Sinners in the hands of an angry God in the hands of Witmer

Tim Chester was here last Wednesday evening at PCF speaking to our leaders and did a great job of pointing us to the centrality of mission, gospel, and community in God’s plan for his people. I am so thankful to Tim for being willing to come and speak to us.

On Thursday we drove to Yale University and had the amazing privilege of visiting the Jonathan Edwards Center (meeting there with Adriaan Neele and Ken Minkema) and then going to the Beinecke Library to see some of Jonathan Edwards’ original works. Of the several things we saw, the most amazing was the manuscript of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, perhaps the most famous sermon in American history. I have read it multiple times before and it is a great, God-centered sermon — not the terrible sermon portrayed in so many modern high school classes. Amazingly, we were allowed to touch the tiny, palm-sized manuscript and turn its pages. One of the things I learned for the first time in this visit was that Edwards preached this sermon multiple times in multiple locations. I saw a small piece of paper the size of an index card on which he had jotted the main points of the sermon to help him remember them. This reminder card was used when he had preached the sermon before and simply wanted a reminder as he preached it again, rather than preaching from the original manuscript.

For a great account of our visit to Yale, you can click over to Tim’s blog here.

Posted by Stephen Witmer on Oct 19, 09:45 AM