The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

I recently took up a brilliant biography of George Whitefield by historian Thomas Kidd.3 I was already somewhat familiar with Whitefield from my time pastoring in New England, where I dug a little into the region’s theological heritage and its towering figures. An Anglican from England, Whitefield was a sort of itinerant preacher in the American colonies in the early 1700s, traveling all over to preach the gospel. Wherever he went, immense crowds would come to hear him preach. People would gather in line days in advance to hear this great man of God proclaim the Word. And Whitefield was a pretty gnarly guy. Very overweight and cross-eyed, beset by several medical conditions that caused him great pain, he was not much to look at. But he had a miraculously booming voice and, apparently, a Spiritual anointing that granted him unprecedented response to his simple gospel preaching. When Whitefield preached, the crowds went crazy. Some came to heckle him. Some came to assault him. Several attempts were made on his life. But many people were ecstatically moved. He would preach and they would cry out, fall down as though slain in the Spirit, scream, tear their clothes, or otherwise fall sway to some kind of charismatic joy and conviction. And though he was a dynamic preacher, it wasn’t just his preaching that caused such effect. Other pastors would take Whitefield’s printed sermons and preach them in their own pulpits and the resulting gospel havoc would be almost the same. So, as...