John Wesley's View and Use of Scripture

Weeter

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781498276283
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

John Wesley by his own words considered himself a "Man of One Book," meaning of course the Scriptures. Yet what does this seemingly declarative statement really mean? What was Wesley's view on the inspiration, authority, and even the infallibility of Scripture? This question is more than a historical curiosity when we recognize the current debate between evangelical groups over their views of the authority of Scripture. Recognizing the debt all Wesleyan movements have to Wesley's teachings and doctrines, this book will attempt to answer some critical questions about Wesley's view and use of the Bible. How did Wesley develop his views? How did he incorporate Scripture into his development of the Methodist movement? What was the position of Scripture in what has become known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of reason, experience, tradition, and Scripture? What were his views on inspiration and infallibility and would his principles of interpretation hold up against modern, critical scholarship?Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what influence did Wesley's view and use of the Bible have upon the success of the Wesleyan Revival? Are there lessons we can still learn from Wesley that could impact the world and church of the twenty-first century? This book will attempt to answer these and many other fascinating questions about John Wesley, a "Man of One Book."

Section I

John Wesley’s View of Scriptural Instruction

1

The Formation of Wesley’s Views on Scripture

Part 1

The time would come, when Wesley would state that he was “a man of one book”1 and a “Yea, I am a Bible bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small.”2 His views however, did not spring up overnight or develop in a vacuum. As Stephen Gunter states, “Wesley’s Aldersgate experience on May 1738 is without question pivotal, but his subsequent concentration of emphasis on sola fide had a rather lengthy period of incubation. Wesley’s theology was not something newly discovered.”3

In later chapters I show how totally immersed John Wesley was in the Bible, in all aspects of his life and ministry. Before we launch out into an in-depth study of Wesley’s scriptural views, we must trace the influences that developed within Wesley such a love and familiarity with the Bible. The sources of Wesley’s subsequent views of Scripture are evident when one explores the influences upon Wesley of his family, his Oxford experiences, his Anglican background, his interest in Patristics, his Georgia mission; mystical influences, and the influence of Aldersgate. These influences furnished the matrix underlying Wesley’s views. According to Richard Heitzenrater, “A grasp of Wesley’s relationship to his sources is necessary to the development of an adequate hermeneutic for understanding Wesley’s own writings.”4

The Influence of John Wesley’s Family

John Wesley was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire in June 1703. His father Samuel was the rector at Epworth, while his mother Susannah was both matriarch and saint presiding over the large and impoverished family.5 John Wesley was born into a home where the Bible was not only a moral guide of life, but also the primer out of which the children learned the alphabet and to read.6

John Wesley states clearly the powerful influence of his family when he writes in his “Farther Thoughts on Separation from the Church” (1789):

From a child I was taught to love and reverence the Scripture, the oracles of God, and next to these to esteem the primitive Fathers, the writers of the first three centuries. Next after the primitive Church I esteemed our own, the Church of England, as the most scriptural national church in the world.7

Quite often the influence of Susannah upon her son is stressed, and I will not neglect her, but we must not forget the influence of Samuel upon his son. Samuel Wesley had a great personal commitment to the Word of God, and he wrote a number of scholarly works on the Bible, such as his commentary on Job. Samuel urged John not to enter into holy orders unprepared, and a large portion of this preparation was to include a personal study of the Bible based upon a knowledge of the original languages. Consider the following letter to John in 1724 while he was attending Oxford :

The knowledge of the languages is a very considerable help in this matter, which, I thank God, all my three sons have to a very laudable degree, though God knows I had ne’er more than a smattering of any of ‘em. But then this must be prosecuted to the thorough understanding of the original text of the Scriptures, by constant and long conversing with them. You ask me, which is the best commentary on the Bible, I answer the Bible.8

Wesley’s views were even more greatly influenced by the training of his mother Susannah. Bible study was a habit formed in childhood and a daily, and almost hourly occupation to the end of his life. It was the basis of all his work in teaching and preaching.9 The foundation of this discipline and view of the highest authority was certainly mediated through the parental discipline of Susannah.

From the moment of birth the Wesley children were focused into a disciplined method of both worship and Bible study. Susannah, in a letter at John’s request in 1732, described her principles for educating children:

The children of this family were taught, as soon as they could speak, the Lord’s Prayer, which they were made to say at rising, and bed time constantly; to which, as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects; a short catechism, and some portions of Scripture, as their memories could bear.10

Clearly, the Bible became an important part of the lives of the Wesley children even before they could read.

The Bible also played a prominent part, not only in church worship and family prayers, but in the education at Susannah’s knee. To amplify on an earlier thought, the Bible was the primer out of which the Wesley children learned.11 The children were taught their alphabet on their fifth birthday by Mrs. Wesley, and the Bible was their first reader. They began in the first chapter of Genesis spelling out each verse, then reading it over and over until they could read it without hesitation. Thus, the earliest impressions of John Wesley were bound up in the Bible. Susannah kept the children at their home schooling for six hours a day, and soon they knew many passages of the Bible intimately.12

The Bible remained the central study. Each morning the children would read a psalm and a chapter in the Old Testament. Every evening they would read a psalm and a chapter from the New Testament. The prayers were prescribed in the Calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, which became almost as familiar to them as the Bible itself. Such daily reading Wesley maintained throughout his life.13

This daily practice not only helped develop John Wesley’s own rigorous and disciplined approach to Bible study and the whole practice of his religious life, but it also influe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Section I: John Wesley’s View of Scriptural Instruction
• Section II: John Wesley’s View of Inspiration and Infallibility
• Section III: John Wesley’s View of Scriptural Interpretation
• Bibliography