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Pastor Leigh And Jonathan Edwards Essay

Decent Essays

This paper addresses the similarities and differences between the sermons of Jonathan Edwards and my own pastor, Pastor Leigh.
Surprisingly, the sermon by Jonathan Edwards is extremely similar to my pastor’s sermons. The way Edwards formatted his sermon, with an introduction and clear sections changing topic, is like my pastor. Taking notes when listening to both pastors preach would be very easy as they begin their sermon stating the theme (e.g. “Redeeming the time.”) then explicitly entering the first section (e.g. why time is precious). They both give several statements supporting the point. After giving those, they read Bible verses that verify the supports, which then verify the point. Having thoroughly proven the first argument, …show more content…

Pastor Leigh is more easily side tracked by tangents then it appears Edwards was when reading his sermon. Also, my pastor no longer writes out his sermons word for word because he has been preaching for so long that he is able to work off of a simple outline. When he did, his sermons would be around fifteen to eighteen pages long while Edwards is about five pages single-spaced. Pastor Leigh uses modern technology to record his sermons so that they are available to any who would like to hear his preach. Shockingly, those who were interested in listening to Jonathan Edwards would have to travel to his church, as there was no such technology in that time. As a possible difference, my pastor preaches in the morning through a specific book of the Bible and in the evening, through either the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, or the Canons of Dort. As another possible difference, my pastor touches on the doctrines of the death and resurrection of Christ in practically every sermon, so that if there is someone who has never heard the gospel before, they will hear it at least once. Unfortunately, the sermon given from Edwards is insufficient to prove a definite difference regarding these two points, as I have heard hundreds of sermons from Pastor Leigh and read only one of Jonathan Edwards.
To conclude, though there is a year gap of about two hundred fifty years, Jonathan

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