Finn and Filson on What Teachers Can Learn from Jonathan Edwards

Many of the best Bible teachers I know name Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) as one of their most significant influences. So for this episode of Help Me Teach the Bible, I sat down with two Bible teachers who fit into that category to discuss why a Bible teacher in our day should read the writings of this 18th-century teacher, preacher, philosopher, writer, and theologian.

Nathan Finn is dean of the School of Theology and Missions and professor of Christian thought and tradition at Union University, and co-editor with Jeremy Kimble of A Reader’s Guide to the Major Writings of Jonathan Edwards. David Filson is pastor of teaching at Christ Presbyterian Church and co-host of East of Eden, a podcast on the biblical and systematic theology of Jonathan Edwards. Finn and Filson agreed on numerous recommendations for Bible teachers getting started with Edwards, including

Advertise on TGC

• start with his sermons rather than theological treatises such as Religious Affections
• recognize that Edwards, like all of us, had serious faults and failures
• taking all his Resolutions to heart can be more discouraging than helpful.

Resources mentioned in the conversation:

• The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards by John H. Gerstner
• The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online
• Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God by Dane Ortlund
• A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards by Dane Ortlund
• Charity and Its Fruits: Living in the Light of God’s Love edited by Kyle Strobel
• Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards by Elizabeth Dodds
• Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’s Religious Affections by Sam Storms
• “An Overview of the Religious Affections: 12 No-Signs and 12 True Signs” by Justin Taylor
• Dane Ortlund preaches Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “The Spirit of the True Saints Is a Spirit of Divine Love