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Offering Christ
John Wesley's Evangelistic Vision
By Jack Jackson Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2017 Kingswood Books
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-1423-5
CHAPTER 1
The Message Proclaimed
I have long desired that there might be an open, avowed union between all who preach those fundamental truths, Original Sin, and Justification by Faith, producing inward and outward holiness; but all my endeavours have been hitherto ineffectual. God's time is not fully come.
Given that John Wesley preached about forty thousand sermons and traveled upward of 250,000 miles in order to reach all those preaching points, one could be forgiven for thinking that the topics of his sermons would be too numerous to count. While it is hard to imagine listening to all those sermons, much less preaching them, the reality is that the content of Wesley's proclamation, not just his preaching, is actually not as hard to determine as it may seem.
The Bible: The Source of Christian Proclamation
In a very generic way, the subject of Wesley's proclamation was quite simple. It was the Bible. Much has been made of Wesley's statement regarding his being a "man of one book": "I want to know one thing, the way to heaven — how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! Give me the Book of God ... Let me be homo unius libri."
In many ways, the Bible was the preeminent source of Wesley's proclamation and theology, as well as that of the Methodist community. He writes in his sermon "On God's Vineyard" that the other original members of the Holy Club in Oxford were also men "of one book." He continues:
God taught them all, to make his "word a lantern unto their feet, and a light in all their paths." They had one, and only one, rule of judgement with regard to all their tempers, words, and actions; namely, the oracles of God. They were one and all determined to be Bible-Christians. They were continually reproached for this very thing; some terming them, in derision, Bible-bigots; others, Bible-moths; feeding, they said, upon the Bible, as moths do upon cloth. And indeed, unto this day, it is their constant endeavour to think and speak as the oracles of God.
Wesley viewed the Bible as the "whole and sole rule of Christian faith and practice." The Bible is the normative guide for Christian belief and discipleship. As he describes in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, the Bible is "the only standard of truth, and the only model of pure religion." Perhaps an example even more indicative of his views is found in his Notes on the New Testament. Here he writes that the scripture of the "Old and New Testaments is a most solid and precious system of divine truth. Every part thereof is worthy of God; all together are one entire body, wherein is no defect, no excess." He writes in his journal, "If there be any mistakes in the Bible, it did not come from the God of truth." In a letter to William Warburton in response to Warburton's assertion that there is "no considerable error" in the Bible, Wesley asks, "Will not the allowing there is an error in Scripture shake the authority of the whole?"
Statements and questions such as those lead some scholars to assert that Wesley, as well as other early Methodists, believed in the Bible's "infallibility" and "inerrancy" as they are understood today. But Randy Maddox has recently challenged this idea. Maddox points out that Wesley never uses the words inerrant and inerrancy and was aware of the Bible's inconsistencies and minor contradictions, especially in some genealogies and New Testament references to Hebrew Bible passages. Nevertheless, Wesley did find the Bible "infallibly true" in its identification of core Christian beliefs and its narration of the way of holiness. The Bible provides the foundation for Christian teachings and is to be taught in a way that does not mix its teachings with the "heresies of others or the fancies of [one's] own brain." The Bible is for Wesley, as Maddox concludes, the "trustworthy book of God."
The Bible was integral to his life from his earliest days. As early as 1728 Wesley writes that the Bible is the word of God and that it is the content of Christian preaching. Indeed, the Bible's importance to Wesley is hard to overstate. Of all Wesley's sermons, we have no record of him using anything other than the Bible as the primary text from which he preached. His preachers seem to have followed a similar pattern in most cases.
The Bible Wesley usually read, cited, and proclaimed was the King James Version (KJV). The other version that he frequently cited, especially for the Psalms, was the Miles Coverdale version, which was the text for the Book of Common Prayer. While he preached from the KJV, Wesley clearly emphasized reading and studying from the Greek and Hebrew texts. He wrote his own Notes on the Greek and Hebrew Bibles and encouraged his preachers to use the original languages in their own study. Furthermore, he believed that the original texts were so important that he abridged Greek and Hebrew grammars for the students at the Kingswood School.
For Wesley, the entirety of the Bible, both the Hebrew Bible and New Testaments, was pertinent to Christian discipleship. He read the entire Bible and encouraged Methodists to do likewise. He insisted that the Hebrew Bible was part of the Christian tradition and that it was critical to a Christian's life of discipleship. The New Testament's authority as the final standard of Christian faith and practice did not undermine the Hebrew Bible's importance in his mind. Together, both testaments are the "whole counsel of God." Wesley believed that the Bible included all that was necessary for salvation.
In order to best discern the intent of the biblical text, Wesley therefore believed the Bible was best interpreted in conversation with a variety of other resources such as the church and the natural world, and even itself. These other resources, read in partnership and in light of the Bible, help inform a Christian's understanding of faith and discipleship. He never claims that the Bible is the only book for Christians to read and study. In fact, he declares the opposite, writing in the 1770 Large Minutes that using only the Bible to gain understanding into life and faith is "rank enthusiasm" and that even St. Paul requested some other books. Methodists must read more than just the Bible alone: "Read the most useful books [in addition to the Bible], and that regularly and constantly ... at least five hours in twenty-four." When some Methodists said they didn't have books, Wesley offered them up to five pounds to purchase books. Others said they didn't enjoy reading other books, to which Wesley replied, "Contract a taste for it by use, or return to your trade."
In Conversation with the Church
Wesley thought Christians needed the church and its tradition in order to correctly interpret the Bible for a number of reasons. The first reason was that he sometimes found the scriptures unclear. Second, and as importantly, Wesley recognized that people were sometimes wrong in their judgments. Wesley describes this reality, and the need for a bit of humility, in his sermon "Catholic Spirit":
Although every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he holds is true ... yet can no man be assured that all his own opinions, taken together, are true. Nay, every thinking man is assured they are not seeing humanum est errare et nescire — to be ignorant of many things, and to mistake in some, is the necessary condition of humanity.
When biblical texts differed, Wesley believed that the clearer texts should inform those that were less so. "If any doubt still remains," Wesley writes, "I consult those who are experienced in the things of God, and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak." In other words, Wesley believed that Christians should read the Bible in conference with Christians from earlier generations, even as they try to make sense of the Bible in their own time and place. Wesley encouraged his preachers to read beyond the Bible, going so far as to create a "library" of resources and even publishing materials himself to make available both to Methodists and non-Methodists alike. Wesley was especially cognizant of the place of the early church (especially the first three centuries) in interpreting the Bible and in setting "intentional patterns for Methodist beliefs and practices." In a letter to Conyers Middleton, Wesley explains that some early Christian writings helped Christians avoid errors in their interpretation of scripture and that ignorance of those writings led people to emphasize current issues over those of the biblical text. In this way the church's tradition became a conversation partner with the Bible.
In Conversation With The Book of Nature
A second conversation partner for the Bible in Wesley's mind is the "book of nature." Nature is another "revelation" of God that helps inform scripture. As Wesley writes,
The world around us is the mighty volume wherein God hath declared himself ... the book of nature is written in a universal character, which everyone may read in his own language. It contains not words, but things which picture out the Divine perfection. The firmament everywhere expanded, with all its starry host, declares the immensity and magnificence, the power and wisdom of its Creator ... thus it is, that every part of nature directs us to nature's God.
Wesley de Souza proposes that Wesley's use of nature as a conversation partner is so great that it should join reason, tradition, and experience as key theological partners with scripture. Wesley believed that in studying the natural world Christians develop a deeper undrestanding of scripture, grow in faith, and become more appreciative of "God's power, wisdom and goodness."
The Bible in Conversation with Itself
As important as the church and nature were in Wesley's mind, the Bible itself was a crucial conversation partner for biblical interpretation. While Wesley believed that the entirety of the Bible was worthy of proclamation, he recognized two qualifications. First, the Bible had to be interpreted in light of its context. Wesley thought it was critical to read a passage in light of its context, that is, in light of "what precedes and what follows the text," instead of picking isolated passages. This helped preachers to preach the natural and "obvious" subject instead of mixing it in with their own interpretations. Second, some passages and themes are more important than others. The reason seems to be that Wesley thought some passages expressed themes that are pertinent to every age (as opposed to being relevant only to a time in the Hebrew Bible or New Testaments) or that ran throughout both testaments. Three examples of the first case suffice:
Every truth which is revealed in the oracles of God is undoubtedly of great importance. Yet it may be allowed that some of those which are revealed therein are of greater importance than others as being more immediately conducive to the grand end of all, the eternal salvation of [humanity]. And we may judge of their importance even from this circumstance, that they are not mentioned only once in the sacred writings, but are repeated over and over.
We know, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and is therefore true and right concerning all things. But we know likewise that there are some Scriptures which more immediately commend themselves to every [person's] conscience.
There is nothing superfluous in [the word of God], relating either to faith or practice; and therefore they [those who are sincere] preach all parts of it, though those more particularly which are more immediately wanted where they are.
Among these most critical passages are the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7, 1 Corinthians 13, and 1 John; these are among the chapters of the Bible he cites most frequently. Wesley believed that 1 John, as a "compendium of all the Holy Scriptures" (since it was, he thought, the latest biblical text), was perhaps "the deepest part of Scripture." First John 4:19, "We love because God first loved us," was in Wesley's mind, "the sum of the whole gospel." For these reasons it is not surprising that Wesley seems to have used verses from 1 John as his sermon text more frequently than any other book of the Bible. On the other hand there is no record of Wesley ever preaching from Esther, the Song of Songs, Obadiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Philemon, and 3 John.
Wesley's understanding of the "whole tenor" of scripture relates to his use of the term "the analogy of faith." Until the Reformation, Roman Catholics applied St. Augustine's "rule of faith" as a way to clarify ambiguous passages in the creation of doctrine. The "rule of faith" incorporated more of the church's tradition in interpreting these difficult passages than Protestants would be comfortable with after the Reformation. Therefore Protestants began using the "analogy of faith," which looked more to scripture's grand themes, especially for interpreting more difficult passages. But the pattern is true not just for difficult or ambiguous passages, or those that discuss unusual commands or visions of God; rather, the "analogy of faith" becomes a way to the "deep pattern in the message of Scripture that helps us interpret it. Individual passages of Scripture are read in relation to each other according to how they fit into this pattern. What guides our understanding is not any single statement but a sense of the whole shape of Christian faith."
Wesley most clearly expresses this use of the overall tenor of the Bible to interpret the Bible itself through his ideas of "getting the sense of the whole" pattern of scripture, or getting the "whole tenor of Scripture," not just an individual passage. For Wesley, the Bible was the centerpiece of Christian proclamation. It and it alone formed the essential content of Wesley's preaching.
Primary Biblical Them Es for Proclamation
God's Love
The love of God for humanity and creation, and in turn God's call for people to love God and others, is the overarching theme of Wesley's proclamation. Two examples are found when Wesley writes,
In my general tenor of preaching, I teach nothing (as the substance of religion) more singular than the love of God and man.
What religion do I preach? The religion of love; the law of kindness brought to light by the gospel.
Wesley believed that God's love is the lens through which all of scripture should be read. He saw this theme most clearly in 1 John where John describes God's nature as love. Wesley believed that the writer of 1 John and Revelation was the "last of the inspired writers." Therefore the themes found in these two books should be given priority in theological deliberation, since they reflect the final perspective of the inspired biblical writers. Not surprisingly then, Wesley emphasizes God's love over God's sovereignty, since he believed that the author of 1 John read the entirety of the scriptural narrative as stressing love over sovereignty. He never denied the sovereignty identified, for example, in Paul's letter to the Romans, but he interpreted that sovereignty through the later biblical writer's view of God's love.
Repentance, Faith, and Holiness
Out of this love flows what Wesley referred to in 1746 as Methodism's "main doctrines," namely repentance, faith, and holiness. Everything that Methodism emphasizes, Wesley writes, flows from those three: "The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third is religion itself." Wesley refers to these "main doctrines" or "grand scriptural doctrines" in various ways throughout his life, though rarely in exactly the same way, but rather introducing nuances on each occasion. For instance he sometimes summarizes the "fundamental" doctrines as justification and the New Birth. In other cases, he describes faith and salvation as including "the substance of all the Bible, the marrow, as it were, of the whole Scripture." In a letter to "John Smith" he writes, "Salvation by faith was my only theme." In Thoughts Upon Methodism, he asserts that the "essence" of Methodist teaching is "holiness of heart and life." Wesley emphasizes many other themes, such as assurance, Christian perfection, and the witness of the Spirit, to mention but a few. But as Wesley writes, each of these topics, as well as many others, falls under one of the three "main doctrines" mentioned above.
Wesley understood repentance as an ongoing acceptance of reality. First, "previous to faith," repentance is a self-awareness of one's sin. It is the knowledge "of that corruption of thy inmost nature, whereby thou are very far gone from original righteousness." But repentance does not end with the faith that leads to justification; it continues, leading to deeper sanctification. As Wesley writes in his 1765 sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation,"
Faith, in general, is defined by the Apostle, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] — "an evidence," a divine "evidence and conviction" (the word means both), "of things not seen"— not visible, not perceivable either by sight or by any other of the external senses. It implies both a supernatural evidence of God, and of the things of God, a kind of spiritual light exhibited to the soul, and a supernatural sight or perception thereof.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Offering Christ by Jack Jackson. Copyright © 2017 Kingswood Books. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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