As the United Methodist Church moves forward from the shattering events of the last 5 years, the most pressing question before us has not changed. From the very early days of Methodism, we have had to explain who we are and what we teach. We’ve had to explain why we exist as a distinct movement within the wider church. John Wesley had to do this both to fend off attacks from critics and to make sure the movement was living into the doctrine, spirit, and discipline that brought it into existence in the first place. Even during Wesley’s life, outside critics tried to derail the movement and diso ..read more

“Salvation” is one of the church words that we use a lot without defining. John Wesley was never one to leave matters unclear, so with him we turn now in our reading of his sermon “Salvation by Faith” to ask what we mean by the word itself. II. 1. What salvation it is, which is through this faith, is the Second thing to be considered. And, First, whatsoever else it imply, it is a present salvation. It is something attainable, yea, actually attained, on earth, by those who are partakers of this faith. For thus saith the Apostle to the believers at Ephesus, and in them to the believers of a ..read more

I’ve had a few people on other social media platforms and offline ask me why I am still a United Methodist. These questions arise, I believe, because I am clearly out-of-step with many in the UMC theologically now. I am a Wesleyan evangelical in a denomination that has shed millions of people who share many of my theological commitments. I also have not been much of a cheerleader for the #BeUMC movement. I often offer what are seen as critical or contrarian views about the state or our denomination in a time when many people want a positive narrative about where we are going, to paraphrase Bis ..read more

My last post in this series about John Wesley’s sermon “Salvation by Faith” looked at three versions of faith that are not saving, which Wesley labeled as the faith of a heathen, a devil, and an apostle. Here now, we see how he describes the faith that actually saves. 4. What faith is it then through which we are saved? It may be answered, first, in general, it is a faith in Christ: Christ, and God through Christ, are the proper objects of it. Herein, therefore, it is sufficiently, absolutely distinguished from the faith either of ancient or modern heathens. This should be completely nonc ..read more

Here we get to the meat of John Wesley’s sermon “Salvation by Faith.” The first main topic is one that every Christian should find worthy of careful consideration: Exactly what is the nature of the faith that saves? In my hardback copy of the works of John Wesley, I wrote notes on each of these sections asking if I had attained even these insufficient levels. If we could administer a test that revealed where the people in our pews were, if we could pinpoint the heathens, devils, and apostles in our congregations, would help us make more of them into actual Christians? 1. What faith it is ..read more

Nothing brings home how different early Methodism was from contemporary United Methodism than reading John Wesley’s sermons. As we continue looking at “Salvation by Faith,” try to imagine hearing this in the bishop’s address at your annual conference. The previous paragraph, you may remember, was making the point that we do not deserve anything from God. Every good thing that we have is from God and not ours. This creates a problem for sinners. How can we pay for our sins if we don’t have anything good that we can say is ours? 2. Wherewithal then shall a sinful man atone for any the least ..read more

As threatened, this post begins an extended serious reading and commenting on John Wesley’s first standard sermon “Salvation by Faith.” As we will see, this sermon speaks to what Wesley deemed to be the animating doctrine of the Methodist movement – “inward, present salvation” by faith. The sermon and the doctrine arise out of a reading of Ephesians 2:8, which the King James of Wesley’s day renders: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” In another place, I have suggested that if you were to reduce all Methodism to three verses, Ephesians ..read more

In 1745, John Wesley wrote a letter to a friend about the relationship between the Methodists and the clergy of the Church of England. In the letter, he began by describing the core doctrine of Methodist preaching that gave rise to the Methodism movement. “About seven years since, we began preaching inward, present salvation, as attainable by faith alone. For preaching this doctrine, we were forbidden to preach in the churches. We then preached in private houses as occasion offered: And when the houses would not contain the people, in the open air. For this, many of the Clergy preached or prin ..read more

As I understand it, the ordination standards for the United Methodist Church now include the following paragraph: 2. For the sake of the mission of Jesus Christ in the world and the most effective witness to the Christian gospel, and in consideration of the influence of an ordained minister on the lives of other persons both within and outside the Church, the Church expects those who seek ordination to make a complete dedication of themselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life. To this end, they agree to exercise responsible self-control by personal habits conducive to bodily health ..read more

One of the most challenging things I find in preaching is that you are always preaching to a mixed body. No matter how small the congregation, the people who are hearing your sermon are at different places in their relationship with Jesus Christ. In his sermon “Scriptural Christianity,” Wesley writes about the ways that we should vary how we speak to people depending on where they are spiritually. To the careless, to those who lay unconcerned in darkness and in the shadow of death, they thundered, “Awake thou that sleepest; arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” But to those ..read more