Kitabu · 12 sura · saa 7 dakika 55 za kusoma · Ngumu

Maisha na Shajara ya David Brainerd

Kimehaririwa na Jonathan Edwards

David Brainerd · 1718–1747

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Kuhusu kitabu hiki

Maisha na shajara ya David Brainerd, mmisionari kijana kwa Wahindi wa Amerika katika miaka ya 1740, kilichoandaliwa kuchapishwa na Jonathan Edwards. Kurasa zake zinafuatilia wongofu wake, kazi zake na mateso yake nyikani, na zaidi ya yote maisha yake ya ajabu ya maombi na kumtamani Mungu. Kimechochea vizazi vya wasomaji kuelekea ibada ya kina na kujitoa sadaka kwa ajili ya umisionari.

Kuna jambo moja, lionekanalo kwa urahisi katika maisha ya Brainerd, ambalo kwa wengi laweza kuonekana pingamizi dhidi ya ushahidi wa ajabu wa dini na ujitoaji wake, yaani kwamba, kwa maumbile na tabia yake ya asili, alikuwa na mwelekeo mkubwa wa huzuni na kukata tamaa rohoni.
Kutoka Kutoka katika Utangulizi wa Rais Edwards

Yaliyomo

  1. 1 Kutoka katika Utangulizi wa Rais Edwards 5 dakika
  2. 2 Kutoka kuzaliwa kwake hadi wakati alipoanza kusomea Huduma—ikiwa na simulizi yake mwenyewe ya wongofu wake, uhusiano wake na Yale-College, na sababu za kufukuzwa kwake 32 dakika
  3. 3 Tangu wakati alipoanza kujifunza Theolojia, hadi alipopewa leseni ya kuhubiri 17 dakika
  4. 4 Tangu alipopewa leseni ya kuhubiri, hadi alipoteuliwa kuwa Mmisionari 10 dakika
  5. 5 Kutoka kuteuliwa kwake kuwa Mmisionari, hadi kuanza kwake Misheni yake miongoni mwa Wahindi huko Kaunaumeek, katika New-York 11 dakika
  6. 6 Kazi zake kwa karibu mwaka mzima miongoni mwa Wahindi huko Kaunaumeek—kunyimwa na mateso ya kimwili—kuanzisha shule—ungamo lililotolewa kwa wakuu wa Chuo cha Yale—siku za kufunga—mbinu za kuwafundisha Wahindi—ziara ya New-Jersey na Connecticut—kuanza kwa kazi miongoni mwa Wahindi huko t 46 dakika
  7. 7 Kazi kwa ajili ya Wahindi kwenye na karibu na Forks of Delaware—karamu na dansi ya ibada ya sanamu—safari kupitia nyikani hadi Opeholhaupung au Susquehanna—ajenga kibanda kwenye Forks of the Delaware—baadhi ya dalili za kazi ya Roho miongoni mwa Wahindi—safari kwenda New-England kupata fedha 49 dakika
  8. 8 Ni sehemu ya 1 ya shajara yake ya hadhara ya Chimbuko na Maendeleo ya kazi ya ajabu ya neema miongoni mwa Wahindi katika New-Jersey na Pennsylvania, iliyowekwa kwa amri ya Jumuiya ya Scotland ya kueneza maarifa ya Kikristo.—Kuanza kwa kazi zake huko Crossweeksung.—Kufanywa upya kwa kazi katika 82 dakika
  9. 9 Sehemu ya 2 ya shajara yake ya hadhara kuhusu Kudumu na Kuendelea kwa kazi ya ajabu ya neema miongoni mwa Wahindi katika New-Jersey na Pennsylvania, iliyotunzwa kwa amri ya Jumuiya ya Scotland ya kueneza maarifa ya Kikristo.—Kuanzishwa upya kwa kazi huko Crossweeksung—kumiminwa kwa Roho—tukio 88 dakika
  10. 10 Maelezo ya Jumla juu ya Simulizi Iliyotangulia 24 dakika
  11. 11 Kutoka mwisho wa Shajara yake ya Hadhara, Juni 19, 1746, hadi kifo chake—kuendelea kwa kazi huko Crossweeksung na Cranberry—safari pamoja na Wahindi sita Wakristo hadi Susquehanna, na kazi huko—kurudi Crossweeksung—kulazimishwa na kudhoofika kwa afya kuwaacha Wahindi—kufungiwa na ugonjwa huko Eliz 90 dakika
  12. 12 Tafakari ya Kwanza 22 dakika

Questions and Answers

What is The Life and Diary of David Brainerd about?
It is the journal and life of David Brainerd, the young missionary to the American Indians in the 1740s, prepared for publication by Jonathan Edwards. Its pages trace his conversion, his lonely labours and hardships in the wilderness, his deep struggles and consolations of soul, and his early death from tuberculosis — a searching record of a short life poured out for God.
Who was David Brainerd?
David Brainerd was a young New England missionary who gave a few intense years to preaching among the Native peoples of colonial America before dying of tuberculosis at twenty-nine. Expelled from Yale and often sick and alone, he laboured and prayed with extraordinary devotion, and his diary became one of the most influential missionary records ever published.
What is Jonathan Edwards's connection to the book?
Brainerd spent his final months in the home of Jonathan Edwards, who nursed him and, after his death, edited his diaries into this Life. Edwards saw in Brainerd a living example of true religion — the heart-affections he had defended in his own writings — and published the diary as a portrait of genuine, self-denying Christian devotion.
Why has this book been so influential on missions?
Because Brainerd's example of prayer, self-denial, and wholehearted devotion has stirred countless later missionaries — among them William Carey, Henry Martyn, and David Livingstone — to give themselves to the work. His short, sacrificial life, told in his own words, has functioned for generations as a summons and a pattern for missionary consecration.
What does the diary reveal about Brainerd's inner life?
A soul of deep earnestness and frequent struggle — seasons of darkness, self-examination, and longing for God alternating with times of sweet communion and joy in prayer. Brainerd is unsparing about his own discouragements and failings, which is part of the diary's power: it shows real, costly devotion in a man honest about his weakness.
Is the book discouraging, given his hardships and early death?
It is sober and often heavy, unflinching about suffering, loneliness, and death. Yet through it runs a thread of devotion and hope that has inspired rather than depressed its readers — the sense of a life, however short and hard, wholly spent for God and not wasted. Its melancholy is real, but so is its glory.
Who should read this book?
Anyone drawn to missions, or to the question of what wholehearted devotion to God costs and looks like. It has been a companion to missionaries and earnest Christians for over two centuries, valued both as a moving life story and as a searching example of prayer and self-denial that measures the reader's own devotion.
Where should a reader begin?
At the beginning, with Brainerd's early life and conversion, and on through the diary in order as his labours and struggles unfold. Edwards arranged it as a continuous life, and read that way it builds a cumulative portrait of a young man's devotion that has moved and challenged readers ever since.

Worthington Whittredge, “The Brook in the Woods” (ca. 1885–86). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access.