To give you a small taste of the topics in Randy’s essay, I thought I’d offer a few highlights. There is MUCH more in the full essay, so please consider signing up on the newsletter for the full version.<\/p>\n
MAN OF ONE BOOK<\/p>\n
Many Christians know John’s Wesley’s claim that he is man of one book. \u201cLet me be homo unius libri<\/em>,\u201d says Wesley, with Latin flare.<\/p>\n But Wesley was far from being concerned with literally only one book. He read widely and required his ministers to read many other books. Wesley scolded his ministers who claimed to read only the Bible as exhibiting \u201crank enthusiasm.\u201d That\u2019s like calling someone today a raving religious lunatic! By homo unius libri<\/em>, Wesley meant he regards no book comparatively<\/em> but the Bible. Scripture is the first book of importance, but not the only important book.<\/p>\n Wesley drew upon other sources, including scholarly tools, when reading the Bible. He appreciated textual criticism, says Maddox, but was less warm to historical criticism.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n ERRORS IN THE BIBLE?<\/p>\n When it comes to the question of biblical errors, some will quote Wesley\u2019s letter to William Law (see correction to this attribution in blog comment below). \u201cIf there be one falsehood in the Bible,\u201d writes Wesley, \u201cthere may be a thousand; neither can it proceed from the God of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley never used the phrase \u201cbiblical inerrancy,\u201d however, nor did he embrace its modern understanding. Modern biblical inerrancy, says Maddox, \u201cinsists that the Bible is accurate in every detail, including historical allusions and descriptions on the natural world.\u201d Wesley wasn\u2019t concerned with this, and occasionally he notes apparent discrepancies in the biblical text.<\/p>\n Wesley\u2019s comments about the trustworthiness of the Bible focus on what calls the \u201crule of Christian faith and practice.\u201d Wesley followed 2 Timothy 3:16\u201317, in which inspiration of Scripture is related to its usefulness for instructing in Christian belief and training in lives of righteousness.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n FREE WILL AND THE BIBLICAL INSPIRATION<\/p>\n One of my favorite parts of Randy Maddox’s essay deserves a full quote. Here’s Randy notes some implications human freedom has on thinking about biblical inspiration:<\/p>\n \u201cWesley\u2019s descendants may want to \u2026 suggest that his conviction about how God works in salvation\u2014by undergirding and assisting our will, but not overriding our liberty\u2014has broader implications than he realized. Applied to God\u2019s agency in inspiring the human authors of Scripture, this conviction would allow one to take with utmost seriousness the cultural specificity of the various books in the Bible that modern scholarship makes evident, while still affirming a robust sense of the authority of Scripture as the \u201cbook of God.\u201d<\/p>\n I am advocate precisely what Maddox says. That is, I think we should take as central Wesley\u2019s insight that God assists but does not override the freedom God gives creatures.<\/p>\n Placing this insight at the heart of our understanding of God helps us solve a host of theological problems related to evil, science, and the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible. With regard to the Bible, it suggests that free human authors of Scripture can make errors or have misunderstandings that do not affect the main message in the biblical text.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n INTERPRETING THE BIBLE<\/p>\n Wesley\u2019s deepest concern was personal embrace<\/em> of the saving truth in Scripture. We need the Holy Spirit to understand it well. Even \u201cthe devils\u201d believe the Bible, says Wesley, but they do not embrace its saving truth for themselves.<\/p>\n Wesley believes we need to read the Bible \u201cin conference\u201d with others. Some people are simply more mature, and we can benefit from their insights if we listen in community. Meeting in groups to study the Bible is important for forming people and helping to identify the Bible’s central purposes.<\/p>\n Wesley recognized the limits of all human understanding. Even spiritually mature persons see through a glass darkly when interpreting the Bible. Wesley writes:<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he holds is true (for to believe any opinion is not true, is the same thing as not to hold it); yet can no man be assured that all his own opinions, taken together, are true.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of interpreting the Bible well, says Maddox, involves \u201cnot limiting our dialogue partners to those who are most like us, or those with whom we already agree.\u201d Those who see things differently than we do might identify places where our understanding of something in Scripture might be wrong.<\/p>\n Wesley appealed to what he called \u201cthe Rule of Faith\u201d as a tool for interpreting the Bible. The rule of faith identifies the central and unifying themes in the Bible. Difficult, ambiguous, or obscure passages should be interpreted in light of Scripture\u2019s central themes.<\/p>\n Wesley also thought God\u2019s revelation in the natural world could help us interpret the Bible\u2019s special revelation. \u201cAnd when Wesley confronted an apparent conflict between current science and Scripture,\u201d says Maddox, \u201che sought an understanding that did justice to both.\u201d<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n THE CORE OF THE BIBLE<\/p>\n Perhaps Wesley\u2019s most distinctive way of reading the Bible pertains to the lens of love he used to interpret it. Wesley recognized that Christians regard some interpretive lenses as better than others. He writes:<\/p>\n \u201cWe know, \u2018All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,\u2019 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\u2019s] conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley prized the theology of 1 John above all others. Maddox notes that Wesley \u201cused 1 John for his sermon text much more frequently (comparative to the number of verses in the book) than any other biblical book.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley said 1 John 4:19 \u2014 \u201cWe love [God] because he first loved us\u201d \u2014 is \u201cthe sum of the whole gospel.\u201d The book stresses clearly God\u2019s goal to transform us so that we might love both God and neighbor and live lives free from the tyranny of sin.<\/p>\n Maddox summarizes:<\/p>\n \u201cWesley increasingly and self-consciously read the whole of the Bible in light of a deep conviction that God was present in the assuring work of the Spirit both to pardon<\/em> and to transform<\/em> all who respond to that inviting and empowering love (and all<\/em> can respond!). This conviction was not something that Wesley thought he was imposing on Scripture. He was convinced that it was the most central and clear message of Scripture\u2014as seen particularly in 1 John and related texts. At the heart of reading the Bible in \u201cWesleyan\u201d ways today would be embracing Wesley\u2019s central interpretive lens, even as one continues to test and refine it by ongoing conference with the whole of Scripture and the range of other readers.”<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n CONCLUSION<\/p>\n I said at the outset that you can get Randy’s whole essay by signing up for my newsletter. But I should also suggest you consider getting the whole book from which Randy’s essay comes. The Bible Tells Me So: Reading the Bible as Scripture<\/em> is nearly 500 pages in length. It has 30 chapters, half of which discuss topics like inerrancy, Dead Sea scrolls, preaching, and interpretation. The other half address books of the Bible. Richard Thompson and I edited the book, and many have used it as a resource for their study and teaching. Click here for more info…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Both conservative and progressive Christians admire John Wesley. But his statements on the Bible may surprise people in both camps. I’m offering a free copy of Randy Maddox’s essay on John Wesley and the Bible. The essay was published in a book I co-edited with Richard Thompson, The Bible Tells Me So, and elsewhere. Those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[892,906,905,904,903,902,901,900,899,898,897,896,895,894,893,78,891,890,889,888,887,609,607,590,520,345,143,120,102,88],"yst_prominent_words":[1131,1140,1139,1138,1137,1136,1135,1134,1133,1132,1121,1130,1129,1128,1127,1126,1125,1124,1123,1122],"class_list":["post-3888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john_wesley_holiness_and_the_church_of_the_nazarene","tag-united-methodist","tag-hermeneutic-of-love","tag-hermeneutic-o-flove","tag-love-hermeneutic","tag-hermeneutics","tag-wesleys-rule-of-faith","tag-the-rule-of-faith","tag-rule-of-faith","tag-wesley-conference","tag-literal-interpretation","tag-bible-errors","tag-bible-erros","tag-homo-unius-libri","tag-homo-unis-libri","tag-randy-maddox","tag-church-of-the-nazarene","tag-man-of-one-book","tag-scriptural","tag-biblical","tag-wesleyan-hermeneutic","tag-wesleys","tag-biblical-errors","tag-inerrancy","tag-methodist","tag-scripture","tag-bible","tag-john-wesley","tag-wesleyan","tag-character-formation","tag-nazarene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/jwesley1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/the-bible-tells-me-so-200x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n