“SINGLY, PARTICULARLY, CLOSELY”: EDWARDS AS MENTOR

Authors

  • Rhys Bezzant Jonathan Edwards Center Australia

Keywords:

Mentoring, Pastor, Religion

Abstract

Appreciation of Jonathan Edwards's labours as a pastor has grown in recent years with the publication of many formerly unknown sermons. It is the intention of this paper to show the ways in which some of his own significant mentoring relationships contributed to his achievements in pastoral ministry. By examining Puritan assumptions of faith transmission, early biographies of Edwards, and his letters, we open a window into the world of ministry training and educational philosophy, which guided his intentional investment in the next generation of clerical leadership. Developments in the art and rationale of letter writing serve as a focus to understand Edwards’s own epistolary output, and function as a way of locating the distinctives of nascent evangelicalism. The paper concludes with reflection on Biblical themes in Edwards’s ministry, which encourage contemporary mentoring ministry.

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