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Gene Edwards
Gene Edwards (July 18, 1932 – December 9, 2022) was an American preacher, house church planter, and author whose ministry challenged traditional church structures and promoted a return to first-century Christian practices over six decades. Born in Commerce, Texas, to J.C. "Blackie" Edwards, an illiterate oilfield roughneck of Cajun descent, and Gladys Brewer, a schoolteacher and the first in her family to attend high school, he was raised in Bay City, Texas, after age six. A shy child with dyslexia, he joined the First Baptist Church of Bay City at seven, though his true conversion came at 17, leading him to East Texas State University (B.A., 1951) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1954), with a year at the International Baptist Seminary in Zürich. Edwards’ preaching career began as a Southern Baptist pastor and evangelist in the 1950s, holding citywide soul-winning campaigns until 1961, when, influenced by Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life, he rejected institutional ministry. In 1969, he spoke on “The Eternal Purpose of God” at a UCLA conference, sparking a house church movement in Isla Vista, California, growing from 20 to 150 members. His sermons, emphasizing Christ’s centrality and communal living, reached audiences through SeedSowers Publishing and over 30 books, including A Tale of Three Kings and The Divine Romance. Married to Helen Rogers in 1954, whom he met at seminary, he faced lifelong health struggles from histoplasmosis contracted in 1962, yet continued preaching until his death at age 90 in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Gene Edwards challenges the common beliefs about living the Christian life, emphasizing that it is impossible for humans to live it on their own. He points out the flaw in the idea that we can achieve it through actions like praying, reading the Bible, going to church, or tithing, as they all revolve around 'you-centeredness.' Instead, Gene highlights that God the Father is the Christian life itself, and it is His life alone that can live out the Christian life in us. He encourages letting go of the burden of trying to live the Christian life and allowing God to work through us effortlessly.
The Secret of the Christian Life
What have you been told is the secret to the Christian life? Pray and read your Bible? Go to church? Witness? Speak in tongues? Tithe? Let me go on record. I do not believe anything on that list even comes close to the issue of how to live the Christian life. All have one inherent flaw. The fatal flaw? Every item on the aforementioned list assumes that it is possible to live the Christian life. Can you live the Christian life? The answer is no, a resounding NO! You cannot live the Christian life. That list takes for granted you can live the Christian life. Also note that you are the center of every item on that list. Call it "you-centeredness." You out there living the Christian life. You cannot live the Christian life. Jesus Christ could not live the Christian life. None of us can live the Christian life! If Jesus Christ cannot live the Christian life, what makes you think that you can? You can give up trying to live the Christian life! We can all testify what a colossal failure we have been at trying to live the Christian life. God the Father lives the Christian life. "How does God the Father live the Christian life?" He doesn't. He is the Christian life. He is the highest life. God the Father is the wellspring, the source, the first motion, and the fountainhead of the Christian life. The Father indwelt His Son here on this earth for thirty-three years. The Father lived the Christian life inside Jesus Christ. It was the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, which lived the Christian life inside your Lord. It is the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, that ever lives the Christian life. It is the Father's life, and Father's life alone, which will live the Christian life in you. Embrace a formula or a list in order to "live the Christian life," and you are doomed to frustration. But on the day you quit trying to live the Christian life ...then you will finally give Him the freeway to live out in you what is so easy and so simple and so organic for Him to do. Hopefully, you just got set free from a long list of do's and don'ts (the "do's" you can't do, and the "don'ts" you always do). Why look so shocked; stop and think about it. You never were any good at living the Christian life. Admit it.
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Gene Edwards (July 18, 1932 – December 9, 2022) was an American preacher, house church planter, and author whose ministry challenged traditional church structures and promoted a return to first-century Christian practices over six decades. Born in Commerce, Texas, to J.C. "Blackie" Edwards, an illiterate oilfield roughneck of Cajun descent, and Gladys Brewer, a schoolteacher and the first in her family to attend high school, he was raised in Bay City, Texas, after age six. A shy child with dyslexia, he joined the First Baptist Church of Bay City at seven, though his true conversion came at 17, leading him to East Texas State University (B.A., 1951) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1954), with a year at the International Baptist Seminary in Zürich. Edwards’ preaching career began as a Southern Baptist pastor and evangelist in the 1950s, holding citywide soul-winning campaigns until 1961, when, influenced by Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life, he rejected institutional ministry. In 1969, he spoke on “The Eternal Purpose of God” at a UCLA conference, sparking a house church movement in Isla Vista, California, growing from 20 to 150 members. His sermons, emphasizing Christ’s centrality and communal living, reached audiences through SeedSowers Publishing and over 30 books, including A Tale of Three Kings and The Divine Romance. Married to Helen Rogers in 1954, whom he met at seminary, he faced lifelong health struggles from histoplasmosis contracted in 1962, yet continued preaching until his death at age 90 in Jacksonville, Florida.