David Brainerd: Pioneer Missionary to the American Indians
Overview
Few lives, since biblical times at least, have had a greater impact on Christian missionary vision and enterprise, or set a higher example of personal holiness and devotion to God, than that of David Brainerd.
William Carey, often called the father of modern missions, valued the story of Brainerd’s life so highly that he encouraged his co-workers to read it through three times a year. John Wesley urged all his preachers to read carefully the life of Brainerd and to “be followers of him, as he was of Christ.” Henry Martyn, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Jim Eliot, and Oswald J. Smith all testified to their esteem of David Brainerd and to the encouragement to greater holiness and faithfulness in service for God that they derived from his example.
In making the life of Brainerd available for the modern reader, John Thornbury draws frequently on Brainerd’s own account in his personal Diary and his letters as well as the writings of his friend and mentor Jonathan Edwards. He also helps us to understand and evaluate the life and achievements of Brainerd in the context of the times in which he lived.
The story of this remarkable man, whose life was so short but so full, will encourage God’s people today, like those of previous generations, in their pilgrim walk and inspire them to greater commitment to evangelism and missions.
With Logos Bible Software, this volume is completely searchable, with passages of Scripture appearing on mouseover, as well as being linked to your favorite Bible translation in your library. This makes this text more powerful and easier to access than ever before for scholarly work or personal Bible study. With the advanced search features of Logos Bible Software, you can perform powerful searches by topic or Scripture reference.
- Inspiring biographical account of David Brainerd
- Preface by the author
- Photos, illustrations, and index
Top Highlights
“Perhaps one of the chief excellences of Puritanism was its attempt to combine correct theology with real Christian godliness. They avoided a dead, doctrinaire intellectualism on the one hand and a formless subjective mysticism on the other. They strove to think right, believe right, speak right and live right. Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who himself was once referred to as ‘that formidable neo-puritan’ says, ‘ ‘Essential Puritanism’ was not primarily a preference for one form of church government rather than another; but it was that outlook and teaching which put its emphasis upon a life of spiritual, personal religion, an intense realization of the presence of God, a devotion of the entire being to him.” (Page 23)
“During the first week of his work in the new station, he felt lonely and disconsolate. He missed the English people, especially other Christians. Grief over his exile from the college, occasioned as it was by ‘pride, selfishness, bitterness, and party spirit’, rolled over his spirit. He felt himself frankly inadequate for, and unworthy of, the task which had been assigned to him: ‘I thought that I was the meanest, vilest, most helpless, guilty, ignorant, benighted creature living. And yet I knew what God had done for my soul.’” (Page 100)
“The Puritans were a worshipping people. The God of the Hebrew prophets and the New Testament apostles was their God. They knew God as one who counts the stars and calls them all by name. Their God was one who has his way in the whirlwind and the storm and makes the clouds the dust of his feet. Theirs was the God of Paul—of whom, through whom and to whom are all things.” (Pages 23–24)
- Title: David Brainerd: Pioneer Missionary to the American Indians
- Author: John Thornbury
- Publisher: Evangelical Press
- Publication Date: 1996
- Pages: 320
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joe_bourne1951@hotmail.com
4/2/2019
Jimmy Smith
1/1/2015
