Slavery and Jonathan Edwards
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:05.500 | Pastor John, it appears that 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards and his wife
00:00:09.620 | owned household and farming slaves, perhaps as many as six total, and they seem to have
00:00:15.820 | owned at least one slave at all times, even up until Jonathan's death.
00:00:20.140 | How does his slaveholding factor into your evaluation of Jonathan Edwards' theological
00:00:25.740 | legacy?
00:00:29.080 | Instead of trying to explain how it could be, I think the most helpful thing to do at
00:00:35.360 | this point would be to just to answer the question, "Okay, what effect does that have
00:00:42.480 | on you, you lover of Edwards?
00:00:45.860 | What difference does that make to you?
00:00:47.400 | Does that affect you at all?"
00:00:49.840 | And here are four or five responses or effects that it has on me.
00:00:56.560 | Number one, it warns me not to idolize or idealize any man except Jesus.
00:01:07.080 | Something's going to show up and disillusion me if I pick out a dead man or a living man
00:01:16.200 | as somebody that I'm going to idealize.
00:01:20.840 | There is no ideal man except Jesus.
00:01:23.680 | So that's the first thing.
00:01:24.680 | It's a warning to measure my admiration carefully.
00:01:30.800 | Number two, it cautions me that if he had blind spots on that issue, he may well have
00:01:41.160 | had blind spots on other issues, which means that I'm going to now read with some more
00:01:47.680 | care.
00:01:49.360 | I think our vigilance in reading is heightened when we know that a man has blown it.
00:01:57.920 | In one area we say, "Well, we've got a fallible man on our hands here, therefore we will now
00:02:04.980 | read with some special vigilance lest we be sucked into approving everything that he says
00:02:13.040 | on any issue at all."
00:02:15.000 | So let it have a salutary and cautioning effect on how we read an author, including Edwards.
00:02:23.120 | Third, it makes me marvel that God uses any of us.
00:02:31.920 | I have documented numerous of my besetting sins.
00:02:38.240 | I came back to Bethlehem.
00:02:39.760 | People can go listen to this sermon after my eight-month leave in which I had done a
00:02:45.400 | lot of soul searching.
00:02:48.280 | I think in the sermon I gave to the BCS Chapel in Act the Miracle and one in the church,
00:02:56.680 | I tried to describe the most recurrent sins of John Piper.
00:03:07.240 | It was a very sobering season for me.
00:03:15.720 | I simply have to marvel that, number one, I survived 33 years in the pastorate as an
00:03:24.040 | imperfect man and that God used me.
00:03:28.560 | I didn't just survive.
00:03:29.720 | I loved it.
00:03:31.160 | The people, by and large, I think, loved me.
00:03:36.560 | God did some good.
00:03:38.400 | I know those sins better than anybody except maybe Noel.
00:03:43.000 | So I'm not quick to point my finger at Edwards, but I am quick to marvel that he was used
00:03:51.760 | and I have been used and I am amazed.
00:03:55.960 | Number four, Edwards' failure in that regard teaches me that sanctification has blank spots
00:04:05.520 | like knowledge has blind spots.
00:04:09.960 | Here's what I mean.
00:04:12.240 | We can be making good progress in five areas of our lives and doing badly in a sixth area,
00:04:21.120 | a blank area where the Holy Spirit, for some reason, isn't exerting all the power that
00:04:29.440 | he could and we are resistant and still holding on to some sin.
00:04:38.120 | We can be knowing rightly in five areas and be mistaken in a sixth area.
00:04:44.040 | So what I see in Edwards' failure is a reminder that not only does knowledge have blind spots,
00:04:54.120 | sanctification has blank spots, and all of us should therefore search our lives instead
00:05:00.600 | of just congratulating ourselves on the four areas of progress, look at that fifth or sixth
00:05:06.200 | area that is still such a mess in our lives and pray and appropriate the gospel and the
00:05:14.360 | grace of God to fight it.
00:05:16.680 | And here's one more.
00:05:18.800 | What makes me, Edwards' failure here, makes me pray for light on my life and on my day.
00:05:27.720 | What are my blind spots?
00:05:29.760 | What are my days, my church's blind spots?
00:05:34.040 | What is the church blind to today that in 200 years the godly will look back and say,
00:05:40.600 | "How could they possibly have done that or believe that or let that happen or go that
00:05:46.880 | way?"
00:05:47.880 | And so given how amazingly godly Edwards was, I do not presume that any level of sanctification
00:05:59.240 | I attain in this life means there's not something else to be ferreted out.
00:06:05.880 | Keep your servant back from presumptuous sins and cleanse me of hidden faults, Psalm 19
00:06:13.800 | prays.
00:06:14.800 | So I hope that the flaws of my greatest teachers, and Edwards is about the greatest, will do
00:06:24.360 | me good in the end, and I hope we don't have to hide them in order to realize they can
00:06:30.960 | serve us.
00:06:31.960 | Yes, thank you, Pastor John.
00:06:34.400 | The sermons mentioned earlier in the podcast on besetting sins include these two.
00:06:38.280 | I'll give you the titles.
00:06:39.760 | The first one is "Our Deepest Prayer," which was preached on January 9, 2011, and the second
00:06:45.080 | one is "I Act the Miracle," which was preached at Bethlehem College and Seminary Chapel on
00:06:49.520 | February 24, 2011.
00:06:52.440 | Both recordings are available for free at DesiringGod.org, and there you will find thousands
00:06:57.160 | of other free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper.
00:07:00.480 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:01.800 | Thanks for listening.
00:07:02.360 | [END]
00:07:02.860 | 1.
00:07:03.860 | John Piper's "I Act the Miracle" is a book that was published by the New York Times in
00:07:04.860 | 1932.
00:07:05.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.
00:07:06.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.
00:07:07.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.
00:07:08.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.
00:07:09.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.
00:07:10.860 | It is about the great sin of the Christian faith.