Paul's Self-Defense Series

Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703, and he became one of the greatest

preachers in history. He lived in a day when pastors went to a church out of

seminary and stayed there for the rest of their lives. His father was the pastor

of The Congregational Church in the little village of East Windsor, Conn. for

64 years. Jonathan entered Yale at age 13 and graduated at age 17. He

studied theology for 2 years and then became a tutor at Yale. At age 24 he

was invited to be the junior pastor at Northampton, Mass. where his

grandfather was the senior pastor. Two years later his grandfather died and

he was the sole pastor of the church.

Edwards developed a theology that said God can do whatever He wants

with people. They are His creatures and He can do with them as He pleases.

He can take them to heaven or cast them into hell. He has the right and the

power to do anything He wills. He started to preach a series on this theme,

and one became very famous, and it was called Sinners In The Hands Of An

angry God. His fearful messages started a revival that spread until he

became one of the most famous and influential pastors in the nation, and he

was still only in his 30's.

When the winds of change died down, and the emotions of revival cooled,

and apathy set in there was a period from 1744 to 1748 where not a single

new person joined the church. This was a long dry spell, and critics of

Edwards stirred up agitation. After much personal bitterness the church

voted in 1750 to dismiss their pastor. He appealed to the Ecclesiastical

Council to review the church's action, but five of the nine ministers voted to

sustain his dismissal. So Edwards found himself out of a job at 47 years of

age with a wife and 10 children to support. Their financial situation was

pathetic.

After a few months the church found that nobody wanted to come to be

their pastor, and so they did an unbelievable thing: They asked Edwards to

help them out. Most pastors would have refused with indignation, but

Edwards agreed to do it. He started preaching again in the pulpit from which

he had been cast out. He was ministering the Word of God to a people who

had rejected him. He did this for a year before he got a call to another

church. He went on to write 4 theological works that gave him the reputation

of being the most original religious thinker in American history. In 1758 he

was asked to become the President of Princeton. I share this history of one of

the great preachers of our land because it is such a parallel to what we see in

the relationship between Paul and the Corinthian Church.

Paul spent a year and a half getting this church established. It was hard

work, for they were a very godless people, and Paul needed special

encouragement from God to hang in there and not give up. So Paul plugged

away at it and got Silas and Timothy to come and take over his labor of

making tents so he could devote himself full time to preaching and teaching.

You would think that this would be a dream church. The world's greatest

Apostle, who was the most brilliant and devoted man on the earth was their

pastor, but the fact is, it was a nightmare. Paul had more problems with this

church than with all the rest of them put together. These Christians refused

to grow up. They stayed as babes, and the result was they were not really any

different than the pagans around them. Paul, however, never gave up on this

bunch of carnal Christians. He wrote 4 letters to them. We have 2 of them,

but he refers in them to 2 others he wrote. So we have the paradox that the

church, which had the most problems, and which gave Paul the most grief,

have the most written to them of all the churches. They were the worst and

they received the best.

They found every petty fault they could find in Paul to criticize. They

chewed him up and spit him out, and yet Paul keeps coming back for more.

Many who study the issue in depth wonder why Paul did not just write them

off as a hopeless cause. As Paul travels the world he is ever thinking of this

church and how he can help them shape up and stop being so critical. He

wants them to grow up for the glory of God. Most would walk away from a

church that treated them like this, but Paul looks at all their fault finding and