Dr Paul Allen

As a young pastor, Jonathan Edwards yearned for revival — and in time, God was pleased to bring revival, first in 1734, and then into the 1740s as the Great Awakening spread through the Western world. Edwards watched hundreds of formerly apathetic neighbors become earnest seekers of God; he saw evening revelries become gatherings for singing and prayer.  Along the way, however, he also observed many spurious signs of spiritual life. His ministry yields insight into both the spiritual means of revival and the genuine marks of revival and it also gives hope that God might be pleased to bring a similar revival today. The young Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) longed for nothing more than revival. He viewed special works of the Spirit as special tokens of God’s blessing, and he hoped beyond hope that he would receive some himself. He had moved to Northampton while in his early twenties to assist his aging grandfather, Rev. Solomon Stoddard, at the only church in town.  Stoddard had le...

Of all the famous theologians of church history, the titans of knowledge upon whose shoulders we stand, none has been more maligned or vilified than John Calvin. The public caricature of Calvin portrays him as nothing less than a monster, a mean-spirited ogre who ruled Geneva with an iron hand, sent poor Michael Servetus to his death, and introduced a diabolical view of predestination to the church.  If Christ’s beatific promise applies,  “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven,” then John Calvin needs a tractor-trailer to cart around his heavenly reward. When I consider the great theologians of the church, I think immediately of my list of the top five: St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. These are the giants with which God has gifted His church. They comprise the all-time all-star team in ...

Unregenerate man is consistently described as being in a state of alienation and enmity. This is the condition that makes reconciliation necessary. Reconciliation is necessary only when a state of estrangement exists between two or more parties. Estrangement is the natural fallen state of our relationship to God . Romans 5:10: "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."  Ephesians 2:12: "At that time you were without Christ , being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." How are we enemies of God? Jonathan Edwards provides an insightful summary of the problem. He lists several points of tension between God and man: 1. By nature, we have a low esteem of God. We count Him unworthy of our love or fear. 2. We prefer to keep a distance from God. We have no natural ...

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, is still remembered for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) When Jonathan Edwards was turning thirteen and ready to go off to college, his father had a difficult decision to make. Jonathan's father, Timothy Edwards, was an alumnus of Harvard.  But, his alma mater was already showing signs of drifting away from its original commitment to orthodoxy. In those days they called it "latitudinarianism," as in professors were granted "latitude" in their commitment to the Westminster Standards . No, Harvard would not do for young Jonathan. Instead, Timothy chose the up-start college then known simply as the College of Connecticut. It would soon be renamed Yale University .  Yale was born in 1701, two years prior to the birth of Jonathan Edwards. Its original charter declared: WHEREAS several well disposed, and Publick spirited Persons of their sincere...

"There's a reason his name begins with ' God ,' I think. He is a god, really," says British director Gareth Edwards , the man behind the latest reboot of the six-decade old  Godzilla  franchise. "He's at the top of the food chain and probably King of the World, in a sense. We did this title sequence at the beginning of the film filled with sea serpents , ancient Greek symbols , and that sort of thing, and the idea is that for all of time man has always found that there's something out there for us to worship or fear, and it's gone away for a while but in our film it returns."  Writing about that subtext in the film, Christianity Today  reviewer Timothy Wainwright said, "Godzilla is the weirdest Christ figure I've ever seen. I'll avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that the movie honestly portrays a giant lizard with blue atomic breath as a divine figure."  He's also an environmentalist hero of sorts: Edwards states,...

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, is still remembered for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Today in 1758 Jonathan Edwards died. He was 54 years old. It was a fever he had contracted from a small-pox inoculation just a month before. After weeks of worsening weakness and the recognition of his immanent death , he spoke his last words to his daughter, Lucy, who attended him. Toward the end he said, "As to my children, you are now to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you." There is so much to say of Edwards, of his vision of God , of his shortened life, of his influence. But consider for a moment this scene just before he died — a scene that took place this very day 255 years ago. We would think that Edwards, with the mind he had, must have been overwhelmed with the thought of leaving so many unfinished works . I mean, what ab...

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia God has given us a mouth to speak, a heart to feel, and gospel joy to share. He has taken away every excuse for not spreading gospel grace in our words every day to those around us ( Ephesians 4:29). So what is it that corks the flow of grace to others? One answer is grudges. Not always big grudges, like the ones we hold towards those who have wronged us personally. The kinds of grudges that hinder our generosity are typically subtle ones, grudges towards those who seem less significant than us, or grudges towards those who seem more significant than us. Either way, we like to compare ourselves with others. We withhold grace like a miser withholds money. We are natural-born begrudgers. The Roots of Grudges Jonathan Edwards pulled out a spade and dug up the roots of these grudges in his sermon " The Terms of Prayer ," a sermon you can read for yourself. I’ll try my best to serve up his main points here. ...