1. Jonathan Edwards was a pastor. And he pastored during seasons of real, biblical revival. I want to understand more clearly his inner life, his thought world, his sense of theological proportion, his ministry, because I am a pastor and I want my ministry to be marked by awakening power too.
2. Edwards had a sense of the aesthetics of holiness. He had a sense of the beauty of truth. The soul has senses, of course, just as the body does — the eyes of the heart, for example (Ephesians 1:18). Edwards perceived the truth of Scripture with that awareness. His writings describe the gospel in such terms, and they give my own soul pleasure.
3. I enjoy being blown away by great truth. Stunned. Permanently changed. And there is no way that cannot happen when interacting with Jonathan Edwards.
4. I need to watch a brilliant mind at work. I need to be sharpened. And I am more helped by watching a genius think well than by identifying the fallacies and weaknesses of myself or others.
5. I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones that “No man is more relevant to the present condition of Christianity than Jonathan Edwards.” I desire to be relevant today — and tomorrow. I expect to become more so, by pressing into who this man was and how he understood our Triune God.
