John Wesley

Got it! This site "creationpie.com" uses cookies. You consent to this by clicking on "Got it!" or by continuing to use this website. Note: This appears on each machine/browser from which this site is accessed.

John Wesley (English theologian and evangelist) (1703-1791) was the co-founder of Methodism.

Throughout history, groups have been ridiculed using a given adjective and that group then takes that adjective as a badge of honor. United Methdist logo

The Methodist church of the Reformation got its name, in part, because their followers had a "method" for everything, which is still true in the United Methodist church today (which, having merged with the Evangelical United Brethren church in the 1960's, added "United" to its name) .

The fellowship were branded as "Methodist" by their fellow students because of the way they used "rule" and "method" to go about their religious affairs.

More: Streets: Flowing after a path into a plaza

John Wesley made an analogy of "grace" to parts of a house. The Latin word "praeveniens" ≈ "coming before, preceding". The English word "porch" comes, through French, from the Latin word "porticus" ≈ "portico".

Porch: Prevenient or preventing (anticipating, overtaking) grace (favor) is God's presence in a life before that person becomes aware of that presence.
Door: Justifying grace (favor) is the forgiving of sins.
House: Sanctifying grace (favor) allows people to increase their ability to live like Jesus.

In many models or analogies, people try to force fit other ideas into the model. Those pieces may or may not fit well. It is just a model. Problems arise when people start believing the model more than the reality the model represents.

More: Wesley's front porch analogy of grace

Do not harm.
Do good.
Stay in love with God.

Complete yielding of one's life to God.
Desire to become like Christ in heart and actions and acts of compassion for others.
Resolution to live one's life for God's glory.

During the Reformation, Martin Luther authored many songs and carols and promoted their use in religious settings.

John Wesley and Martin Luther on bar melodies for hymns: "the devil should never have all the good tunes".

More: Martin Luther

More: Song: First Noel

More: Caroling and hymns

The song "Hark the herald welkins ring" was written by Charles Wesley (1707-1788), who helped found the Methodists and who wrote thousands of hymns.
The "welkin" is the heaven or sky or cloud. George Whitfield, a co-founder of Methodism, changed the words that Charles Wesley, a co-founder of Methodism, had written.

Wesley: "Hark the herald welkins ring"
Whitfield: "Hark the herald angels sing"

Wesley was not happy. Ever since, songs have the angels singing even though this is not found in the Bible (except in part of Revelation).

More: Song: Hark the herald angels sing

Psalm 90 is a poetic verse about the creation of our dwelling place on earth and our days here.

Written in 1719, Isaac Watts paraphrased Psalm 90 as a basis for his hymn "Our God our help in ages past". John Wesley changed the first line from "Our God" to "O God" making the title and beginning line "O God our help in ages past".

More: Psalm 90

The phrase Wesleyan Quadrilateral was coined by American Methodist theologian Albert Outler (1908-1969) to describe how John Wesley (1703-1791), co-founder of Methodism, organized belief. The four parts are as follows.

1. Scripture - core beliefs which are primary
2. Tradition - passed down through the ages
3. Reason - to logically and rationally defend the doctrine
4. Christian experience - some weaken this to personal experience

It appears that problems can arise when lower level aspects such as experience are used to take precedence over what scripture appears to clearly state.

These lower-level ideas (2, 3, 4) were to be used only when scripture (1) itself was not clear.

More: Wesleyan Quadrilateral

The United Methodist "Cross and flame" logo uses a red flame, since 1968 when the United Methodist church was formed as a merger of the (mostly southern) Methodist Church and (mostly other areas) Evangelical United Brethren Church.

The cross represents Christ and the flame represents the Holy Spirit as in the "flames of fire" at Pentecost in Acts 2:3. The two flames are to represent each of the two churches that united.

Before the EUB (Evangelical United Brethren) Church merged with the Methodist Church, we were told that we get to keep the "United" and they get to keep the "Methodist".

More: Orange you going to color it red