Scripture In Charlotte Perkins's The Art Of Prophesying

In the sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Jonathon Edwards utilizes rhetorical devices such as, personification, similes, and metaphors to persuade his audience into obeying God.

One can hear a sermon any day of the week, because there are many preachers out there in the world. Many sermons are retold Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments that tell how our ancestors lived, and teach us life applications of how to glorify God while we are living our lives. For over a thousand years God’s word has been preached by many faithful men who follow Him. However, there were some of those faithful men who used God’s Word and their own improvisation to convict sinners and to put their trust in God. Those times resulted in an era called the Great Awakening of the 18th century and they also put an end to the segregation era of the 20th century. Two of the faithful men during those eras were

Response: “Alan Potter (2014) wrote that John MacArthur warned us that if we lose the biblical foundation while preaching this will lead to the decline of preaching which will contribute to the weakness and worldliness of the church, so for a church to be spiritual healthy, preaching should return to its proper biblical foundation (https://www.linkedin.com). Paul told Timothy that by preaching the Scripture, man and women could be wise for salvation (2 Tim. 3:15 NKJV). They learn the way of salvation through the Bible which the Holy Spirit taught the preacher to use, they should not use their own words dictated by man’s wisdom (1 Corinth. 2: 13

The calling of a pastor for the Lord is a very high calling as well as position. God has granted the ability of the pastor to lead sheep and teach truth to people. A pastor also has certain convictions that he or she must live up to. These certain convictions keep him or her accountable to God, upholding the stature of being light and salt of this world. Through the content of this paper, every conviction a pastor must have will be discussed, why these convictions are important, and who compromised their convictions.

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is one of the most potent and impactful orations of the 18th century. In his sermon, Jonathan Edwards, a major driving force behind the Great Awakening, sought to turn his congregation away from their wicked ways brought on by the world around them. To do this, he instructed them in how to more closely follow the plan for eternal life laid out for them by God (Edwards 394). Edwards used many literary devices to make this point; however, in this paper, I will attempt to prove that his use of metaphors had the greatest impact on his audience. I believe metaphors are one of the best ways to teach religion, because it is such a difficult topic to discuss. Moreover, most of Edward’s audiences were not classically trained theologians and a good portion was not even literate. Because of this lack of knowledge, many pastors at the time had to use terms that would be familiar to even the layman listening. By using metaphors, such as comparing our ability to save ourselves from damnation to a spider’s web stopping a falling rock, even an illiterate religious neophyte could understand the point Edwards is trying to make (Edwards 395).

Theresa Magana Ms. Nauls-Jones AP English 3 26 November 2015 A Rhetorical Analysis of Jonathan Edwards’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Widely regarded as “One of America’s most important and original philosophical theologians”, Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, provides a glimpse into the theology of the great awakening. Edwards’s purpose is to awaken audiences to the horrific reality that he believed awaited them should they continue life without devotion to Christ. He adopts an ominous tone with a sense of urgency in order to spread fear in the minds of puritans so that they may repent for their sins and turn to God before it is too late for them. Edwards opens his sermon to the puritans by stating, “So that thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God; over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit and are already sentenced to it.”

Throughout Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, he strategically utilizes an immense variety of different rhetorical and literary devices to not only bring his sermon to life, but also increase the persuasiveness of his message. For instance, in the fifth paragraph, he creates a simile illustrating that,“the wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given” (Edwards 2). The simile along with his use of descriptive language intensifies his message as well as emphasizes God’s omnipotence. By emphasizing the omnipotence of God, he instills fear within the audience hoping that they realize the importance of having a connection

In the study of Christian theology, scripture plays an essential role in the revelation of the Doctrine of God. Scriptures are “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) words, written by the Holy Spirit through divine inspiration of prophets. They are necessary for the proper understanding of the doctrine of God, the self-revelation of God, the proof of God’s existence, and for the discernment of false doctrines.

Machen stated that the New Testament books “are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation.” (PAGE 18) The statement merely could be false without Machen’s willingness to terminate as un-serious all historians who ignore the validity and authority of the New Testament. The argument of the New Testament authenticity is still conflicted between in liberalism and typical denominations. A weakness in Machen’s argument on Doctrine was while Machen indicates that the New testament could be understood through the perspective of the “primitive Jerusalem church” (PAGE 22), no supportive agreement was found what the primitive church looked

In Jonathan Edwards's sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he uses imagery, allusion, and metaphors to convince his congregation to be reborn. In the first paragraph, Edwards declares, "...that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell..." Jonathan Edwards uses this passage to scare his congregation through frightful examples. The excerpt gives the image that if we remain as "natural men", our doom is inevitable.

A Harsh Awakening for the Unconverted Fear is one of the most powerful motivators in the world. As humans we will say anything cruel in order to get what we want by instilling fear in others. In the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards displays an array of suffocating metaphors, exaggerated repetition, and a harsh emotional appeal, in order to awake the unconverted and strive to save them from their “sudden, unexpected destruction”(1). Exaggerated repetition, such as Edward’s recurring statements on the “wrath of God,” instills fear into the souls of the congregation and was used to scare them into belief. In his sermon Edward says, “ ‘Tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell”(8).

In doing so, we can discover that final authority is not in and of scripture itself but of the Triune God who is the Author of scripture. The second obstacle to consider is that many have dismissed scripture as a book of Israelitic & Christian stories. Wright contends that these stories are told to inform us of “internal dynamics” of the past so as to engage us in the present for transformation into Christ-likeness. (p.25). Thirdly, Wright asserts that the question of scripture’s authority should not be viewed as a list of rules where God condescends to man. Rather, scripture should be received as God’s purpose to save and renew the entire world by authorizing the church—God’s agent in the world—with His mission through the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is imperative that biblical scholars “see the role of scripture not simply as being [informative about or revelatory of God’s truth] but as a means of God’s action in and through us.” (p.28)

Before the gospels and Pauline epistles, early church Christians related to the Old Testament as Scripture and viewed their Christian walk as the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel from the Old Testament, which foretold of the coming age of the Messiah. The first New Testament Christians understood the importance of the Old Testament; it was their “Bible” they preached from. Just as in the early church, Christians today need the Old Testament for preaching and in which to reference and understand Christ’s purpose for why he came.

The New Testament is a collection of books which contains the writings concerning the significant events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These books appeared after the physical death of Jesus Christ. In this regard, Jesus had left no records concerning him, and all that is written about him depends wholly on what other people have written about him. The first four books of the New Testament are part of the several biographies of Jesus which were written by the end of the first century of the era of Christianity. Then before any of these biographies have been drafted, there were Christian communities which were being instructed through epistles on how to live like Jesus and how to solve their problem like Christians. A good number of these letters were written by a man called Paul. After Paul death, some other new leaders of the Christian movement continued to write letters to the churches to encourage and strengthen them. As Christians grew in number persecution arose, and some letters have been drafted to support them and also to counter the false doctrines. These letters are part of the New Testament. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament were selected from the list of writings in that period (Bruce, 1988)

During the early history of the church, there was no such thing as a New Testament “canon.” The selection of books that were to be included or excluded from the texts used by the church was the responsibility of each individual church body, and thus varied greatly from location to location. Because there was no canon – (books considered