{"id":1305,"date":"2010-12-22T12:43:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T12:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/a-normal-christian-life--part-eight.html"},"modified":"2010-12-22T12:43:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T12:43:19","slug":"a-normal-christian-life-part-eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/a-normal-christian-life-part-eight.html","title":{"rendered":"A Normal Christian Life—- Part Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the more crucial
\nof John Wesley’s early sermons, preached at Oxford at the beginning of the
\nMethodist Revival was entitled ‘the almost and the altogether Christian’. John
\nWesley was apt to say that you can be as orthodox as the devil, for the devil
\nknows the truth about Jesus and God, but that truth has not transformed him,
\nand still not be saved.   <\/span>For Wesley the
\nheart of religion was the religion of the heart, by which was meant real
\ninternal conversion of the human mind and spirit by means of the Spirit of
\nGod.  <\/span>The result of such a genuine
\nconversion was described by Wesley as follows<\/span><\/p>\n

Do good designs and good desires
\nmake a Christian? By no means, unless they are brought to good effect.
\n“Hell is paved,” saith one, “with good intentions.” The
\ngreat question of all, then, still remains. Is the love of God shed abroad in
\nyour heart? Can you cry out, “My God, and my All”?  <\/span>Do you desire nothing but him? Are you happy
\nin God? Is he your glory, your delight, your crown of rejoicing? And is this
\ncommandment written in your heart, “That he who loveth God love his
\nbrother also”? Do you then love your neighbour as yourself? Do you love
\nevery man, even your enemies, even the enemies of God, as your own soul? as
\nChrist loved you? Yea, dost thou believe that Christ loved thee, and gave
\nhimself for thee? Hast thou faith in his blood? Believest thou the Lamb of God
\nhath taken away thy sins, and cast them as a stone into the depth of the sea?
\nthat he hath blotted out the handwriting that was against thee, taking it out
\nof the way, nailing it to his cross? Hast thou indeed redemption through his
\nblood, even the remission of thy sins? And doth his Spirit bear witness with
\nthy spirit, that thou art a child of God? <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Wesley placed a lot of emphasis on the internal witness
\nor testimony of the Holy Spirit, telling a person they are a child of God, and
\nhe placed a lot of emphasis on the character transformation that accompanied
\nthe witness, namely one is filled with a heart full of love for God and others,
\nand begins to manifest that in one’s life. 
\n<\/span>But lest we think that Wesley is just talking about an inner experience
\nthat an individual has and should have if they are a saved person, it becomes
\nclear the more one reads that Wesley sees the experience as the means of
\ncharacter transformation which in turn should and can lead to the
\ntransformation not merely of ones ‘tempers’ (attitudes, feelings, inclinations)
\nbut also the transformation of one’s behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>In Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament, Wesley adds a few
\ntelling comments about the fruit of the Spirit.   <\/span>He says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Verse
\n22<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Love<\/i>
\n— The root of all the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gentleness<\/span><\/i> — Toward all
\nmen; ignorant and wicked men in particular.<\/span><\/p>\n

Goodness<\/span><\/i> — The Greek
\nword means all that is benign, soft, winning, tender, either in temper or
\nbehaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Verse 23<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[23] Meekness, temperance: against such
\nthere is no law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meekness<\/span><\/i> — Holding all
\nthe affections and passions in even balance.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Notice that Wesley does not just think the fruit is and
\nshould be manifested between Christians. 
\n<\/span>No, he particularly thinks gentleness must be exercised towards
\nnon-believers,  <\/span>which, it must be said,
\nis not the normal approach of censorious preachers of his day or ours.  <\/span>What is especially interesting is the final
\ncomment on meekness, which Wesley equates with keeping all the affections and
\npassions in even balance.  <\/span>This
\nunderstanding of the term seems almost Stoic, and does not really fully comport
\nwith the way the term is used elsewhere in the NT, even of Christ himself.  <\/span>Meekness, to be sure, is not weakness, but it
\ndoes mean a sort of mild-mannered approach to relating to others, a humble
\napproach, rather than a rude and arrogant one. 
\n<\/span>It also refers to a person who is self-controlled, proactive in the way
\nhe relates to others, rather than reactive.  
\n<\/span>In an interesting letter, written near the close of his life, Wesley
\nstresses <\/span><\/p>\n

“When the witness and
\nthe fruit of the Spirit meet together, there can be no stronger proof that we
\nare of God.” (John Wesley, letter: 31 March 1787).   <\/span>It was
\nnot just the inner sense of assurance of salvation, but the evidence of changed
\ncharacter and behavior that indicated a person was of God. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>In his reflections called ‘Faith and the Assurance of
\nFaith’, Wesley provides a little chain of logic to help us understand the
\nrelationship between holiness and love and the internal testimony of the Spirit
\nthat we are a child of God.  <\/span>He
\nstresses  <\/span>“We must be holy of heart and life before we can be conscious that we
\nare so.  <\/span>But we must love God before we
\ncan be holy at all, this being the root of all holiness. Now, we cannot love
\nGod until we know he loves us–‘We love him because he first loved us’ and we
\ncannot know his love to us until his Spirit first witnesses it to our spirit.
\nUntil then, we cannot believe it.” <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span><\/span><\/b>What is striking
\nabout this is not only the clear connection made between knowing God loves us,
\nand loving God in return which is said to be the root of all holiness. But even
\nmore striking is the statement that we can be holy of heart and mind, and we can
\nknow that we are.   <\/span>We could equally well
\nsay that the root of spiritual formation is being loved by God, and loving God
\nin return, which reforms and transforms our character into a more holy
\ncharacter.   <\/span>There is no spiritual
\nformation practice more important than the active loving of God with whole
\nheart and neighbor and others as self. 
\n<\/span>And the interesting by-product of such loving is that we become holy
\npeople, we become set apart for God, we become like God who is both holy and
\nlove.   <\/span>God is not holiness without love
\n(thank goodness), nor is God love without holiness (praise God).  <\/span>God’s love is always a holy, sanctifying,
\nsin-conquering sin-exterminating love. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Sometimes what happens in
\ndiscussions about Christian maturity and spiritual formation, is that instead
\nof being encouraged, people get discouraged, because they think that they are
\nbeing exhorted to become super-Christians, to strive for a sort of spiritual
\nlife which frankly they don’t see themselves ever achieving.   <\/span>They are not working on sainthood, they are
\nworking on just being a good Christian person, and it’s all they have time
\nfor.  <\/span>For those who feel that way, hear
\nthe good news—  <\/span>Spiritual formation is
\nnot an achievement, it is what goes on invisibly ever day in the life of the true
\nbeliever,  <\/span>even when that believer is
\nunaware of it.  <\/span>God in the person of the
\nSpirit is at work in us every single day, transforming us. Paul puts it this
\nway, “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away,
\nour inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4.17).  <\/span>  <\/span>It
\nwill be seen that we have reached the point where it’s time to talk about
\nspiritual formation as it has to do with what the individual Christian does on
\nhis own, and sometimes by himself.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more crucial of John Wesley’s early sermons, preached at Oxford at the beginning of the Methodist Revival was entitled ‘the almost and the altogether Christian’. John Wesley was apt to say that you can be as orthodox as the devil, for the devil knows the truth about Jesus and God, but that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nA Normal Christian Life- Part Eight - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/a-normal-christian-life-part-eight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Normal Christian Life- Part Eight - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the more crucial of John Wesley’s early sermons, preached at Oxford at the beginning of the Methodist Revival was entitled ‘the almost and the altogether Christian’. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}