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A Pastor in Revival

How Jonathan Edwards Discerned & Defended the Great Awakening

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A Pastor in Revival combines fascinating history with sound doctrine to sketch the controversy surrounding the Great Awakening and how Edwards responded with biblical wisdom. May God use this book to teach us about His mighty works in the past, to help us to exercise discernment about claims to revival in the present, and to move us to pray for revival in the future.

– Dr. Joel R. Beeke

Description

In, A Pastor in Revival, Kurt Smith navigates the reader through one of the most prodigious periods in American Church History we know as “The Great Awakening.” But this book doesn’t canvass the entire Awakening with a broad brush; rather, it turns our attention to the leading voice in this season who was none other Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758).

It is to this subject therefore that Kurt Smith concentrates our focus with rich historical research forged in an accessible style with pastoral insight and application for the church today to not only understand Revival but cry out to God for such a work of His grace to visit us again.

Additional information

Weight .7 lbs
Dimensions 8.5 × 5.5 × .6 in
Author

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Book Details

A Pastor in Revival: How Jonathan Edwards Discerned & Defended the Great Awakening

By Kurt M. Smith

©2024 Kurt M. Smith
Published by Founders Press
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-943539-54-3

Endorsements

I personally never tire of reading about the revivals that occurred in the long eighteenth-century, of which those that took place in relation to the ministry of Jonathan Edwards, ‘America’s Augustine,’ were some of the most remarkable in the entire history of Christianity. This new study of Edwards’ experience and vindication of revival is rich in historical context, primary source material, and footnotes (which I love), but also spiritual lessons for today. It is eminently readable and I am extremely happy to commend it as an extremely helpful precis of Edwards’ involvement in the Great Awakening.

Michael Haykin
Chair & Professor of Church History
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


This wonderful work on Jonathan Edwards and the revivals of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening deserves careful, prayerful attention from both pastors and laypeople. It offers a fine summary of Edwards’ approach to revival, one that should inform and inspire ministry leaders in our day. I am writing this endorsement in the midst of another special work of the Holy Spirit on several college campuses. I pray that God will use the biblical wisdom laid out here by Pastors Edwards and Smith to bring many more to Jesus and grow them in discipleship.

Douglas Sweeney
Dean & Professor of Divinity,
Benson Divinity School


This compact study is a remarkable storehouse of pastoral wisdom needed in a time of revival. Smith’s work presents us with a narrative of the Great Awakening from the point of view of Edward’s as a pastor who ministered among real people amidst real challenges. To top it off, the book ends with letters and sermons Edwards composed during the Awakening, writings which vividly portray the Awakening from the perspective as one passing through it in real time. A helpful and needed guide for the church today!

Dr. Robert W. Caldwell III
Professor of Church History
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary


So, “A Pastor … !” Not every pastor can construct original thoughts to the degree and with the logical impenetrability of reasoning that regularly characterizes the writings of Jonathan Edwards. The greatest philosopher/theologian of American Christianity, so some contend, was first and foremost in his own passion and estimation a pastor. Though the rest of us may not have such power of original thought, we can follow the argument of his thought and gain valuable insight on subjects he considered worthy of mental and spiritual energy. Revival and the nature of genuine religious experience is certainly one of those. Kurt Smith, as he has done for George Whitefiled, has made Edwards’s eyewitness observations on this subject clear, manageable, and pastorally insightful. This book will be good for the mind and good for the ministry.

Tom J. Nettles
Retired Professor 
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


This is an excellent book on an excellent topic: Jonathan Edwards’s defense of true revival. Kurt Smith combines fascinating history with sound doctrine to sketch the controversy surrounding the Great Awakening and how Edwards responded with biblical wisdom. Smith also includes illuminating selections from Edwards’s sermons and personal letters. May God use this book to teach us about His mighty works in the past, to help us to exercise discernment about claims to revival in the present, and to move us to pray for revival in the future.

Dr. Joel R. Beeke
Chancellor | Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
Pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Prologue: A Great Divide in the Great Awakening

Chapter 1: God’s Grand Itinerant

The Catalyst to the Great Awakening

Edwards’s Initial Correspondence with Whitefield

Encouraged Yet Discouraged

Whitefield’s Arrival in Northampton

Chapter 2: The Spirit’s Distinguishing Marks

The Great Awakening Gains Ground in Northampton

A New Face of Things: New England Is Awakened

Revival’s False Friend

James Davenport: The Face of Fanaticism

The Spirit’s Distinguishing Marks: Edwards’s Emergence as “The Theologian of Revival”

“Try the Spirits”

God’s Word Is Our Only Rule

Don’t Limit God Where God Has Not Limited Himself

Five Certain Marks of the Spirit’s Work in Revival

The Revival and its Applications

To Everyone in General

Addressing the Critics

Addressing the Revival “Friends”

A Gauntlet Thrown Down

Chapter 3: Facing the Wildfire

The Ebb Tide of the Great Awakening

Davenport’s Demise

Charles Chauncy: The Old Light’s Champion

Edwards’s Further Discernment and Defense of the Great Awakening

“Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival”

Heal the Breach

Darkness Mixed with Light

The Devil’s Strength in Revival Zealots

Lamenting the End of the Great Awakening

Chauncy’s Dogmatic Rationalism

Chapter 4: What Is the Nature of True Religion?

Edwards’s Systematic Treatment of Heart Religion

Discerning Misguided Zeal as a Counterfeit Religion

True Religion Consists in Holy Affections

Expounding True Religious Affections

Chapter 5: What We Learn from Edwards’s Defense and Discernment of the Great Awakening

Epilogue: A Faith Worth Imitating

Appendix A

Edwards’s Correspondence Connected to the Great Awakening

Heaven’s Blessing Attends You

The Proper Course for the Christian Life

Correcting Disorders

God’s Hiding for Our Humbling

Defending the Grand Itinerant

Appendix B

A Sample of Edwards’s Sermons Preached during the Great Awakening

Gospel Ministers a Savor of Life or of Death

Sinners in Zion

Selected Bibliography

Scripture Index

About the Author

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Kurt M. Smith

Kurt M. Smith is the grateful husband of thirty years to his wife, Lorrie, and the delighted father to their three children—two of whom have reached adulthood while one is a preteen. In addition, Kurt and Lorrie are the proud grandparents to their granddaughter, Laura Belle. Kurt’s ministerial experience reaches over thirty years, with twenty-seven in the pastorate. Since 2016 he has been serving as the founding pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Remlap, Alabama, on Pine Mountain. And as an extended ministry to his labors as a pastor, Kurt has authored several books and articles in the genres of Christian biography and Church history.