Jonathan Edwards, a leader in the Great Awakening during the eighteenth century, still has much to teach the church. Evangelicals are rediscovering him through the efforts of several authors (John Gerstner, Iain Murray, Harry Stout, and others) and publishers (Banner of Truth, Soli Deo Gloria, and Crossway). Stephen Nichols offers Jonathan Edwards as an introduction, a gateway into the vast and rewarding life, thought, and writings of Jonathan Edwards. He intends it for anyone who wants to read Edwards but who needs a little help.

Jonathan Edwards has been recognized as the most influential evangelical theologian of all time. Before his death at the age of fifty-four, he had sparked a new movement of Reformed evangelicals who played a major role in fueling the rise of modern missions, preaching revivals far and wide, and wielding the cutting edge of American theology. He has never gone out of print, and Christians today continue to flock to seminars and conferences on him. In this biography of the great preacher and teacher, historian Douglas Sweeney locates for us the core and key to Edwards' enduring impact. Sweeney finds that Edwards' profound and meticulous study of the Bible securely anchored his powerful preaching, his lively theological passions and his discerning pastoral work. Beyond introducing you to Edwards' life and times, this book will provide you with a model of Christian faith, thought and ministry.

Scholars and laypersons alike regard Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) as North America's greatest theologian. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards is the most comprehensive survey of his theology yet produced and the first study to make full use of the recently-completed seventy-three-volume online edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. The book's forty-five chapters examine all major aspects of Edwards's thought and include in-depth discussions of the extensive secondary literature on Edwards as well as Edwards's own writings. Its opening chapters set out Edwards's historical and personal theological contexts. The next thirty chapters connect Edwards's theological loci in the temporally-ordered way in which he conceptualized the theological enterprise-beginning with the triune God in eternity with his angels to the history of redemption as an expression of God's inner reality ad extra, and then back to God in eschatological glory.The authors analyze such themes as aesthetics, metaphysics, typology, history of redemption, revival, and true virtue. They also take up such rarely-explored topics as Edwards's missiology, treatment of heaven and angels, sacramental thought, public theology, and views of non-Christian religions. Running throughout the volume are what the authors identify as five basic theological constituents: trinitarian communication, creaturely participation, necessitarian dispositionalism, divine priority, and harmonious constitutionalism. Later chapters trace his influence on and connections with later theologies and philosophies in America and Europe. The result is a multi-layered analysis that treats Edwards as a theologian for the twenty-first-century global Christian community, and a bridge between the Christian West and East, Protestantism and Catholicism, conservatism and liberalism, and charismatic and non-charismatic churches.

You've heard his name, you've probably heard your pastor quote him, but who is he really? 250 years later, Jonathan Edwards, America’s consummate pastor-theologian, continues to capture the attention of Christians around the world. Yet Edwards left us over 1,200 sermons and thousands of pages of other publications, not to mention the literal thousands of books that have been written about Edwards since he died. Where does one even begin? That’s why we created The Essential Jonathan Edwards. It serves as a perfect introduction to Edwards’s life and thought. It explores Edwards day-to-day life, and his views on beauty, true Christianity, heaven and hell, and the good life. Strachan and Sweeney strike the perfect balance between necessary background information and giving Edwards’s own works room to speak. Whether you’re an Edwards fan already or only know Edwards because of “that Angry God sermon,” this book will lead you to drink deeply of Scripture and gaze longingly at God.

Among the topics considered are spiritual perception, metaphysics, spirituality, ethics, history, and apologetics."--BOOK JACKET.

Jonathan Edwards was a preacher, pastor, revivalist, and theologian. This volume unpacks his magnificent theological vision, which starts with God's glory and ends with all creation returning to that glory. Sean Michael Lucas has converted his years of teaching on Edwards into this valuable work, which places Edwards's vision in an accessible, two-part framework. Part one focuses on Edwards's understanding of redemption history—God's cosmic, grand work from eternity past to eternity future, where all things are united in Christ. Part two examines Edwards's perspective on "redemption applied"—how that gracious, divine work unfolds in space and time to personally transform individuals, stirring their affections, illuminating their minds, and moving their wills to form new habits and practices. This overview of Edwards's theology will prove to be a thought-provoking, encouraging guide to contemporary believers at every stage of their spiritual journey.