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Andrew C. Thompson

Category Archives: Salvation

John Wesley and the Power of Christian Doctrine

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by Andrew C. Thompson in Arkansas Conference, Doctrine & Theology, John Wesley, Justification, Salvation, Sanctification/Holiness, United Methodist Church, Wesleyan Theology

≈ 1 Comment

John Wesley was passionate about doctrine. In fact, his love of doctrine is one of the more underappreciated (and sometimes even unknown) parts of his leadership of the Methodist movement.

Wesley was such a believer in the importance of doctrine that it was—ironically—one of the things that caused him to get in trouble with his own Church of England. We see an example of that in a sermon from 1789 called “Prophets and Priests.” In answering critics who claimed that his actions amounted to separation from the church, Wesley responded: “I hold all the doctrines of the Church of England. I love her Liturgy. I approve her plan of discipline, and only wish it could be put in execution.”

His appreciation for the way that the church’s doctrine and discipline were laid out on paper led Wesley to want to see them truly put into action. In fact, he believed that’s what the Methodist movement was attempting to do. When people would criticize him for planning Methodist services in the city of Dublin at the same time as regular church services, one of the reasons Wesley gave for why he did such a thing was to ensure that the people would have a chance to hear “that sound doctrine which is able to save their souls.”

Nowadays there are all kinds of misconceptions about the nature of the message that Wesley preached and wrote about. Sometimes he is depicted as an excitable evangelist that just wanted to get people pumped up about their faith. Other times you’ll hear people make comments like, “I just really appreciate Wesley’s message about grace.”

Both of these points of view miss the fact that there was actually a lot of concrete content to what Wesley was trying to get across. It wasn’t just about being energetic for Jesus (though that is certainly a good thing!). And it wasn’t just a generalized message about grace or love. Wesley’s understanding of the Christian gospel had fundamental doctrinal content—and he believed that content was of paramount importance for people to hear.

When pressed to summarize the Christian doctrine he thought most central to the Bible, Wesley typically spoke in terms of a three-part scheme: the doctrine of sin and the need for repentance; the doctrine of justification by faith and new birth; and the doctrine of sanctification or holiness. He imagines these three doctrinal heads as the porch, door and house of religion in a famous example from the Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained in 1746.

Wesley writes, “Our main doctrines… are three, that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third is religion itself.”

Wesley’s intense commitment to core Christian doctrine can be explained by the fact that he really believed people’s salvation was at stake in what was being preached by Methodist preachers. The pulpit was not a place to go off into flights of theological fancy, nor was it the proper arena for the preacher to test out his own pet theories about the Bible. It was a place solely meant for the preaching of the meat-and-potatoes gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of the last retrospective essays Wesley wrote about the Methodist movement was a short 1786 piece called “Thoughts upon Methodism.” It is there that he shared his thoughts about the prospects for the Methodist movement in the years to come. And since Wesley was not a man to mince words, he stated exactly what he thought the dangers were to the revival that he had led, by that point, for over 45 years.

He writes, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”

Our present age is one in which all three of those points Wesley makes are being tested in the extreme—doctrine, spirit and discipline. The Methodist movement may go one of any number of directions in the years to come. If it is to go in a Wesleyan direction, the Methodists themselves must surely take heed of Wesley’s advice and embrace the biblical doctrine that Wesley himself embraced in the movement’s first flourishing.

This essay also appeared in the Arkansas United Methodist newspaper’s April 7, 2017 edition. You can read it in the online version of the AUM newspaper here.

Wesleyan Accent: Our Sort-of Free Will

19 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by Andrew C. Thompson in John Wesley, Salvation, Wesleyan Accent, Wesleyan Theology

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I wake up on a Saturday morning. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is out and flowers are in bloom. Should I go to the zoo and watch the animals, or would I rather work in my garden? Am I even free to decide?

Most people would say, “Yes, of course you are free to decide.” And I am. In fact, I’ve got more freedom than the freedom of choosing between the zoo and the garden. I could choose to do something else entirely. I could even choose to lie in bed all day with the curtains drawn—as wasteful as that might seem.

But what if the choice is on a different level entirely? How about if the choice is whether or not to love God? To believe in Jesus Christ?

Do we have the ability to choose our salvation?

That is a much trickier question. Click here to continue reading…

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Wesleyan AccentWesleyan Accent provides free and subscription resources for Christian spiritual formation, catechesis, and discipleship in the Wesleyan way. By clearly articulating the Wesleyan understanding of Christian faith, Wesleyan Accent seeks to strengthen discipleship, empower mission and evangelism, cultivate ministry gifts of young leaders, and nurture the professional and service life of young theologians.

Andrew C. Thompson joined the writing team of Wesleyan Accent upon its launch in the Fall of 2013. For the full catalog of his articles on the Wesleyan Accent site, click here.

Holy Love — Part 5

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by admin in Bible, Eschatology, FUMC Springdale, Salvation

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The First Letter of John closes with a powerful message.

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life,” John says. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” John’s message tells us that God’s love can give us complete confidence so that we can live lives free of fear, devoted to loving Christ as he loves us.

Here the sermon, “Complete Confidence,” on 1 John 5:9-15 —

 


 

The Throne of Love

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by admin in Discipleship, John Wesley, Salvation, Sanctification/Holiness, Wesleyan Theology

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In my course, “The Means of Grace in Wesleyan Theology” this semester, we read John Wesley’s sermon, “On Zeal.” The dominant image in the sermon is an illustration by Wesley that is sometimes called the Throne of Love.

My student Mimi White reviewed the sermon for our class, and she drew an illustration to help our class understand Wesley’s throne of love. It was so fantastic, I took a picture of what she drew so I could share it:

2015-04-22_Wesley's Throne of Love by Mimi White

Children, dogs, cats, and butterflies. The love of Jesus is for the whole creation!

Why this image? It’s because Wesley is trying to paint a picture in the sermon of what the holy life looks like in a true Christian believer. Here’s how he describes it:

     “In a Christian believer love sits upon the throne which is erected in the inmost soul; namely, love of God and man, which fills the whole heart, and reigns without a rival. In a circle near the throne are all holy tempers; — longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, fidelity, temperance; and if any other were comprised in ‘the mind which was in Christ Jesus.’ In an exterior circle are all the works of mercy, whether to the souls or bodies of men. By these we exercise all holy tempers — by these we continually improve them, so that all these are real means of grace, although this is not commonly adverted to. Next to these are those that are usually termed works of piety — reading and hearing the word, public, family, private prayer, receiving the Lord’s supper, fasting or abstinence. Lastly, that his followers may the more effectually provoke one another to love, holy tempers, and good works, our blessed Lord has united them together in one body, the church, dispersed all over the earth — a little emblem of which, of the church universal, we have in every particular Christian congregation.”

As a bonus, check out John Meunier’s post, Wesley: On Zeal and the local church.

 


 

 

The Light Has Dawned

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Early Church Fathers, Easter, Liturgical Year, Salvation

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Carl Heinrich Bloch_The Resurrection_1873O Splendor of the Father’s light
That makes our daylight lucid, bright;
O Light of light and sun of day,
Now shine on us your brightest ray.

True Sun, break out on earth and shine
In radiance with your light divine;
By dazzling of your Spirit’s might,
Oh, give our jaded senses light.

The Father sends his Son, our Lord,
To be his bright and shining Word;
Come, Lord, ride out your gleaming course
And be our dawn, our light’s true source.

—St. Ambrose, 4th century

Wesleyan Accent: The Surprising Gift of Discipleship

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by admin in Discipleship, John Wesley, Means of Grace, Salvation, Wesleyan Accent, Wesleyan Theology

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Around the time the Methodist revival in England completed its first decade, John Wesley penned an essay called A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists. His aim is to explain the Methodist movement to the larger world, which he does by describing the various internal components of the revival that had developed during Methodism’s first ten years.

One of the components Wesley focuses upon is the prominent place of lay leadership within Methodism. He makes it clear that the revival is not a clergy-driven enterprise. As Wesley tells it, Methodism has many roles for laity that allow them to serve in active ministry. He describes the roles of Lay Preachers and Stewards. He documents the contributions of Class Leaders and Visitors of the Sick. Each of these “offices” has a set of responsibilities attached to it. Each of them is also empowered to do ministry—shepherding the members of the local Methodist societies in ways designed to care for them, nurture their discipleship, and push them forward in mission… Click here to continue reading

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Wesleyan AccentWesleyan Accent provides free and subscription resources for Christian spiritual formation, catechesis, and discipleship in the Wesleyan way. By clearly articulating the Wesleyan understanding of Christian faith, WA seeks to strengthen discipleship, empower mission and evangelism, cultivate ministry gifts of young leaders, and nurture the professional and service life of young theologians.

Andrew C. Thompson joined the writing team of WA upon its launch in the Fall of 2013. For the full catalog of his articles on the WA site, click here.

Wesleyan Accent: Salvation–The Church's First Mission

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by admin in Salvation, Wesleyan Accent, Wesleyan Tradition

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H. Richard Niebuhr summed up the mainline Protestant view on the coming kingdom of God with the statement: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

Sharp words. Niebuhr was writing in the 1930s. But it might as well have been yesterday. Many Christians in our culture still get queasy about the stark biblical picture of salvation, preferring to focus on things like human betterment and societal progress.

Methodists in America have long bought into the “progress” approach that Niebuhr lamented, not only ignoring the fact that such progress is a myth but also watching their churches decay as a result…  Click here to continue reading

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Wesleyan AccentA Wesleyan Accent is a web-based ministry working in partnership with Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and Seedbed.com. Wesleyan Accent provides free and subscription resources for Christian spiritual formation, catechesis, and discipleship in the Wesleyan way. By clearly articulating the Wesleyan understanding of Christian faith,  WA seeks to strengthen discipleship, empower mission and evangelism, cultivate ministry gifts of young leaders, and nurture the professional and service life of young theologians.

Andrew C. Thompson joined the writing team of WA upon its launch in the fall of 2013. For the full catalog of articles by Thompson on the WA site, go here.

From Wesley's pen — May 17, 1778

31 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by admin in John Wesley, JW Journal, Salvation

≈ 2 Comments

“Sun. 17. Although the weather was rough and boisterous, the people flocked at nine from all quarters, Papists and Protestants, and God sent down a gracious rain, especially upon the backsliders. In the evening, the court-house was exceedingly crowded, and the fire of love ran from heart to heart. One eminent backslider, who had drank in iniquity like water, was utterly broken in pieces and resolved to cut off the right hand at once and to be altogether a Christian.”

I love this journal entry by Wesley, in no small part because of the way he plays with the imagery of water: the stormy weather during the meeting in Castlebar, the rain of grace poured out by God upon those present, and the backslider described as drinking in iniquity as easily as water.

john_wesley_3This short passage is also theologically significant for a couple of reasons. One is the indication by Wesley that both Roman Catholics and Protestants were gathered together—an indication of the ecumenical hopes that Wesley always had for the Methodist movement (and which he usually takes care to comment upon especially during his Ireland tours). The other is the way that the backsliders present at the meeting are described. A backslider is someone who has enjoyed a living faith in God at some point but has fallen back into willful sin (cf. Jeremiah 14:7; 1 Timothy 1:18-19). The character of grace is such that it is possible to reject it even after it has been once received, as Wesley correctly understands. But he also understands another feature of grace that speaks to God’s infinite mercy: Even those who have fallen away can be welcomed back into the embrace of Jesus Christ, for he will seek them as a shepherd seeks a lost sheep that has strayed from the flock (cf. Luke 15:3-7). Thus, Wesley rejoices in the “gracious rain” that God has sent to refresh the backsliders in Castlebar, and he points specifically to one of their number whose dramatic repentance is remarkable because of the depth of his previous sin.

In Volume 23 of the Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley (where this journal entry appears), editor W. Reginald Ward points out that this incident from May 17, 1778, was almost certainly the reason for Wesley’s subsequent publication of his sermon, “A Call to Backsliders.” That sermon contains a careful argument about the possibility of backsliding Christians being restored to the favor of God, and it is well worth reading.

[This post is part of an ongoing series that highlights important themes that emerge in the Journal that John Wesley published throughout his adult life. For other posts in the series, go here.]

Initiated into Christ's holy church

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by admin in Baptism, Means of Grace, Salvation

≈ 7 Comments

In a few weeks, I will be baptizing my twin son and daughter. It’s an event my wife Emily and I are very much looking forward to. The opening words of the baptismal liturgy of my church sum up why the sacrament of baptism is so important for Christians:

Through the Sacrament of Baptism
    we are initiated into Christ’s holy church.
We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation
    and given new birth through water and the Spirit.
All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price.

Our children Stuart and Anna Charlotte will receive the sign of salvation that witnesses to Christ’s victory over death in the crucifixion and resurrection. As a sacrament, baptism is a true means of grace whereby spiritual regeneration is found. They will also be knit into the body of Christ—brought publicly and visibly into the people of God.

Our children, Stuart and Anna Charlotte

Our children, Stuart and Anna Charlotte

One of the things that is most comforting to me about the prospect of my son and daughter’s baptisms is the thought that my wife and I will know that we don’t have to do all that we need to do for them on our own. Their baptisms will be a visible sign of the grace God bears toward them, beckoning them into deep communion with Christ. And it is also the act that will welcome them into Christ’s holy covenant in the church. Stuart and Anna Charlotte will be joining a family that will help them on their journey, no matter what happens to Emily and me through the years. Teaching them the gospel, helping them learn what it means to follow Jesus, and showing them the way of sanctification—all these tasks will be shared by the whole church. When they have been baptized in the midst of the great congregation, the people there will pledge on behalf of the church catholic to do all in their power to increase their faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love. To that, all I can say is: Thanks be to God.

I want to share something special we’re doing for the baptism, but first a digression…

Of all the Scriptural means of grace given to the church, the one that my own Methodist people have historically understood least well is, yes, baptism. We at least come by this neglect honestly, as baptism was not exactly central to John Wesley’s teaching or the early Methodist movement. Wesley himself certainly valued baptism as a sacrament; but he was operating in a culture of Christendom when most people had been baptized as infants, and he was more focused on the possibility of new birth as a gift of God for adults who stood in need of spiritual regeneration.

I actually think there are resources embedded within the Wesleyan tradition that can help to give Methodist folk a renewed sense of the importance and power of baptism. Some of the needed work has been begun by scholars like Henry Knight (who has connected the practice of covenant renewal with baptism) and Fred Edie (who has done significant work locating youth ministry within a baptismal context). I build off of both these scholars’ work in an article I have coming out in an upcoming issue of Liturgy, and I am making a broader case in a book I’m working on currently focused on the means of grace and the practice of discipleship. (The book is something I’ll start writing more about later this fall.)

Now back to the subject at hand…

In celebration of the wonderful event upcoming in the life of our children (and our church!), Emily and I have commissioned a baptismal set that will be used in their baptisms. Photos of the set are below. It was crafted by my friend and professional artist, Katherine Owen. She does wonderful work, and her pottery on this occasion is a true gift to us.

Baptismal Set: Bowl, Pitcher, and Ladle

Baptismal Set: Bowl, Pitcher, and Ladle

 

Baptismal pitcher created by potter Katherine Owen

Baptismal pitcher created by potter Katherine Owen

 

Katherine adorns all her liturgical pottery with passages from Scripture and liturgy, as well as Christian imagery

Katherine’s liturgical pottery features Scripture and liturgy, as well as Christian imagery

 

The Danger of a Disappearing Faith

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by admin in Discipleship, John Wesley, Salvation

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Dissipation.Dissipation of Water on a Lake

It’s a word that makes one think of mist lifting off a lake in the morning. Or the heat of day gradually giving way to the cool of evening.

It’s also a word that John Wesley uses when he wants to talk about the danger of losing a once vital faith, over time, as the pressures and trials of life take their toll.

When I first came across the concept of dissipation to describe how faith can be lost (and lost even without meaning to do so), it was a real revelation to me. Dissipation helps to explain a spiritual dilemma: namely, how it is possible that a faith once received may not remain as strong as it does in the beginning. We continue to live in a broken world, and even if we find ourselves transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, the nature of life in the present means that we will experience challenges to keeping on the path of faith.

Wesley puts it this way in his sermon, “On Dissipation” — “We are encompassed on all sides with persons and things that tend to draw us from our centre. Indeed, every creature, if we are not continually on our guard, will draw us from our Creator. The whole visible world, all we see, hear, or touch, all the objects either of our senses or understanding, have a tendency to dissipate our thoughts from the invisible world, and to distract our minds from attending to him who is both the author and end of our being.”

I write on the spiritual issue of dissipation in my new column for the Arkansas United Methodist newspaper. I tend to think that pastors becoming more familiar with this concept can aid in the pastoral care of their congregations. It is a good example where learning the doctrinal content of a solid Wesleyan practical theology can make a real difference in ministry.

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