Tuesdays with Edwards!
Today’s Tuesday with Edwards selection is another from his 1738 sermon series on 1 Corinthians 13 Charity and Its Fruits. This is from the fourth sermon in that series, Long-Suffering and Kindness which (no surprise) focuses on the first half of 1 Corinthians 13:4 (KJV), 1 Corinthians 13:4 (KJVEC) Charity suffereth long, and is kind.
In this section Edwards explains one of the main reasons it is so desirable to have a meek and gentle spirit that is willing to suffer long, because life can get downright miserable if we aren’t.
This and the entire series Charity and its Fruits can be read online at www.edwards.yale.edu. This selection is from Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) Pages 198-199.
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If we are not disposed meekly to bear injuries, we are not fitted to live in such a world as this, for we can expect no other than to meet with many injuries in this world. We do not live in heaven, or a world of purity, innocence and love. We dwell in a fallen, corrupt, miserable, wicked world; a world that is very much under the reign and dominion of sin. That principle of divine love, which was at first in the heart of man, is extinguished, and revived in but few, and in them but in a very imperfect degree. But those principles which tend to malice and injuriousness are the principles under whose power are the generality of the world. This world is a world where thousands and millions of devils have their range, and where the devil has his dominion; for he is called the god of this world [2 Corinthians 4:4]. All men have not faith, as the Apostle says, 2 Thessalonians 3:2. And indeed, but very few have.
This world has ever been full of unreasonable men, men who will not be governed by rules of justice, but are carried on in that way in which their headstrong lusts drive them. When Christ was about to send his disciples out into the world, he told them, “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” Matthew 10:16. And therefore those who have not a spirit with meekness and calmness, and composedness of spirit to bear injuries in such a world are miserable indeed, and are like to be miserable; they are not at all fitted to live in and go through such a world as this is. If every injury with which we meet, every reproach, every spiteful and unjust deed, must put our minds into a rustle and tumult, and disturb its calm and peace, that is the way never to enjoy ourselves or have the possession of ourselves, but to be kept in a perpetual turmoil and tumult like a bark that is continually driven to and fro on the stormy ocean. Men who have their spirits heated and enraged, and rising in bitter resentment when they are injured, or unreasonably dealt with, act as if they thought some strange thing had happened to them. Whereas they are very foolish in taking it so, it is no strange thing at all; it is no other than what is to be expected in such a world. Men therefore do not act wisely who have their spirits ruffled by injuries with which they meet. A wise man does not expect any other and is prepared for it, and composes his spirit to bear it.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 