beginning
• 27:52
  at this isn't just for pastors. This is for any learner who
• 27:56
  wants to know God. Whether you're an engineer, a
• 27:59
  teacher, a stay at home parent, or a student, the call to a God
• 28:03
  in Transworld View stands. Indeed, it's about waking up
• 28:07
  from the peacetime mentality and realizing the magnitude of the
• 28:11
  God we profess to believe in. It's about being fully alive to
• 28:15
  His glory in every part of our lives.
• 28:17
  I. Want to leave you with a final
• 28:18
  provocative thought derived from Edward's pen in hand habit.
• 28:23
  We talked about him pinning papers to his coat so he
• 28:25
  wouldn't lose a thought about God.
• 28:26
  It's a striking image, it really is.
• 28:28
  So here's the question for you today.
• 28:30
  If you were to pin a piece of paper to your coat today,
• 28:33
  representing a thought about God you don't want to lose, what
• 28:36
  would that thought be? What is the insight or the
• 28:39
  attribute of God that you were afraid of forgetting in the rush
• 28:43
  of your daily life? That is worth contemplating.
• 28:45
  Until next time, keep thinking.