Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Jonathan Edwards on Beauty
    Jonathan Edwards on Beauty
    Jonathan Edwards on Beauty
    Ebook125 pages2 hours

    Jonathan Edwards on Beauty

    By Owen Strachan and Douglas Allen Sweeney

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Beauty is hard to describe, but easy to identify. It resides in expected and unexpected places in our world. Beauty is present in our world in a variety of forms. Yet while the average person might think about the reality of beauty from time to time, few people would think about the source of beauty. Where does beauty come from? Why is it here?

    Several hundred years ago Jonathan Edwards did some thinking of his own on this difficult subject. This volume explores his meditation on the subject and lays out a Christian framework for understanding and experiencing the beauty God has planted in His world.

    Edwards found in the study of beauty the person of God. Where Edwards saw beautiful images and acts, he saw a representation, a small picture, of a reality too great to comprehend, a God too majestic to adequately adore. He sets in motion a path of glory that begins with the Lord, moves to creation, continues to the incarnation of Christ, moves to the church, and ascends to the glory of heaven, where the Holy Trinity dwells.

    Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMoody Publishers
    Release dateJan 21, 2010
    ISBN9781575679242
    Jonathan Edwards on Beauty
    Author

    Owen Strachan

    Owen Strachan is associate professor of Christian Theology and director of the Center on Gospel & Culture at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The author of seven books, he is married to Bethany and is the father of three children.

    Read more from Owen Strachan

    Related to Jonathan Edwards on Beauty

    Titles in the series (5)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      At Fellowship Church, Faith Knows No Creed Or Color

      Jul 19, 2021

      The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, founded in 1944, transcends barriers of race, color, and creed, uniting instead in a shared humanity.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Theo & Bev Wolmarans CELEBRATING 40 YEARS IN MINISTRY CELEBRATION 2019

      Aug 19, 2019

      This year is a very momentous celebration for Pastor Theo and Bev Wolmarans, who have been faithfully guiding Christians for 40 years to faith in Jesus, both locally and abroad. When we look at the history of spirit-filled churches in this nation, Pa

      5 min read

    • Article

      From Sharing Circles To House Churches, Young People Are Transforming Worship

      Jun 9, 2022

      It’s a familiar, even tired, story: Young people have turned away from religion, probably for good. They’re skeptical, jaded, plain uninterested. As congregations shrink, spiritual leaders wring their hands, wondering how to attract the next generati

      6 min read

    • Article

      Heart To Heart

      Jan 24, 2023

      Heart To Heart
      4 min read

    • Article

      Renew Your Mind

      Aug 26, 2022

      Many years ago I met a missionary in Hong Kong. He had a razor-sharp mind and a tender heart. I immediately knew I wanted to learn from him. His home was filled with books. While we were talking, he walked over to a bookcase, pulled out a thin paperb

      3 min read

    • Article

      BOOKMARK THIS read…listen…stream

      Oct 18, 2022

      What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What it Can Teach Us Kim Haines-Eitzen • Princeton University Press Most of us likely think of deserts as barren with no redeeming value. Not so for Kim Haines-Eitzen, who finds a rich soundscape t

      5 min read

    • Article

      More From Lion’s Roar

      Jul 20, 2021

      More From Lion’s Roar
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Asbury Revival

      Mar 23, 2023

      Most church services end with a hymn and a prayer and the congregation goes home, lingering only perhaps for friends to chat over coffee served at the back of the church. On 8 February, after a Wednesday morning service on campus at Asbury University

      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Jul 21, 2023

      D ear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to k

      6 min read

    • Article

      WHO’S In The NEWS?

      May 19, 2023

      George Verwer died on Friday 14th April at the age of 84. The Church has lost a man who had an astonishing global influence on the way it carries out its vital task of sharing the good news of Jesus. In Operation Mobilisation (OM), which George start

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Jonathan Edwards on Beauty

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Jonathan Edwards on Beauty - Owen Strachan

      Minnesota

      There is something about the face of a happy, smiling child that calls to a deeper part of a person’s soul. Something beyond triteness and the mundane. Something pure and clear. Something that reaches out to the beholder and urges him or her to enjoy this moment, to capture it in their mind, and to recall it over and over again. What is this quality? What calls us with such force to adore and enjoy simple things like a child’s smile?

      Surely it is beauty. Hard to describe but easy to identify, beauty resides in expected and unexpected places in our world. Many would cite famous celebrities as exemplars of physical beauty. Others would think of a far-away locale like a tropical island. Still others would note that beauty is not merely physical, but is present in kind-hearted actions and pleasing dispositions. Selfless sacrifice would fit this category, or racial unification. As is clear from even a few examples, beauty is present in our world in a variety of forms.

      Yet, while the average person might think about the reality of beauty from time to time, few people would think about the source of beauty. Where does beauty come from? Why is it here? How are we to figure out its origin in a world that is full of unbeautiful things and acts—crimes, blights, and pain? When one considers just how much evil is committed in a single day by the world’s inhabitants, beauty seems fragile and transient. Perhaps beauty can dry up, and fade away? Perhaps there is no source, and beauty is merely a pleasing product of a cosmic game of chance? These and other questions confront those who seek to know the source of beauty.

      Several hundred years ago, the Northampton pastor Jonathan Edwards did some thinking of his own on this difficult subject. Possessing a taste for beauty from an early age, Edwards thought deeply about the source and nature of true beauty in a sin-cursed world. Over the course of his pastoral career in a small New England town, Edwards returned to the subject again and again, threading it into his sermons, notes, and theological writings. Though few people would think of Edwards as a man captivated by the very idea of beauty, he was. This volume will explore his meditation on the subject and lay out a Christian framework for understanding and experiencing the beauty God has planted in His world.

      Yet this book must go beyond the theological study of aesthetics, as Edwards himself did. The pastor did not merely pose and answer questions about beauty. He found in his study of beauty the person of God. In other words, where Edwards saw beautiful images and acts, he saw a representation, a small picture, of a reality too great to fully comprehend. The study of true beauty was for Edwards the study of God. In this devotional pursuit, Edwards found rich and perpetual food for his soul. He discovered nothing less than the purpose of his life and the meaning of his existence. His life was to be a reflection of the beauty of God, a small mirror catching and sending back the rays of the Lord’s divinity, winning Him glory and honor until life on earth closed and life in heaven began.

      The Lord had in fact crafted a great plan by which to express His beauty and make His glory known. He existed as the resplendent one, but did not content Himself with mere self-appreciation of His beauty. Instead, He set in motion an arc of glory that began with Himself, moved to the creation, continued with the incarnation of Christ, moved next to the church, the bride of Christ, and is consummated in heaven, where the Holy Trinity dwells. It is this arc, this chain, that the book traces, devoting a chapter to each of these points in the great chain of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1