Formed for the Glory of God: Learning from the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards

by Kyle Strobel

One way to outline the means of grace is through three broad categories: (1) public means, (2) private means and (3) extraordinary helps.[15] In the first category, “public means,” there were three offered: preaching, sacraments, and prayer with thanksgiving and psalms. In the second category, “private means,” were listed watchfulness, meditation, the armor of the Christian (Eph 6:11-18), experience, company and family exercise, prayer, and reading. In the third delineation, “extraordinary help,” solemn thanksgiving and fasting were suggested. Within each of these means of grace, furthermore, were often several different kinds of practices (for example, under the private practice of prayer there were several different kinds of prayer). While Edwards never used this threefold way of categorizing the means of grace, it does serve as a helpful framework. He would have, most certainly, accepted each of these categories, and, at times, he did divide the means by public, family and personal.[16] This is helpful because it highlights how a Puritan like Edwards understood his life. The public means of grace is another way to talk about the life of the church, and the family life was, for the Puritans, the church in miniature. These two kinds of “churches” fed and nourished the personal life of each believer, holding them before God and providing a context (a means of grace) for faithful living. Personal life flows back into communal life so there is a mutual enlivening.