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Why did early Americans respect the Bible so much? Why did our Founding Fathers who wrote our Founding documents reason from Biblical principles? Why did they insist that their education and governmental systems be the means of communicating the truth to the next generation?
To really understand how they thought we must consider the time in which they were born. Most all of them were born in the midst of an amazing work which came to be called the “Great Awakening”. It was a time of revival that brought the Pilgrims’ descendants back to the faith of those original settlers in Plymouth. It started in 1734 in the little village of western Massachusetts called Northampton. The Pastor of the church there, Jonathan Edwards, described it in his own words in the following, remarkable account:
“And then it was, in the latter part of December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to…work among us. There were, very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons who were, to all appearance, savingly converted, and some of them [moved] upon in a very remarkable manner. Particularly I was surprised with the relation of a young woman, who had been one of the greatest company-keepers [i.e. prostitutes] in the whole town. When she came to me, I had never heard that she was become in any ways serious [about religion], but by the conversation I had with her, it appeared to me that what she gave an account of was a glorious work of God’s infinite power and sovereign grace, and that God had given her a new heart, truly broken and sanctified…
“God made it, I suppose, the greatest occasion of awakening to others, of anything that ever came to pass in the town. I have had abundant opportunity to know the effect it had, by my private conversation with many. The news of it seemed to be almost like a flash of lighting upon the hearts of young people all over the town, and upon many others…
“Presently upon this, a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town and among persons of all degrees and all ages…the work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner and increased more and more; souls did, as it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ…
“This work of God, as it was carried on and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town, so that in the spring and summer following, Anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love, nor so full of joy…there were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on the account of salvation’s being brought unto them, parents rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands.”
(Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of President Edwards (Isaiah Thomas, editor), Vol. III, pp. 14-19 | Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and The Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company), pp. 241-243.)
Ladies and gentlemen, it was into this kind of atmosphere that most of our Founding Fathers were born. It’s little wonder it’s been said that:
“[The Bible] was the single most important cultural influence in the lives of Anglo Americans.”
(S. McDowell and M. Belials, America’s Providential History (Providence Press, 1989), p. 95)
Indeed, the minds that shaped America—had been shaped by the Bible!
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.