Today I had an early morning appointment and on the drive to it I listened to a portion of John Piper’s short mini-biography of David Brainerd. I have been aware of Brainerd and of Jonathan Edwards Life of Brainerd almost since the time I became a believer in Christ. He has been a “hero from afar” based on small snippets of knowledge of his life, but I am embarrassed to announce that I have never read Edwards short work or any other work on his life. This, despite the fact that a good part of Brainerd’s ministry, short as it was, took place within a 25 mile radius of my early home in Pennsylvania.
Today, I determined to rectify this clear paucity in my education and discipline, I had to read it. The impetus for that decision was these two short paragraphs in Piper’s small bio in the book, The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd:
One Short Life
It was a short life—twenty-nine years, five months, and nineteen days. And only eight of those years as a believer. Only four as a missionary. Why has Brainerd’s life made the impact that it has? One obvious reason is that Jonathan Edwards took the Diaries and published them as a Life of Brainerd in 1749. But why has this book never been out of print? Why did John Wesley say, “Let every preacher read carefully over the Life of David Brainerd” (p. 3)? Why was it written of Henry Martyn (missionary to India and Persia) that “perusing the life of David Brainerd, his soul was filled with a holy emulation of that extraordinary man; and after deep consideration and fervent prayer, he was at length “Oh, That I Might Never Loiter on My Heavenly Journey!” fixed in a resolution to imitate his example”?2 Why did William Carey regard Edwards’s Life of Brainerd as precious and holy? Why did Robert Morrison and Robert McCheyne of Scotland and John Mills of America and Fredrick Schwartz of Germany and David Livingstone of England and Andrew Murray of South Africa and Jim Elliot of twentieth-century America look upon Brainerd with a kind of awe and draw power from him as countless others have (p. 4)?
Gideon Hawley, another missionary protégé of Jonathan Edwards, spoke for hundreds when he wrote in 1753 about his struggles as a missionary: “I need, greatly need, something more than humane [human or natural] to support me. I read my Bible and Mr. Brainerd’s Life, the only books I brought with me, and from them have a little support” (p. 3).
2 “Brainerd, David,” Religious Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, Philip Schaff, ed. (New York: the Christian Literature Company, 1888), p. 320.
Page 131f
in The Hidden Smile of God
John Piper
That was enough. I want to learn from this saint from another age. He has been living with Jesus now for more than 276 years. He lived only 29 years, only 8 of which were as a believer but his life still speaks. And since both his spiritual attainment and his impact are much greater than mine after nearly 50 years of walking with Jesus, I am not ashamed to say that I will gladly sit at his feet and let him help me become more like Jesus. I hope you will too. You can pick up a copy of his life’s story on Amazon Kindle for just .99 cents. Read with me. Grow with me. Let us together learn how to live passionately for and like Jesus from one of His greatest American saints.
ChosenRebel's Blog 