Jonathan Edwards was born on October 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut. He was the only son of the Reverend Timothy and Esther Edwards; the fifth of eleven children. The home was evangelical-Puritan, and his education included not only the classics and ancient languages but the study of the Bible and Christian theology; his training for college came from his older sisters (all received an excellent education) and his father who rounded out his salary by teaching boys for college. His mother was the daughter of Reverend Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Massachusetts; completing Jonathan’s thorough ministerial foundation.

In 1716 he entered Yale College, at just a shade under the age of thirteen, graduating as head of his class and valedictorian in September of 1720. After his graduation, he spent two years in New Haven studying theology. From 1722 to 1723, he was a clergyman employed to minister, but not as pastor of a small Presbyterian Church in New York City. The church invited him to remain, but he declined the call. From 1724 to1726, he was a tutor at Yale, earning the moniker "pillar tutor", because of his loyalty to the college and its orthodox teaching.

Edwards was ordained a minister at Northampton on February 15, 1727, and an assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. His position was not one of counseling or visiting but instead that of a scholar-teaching-pastor; his daily routine was thirteen hours of study. That same year he married Sarah Pierpont, Sarah was herself from a clerical family, one that was renowned in New England for their work in the ministry; her father was James Pierpont the head founder of Yale College. The couple had three sons and eight daughters.

Pastor Solomon Stoddard died on February 11, 1729, leaving to Jonathan his grandson the sole ministerial charge of what was one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony; a congregation that was proud of its morality, its reputation and the culture they had developed.

On July 8, 1731, Edwards preached in Boston and later published his sermon under the title "God Glorified — in Man's Dependence," Then in 1733, a revival began in Northampton, growing in such intensity, that in the winter of 1734 and in the spring of 1735, the revival began to threaten the business of the town. In that short six month span, nearly three hundred were saved and joined the church. News of the Northampton revival and the leadership of Jonathan Edwards traveled as far as England and Scotland. By 1735, the Connecticut River Valley had experienced revival; the revival-fire spreading independently of Dr. Edwards church, possibly as far as New Jersey.

Edwards had the opportunity to meet George Whitefield, who was on a revival tour in the years 1739 and 1740; Edwards inviting Whitefield to preach at his church. The congregation was deeply moved by evangelist Whitefield’s preaching, and Edwards wept throughout the service. Again revival, as a spring, began to bubble up among the colonies. It was during this time that Jonathan preached his most famous of sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. This was the era known as the "Great Awakening" and Jonathan Edwards was responsible at least in part, for that revival by his obedience and dedication to God.

In 1757, Jonathan agreed to become president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), when on February 16, 1758, he was installed. Nearly immediately after assuming the office of president of the college, he was inoculated for smallpox, which was raging in the Princeton area. Having never been a man of vigorous health, he died from the inoculation on March 22, 1758. Reverend Jonathan Edwards, beloved husband, caring father, Christian, teacher, preacher, Trail-blazer of the Church and a Founding Father of the United States of America.