God's Grand Design: The Theological Vision of Jonathan Edwards
“Those of us trundling through the complete works of Jonathan Edwards in the recent Yale edition are grateful for experts like Sean Lucas who, with a single lucid paragraph, are able to unravel the most complex of Edwardian thought. The study of Edwards has become something of a ‘rite of passage’ in recent days and some of us have some catching up to do. Dr. Lucas, a well-respected Edwards scholar in his own right, has given us a comprehensive summary of Edwards’s understanding of the Christian life that does for Edwards what Sinclair Ferguson did for John Owen. An essential and most welcome companion to any serious study of Edwards.”—Derek W. H. Thomas, John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Practical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Minister of Teaching, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS“This is an edifying book on a most edifying person, one who became the most important pastor in all of American history. By focusing our attention on what mattered most to Edwards—authentic Christian living that derives from God’s grace and reflects God’s glory—Sean Lucas has written a book that can draw you nearer to God, even make you a better person. Good theology, well presented, leads to passionate, godly piety. Edwards and Lucas know this well. I pray that you will know it too.”—Douglas A. Sweeney, Professor of Church History, Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School“Sean Michael Lucas analyzes the ways that Jonathan Edwards understood the Christian life as both inconceivably vast and intensely personal and practical, demonstrating that there is still much to be learned from America's greatest philosopher-theologian. From his Introduction to the two invaluable Appendices, Lucas offers an eminently useful volume that reminds one of much of Edwards's own writing—technical yet accessible, scholarly yet pastoral.”—Richard A. Bailey“It is good for the church—and the heart—to see Sean Lucas, a modern pastor-theologian, working with such depth and clarity in the corpus of Jonathan Edwards, America's preeminent pastor-theologian. Lucas shows a mastery of the vast secondary and primary sources on and by Edwards, yet writes to be understood and to bless the church. If there is a better way to honor the New Light minister, I am not aware of it.”—Owen Strachan,Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History, Boyce College; President, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood