Wednesdays with Wesley

“Always let your conscience be your guide.” That’s the advice that Jiminy Cricket gives to Pinocchio in the little ditty he sings in the Disney movie. It’s advice that seems to ring true for a lot of people in a western culture where individual autonomy is the highest value. In that worldview, “conscience” is a construct of one’s own thoughts and opinions--how you feel about right and wrong is what matters. Another’s conscience about a particular moral choice might be different but, all things being equal, it’s your conscience so “you do you” as the kids say.

Such a worldview assumes that there’s no such thing as a universal standard of right and wrong. Christians, however, don’t subscribe to that worldview. We believe that God has established a way to live for the human beings he created in his image--a way that is embedded in us if we will acknowledge it. The very idea that there is such a thing as right and wrong is evidence of the image of God stamped on every human being. We Wesleyans would say its further evidence of God’s “prevenient grace”--that grace that goes before our understanding of God. When we become Christians, however, we see our conscience tuned and honed in a way that not only keeps us in the way God has made for us, the way of Christ, but also enables us to live joyful and abundant lives, assured that we are children of God.

The Christian conscience is the focus on John Wesley’s 1746 Sermon, “The Witness of Our Own Spirit,” and that’s our focus in this episode of Wednesdays with Wesley.

Read The Witness of Our Own Spirit

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Doctrines, experiences to try,

We to the sacred standard fly.

Assured the Spirit of our Lord

Can never contradict his Word.

What e’re his Spirit speaks in me

Must with the written word agree;

If not: I cast it all aside

As Satan’s voice, or nature’s pride.

This verse from a Charles Wesley hymn (973 in Volume 1 of Short Hymns) speaks to the witness of the Holy Spirit and the witness of Scripture and the way they are dependent upon each other. The Scriptures reveal the Word of God inspired by the Spirit of God, and yet the Spirit also enables us to interpret Scripture according to that Word. The Spirit and the Word do not contradict one another, and that’s especially true when it comes to the doctrine of assurance, which we’re continuing to explore in this episode of Wednesdays with Wesley.

Sermon X, The Witness of the Spirit, is actually part 1 of a two-part discourse in which John Wesley will expound on the ways in which we can discern the assuring word of the Spirit of God versus our own inner voice or, more insidiously, against the voice of Satan. That sort of discernment is vital, especially in an age where plenty of people are claiming that they are hearing “new things” from the Spirit of God that diverge from what God has revealed in the Scriptures.

Read The Witness of the Spirit

Send your questions and comments to the host, Bob Kaylor, at [email protected].

How can we know that we are children of God? In this episode, host Bob Kaylor looks at a sermon that lays the groundwork for the Wesleyan doctrine of assurance. It’s an essential component of the larger understanding of how those in the Wesleyan tribe understand sanctification and also gives us reason to embrace John Wesley’s optimism that the gospel of Jesus Christ actually works!

Read The First Fruits of the Spirit

Read Carolyn Moore’s blog post on “What Wesleyans believe about ‘once saved, always saved.”

Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and let others know about Wednesdays with Wesley

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The podcast returns with an episode on Wesley’s understanding of the nature of the Church and what constitutes a body that is “faithful in Christ Jesus.” It’s a timely sermon to explore as churches across the Methodist tribe consider their identities after a difficult season.

Read Sermon 74 - “Of the Church”

Read Howard Snyder’s article “Wesley’s Concept of the Church”

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Host Bob Kaylor offers a brief update on the show and his impending move into a new season of ministry. Wednesdays with Wesley will be back in a few weeks but, in the interim, send your suggestions for future episodes to [email protected] (note the new address). Watch for new episodes coming soon!

In this episode we go a little deeper into John Wesley's understanding of the good news by looking at his definition of "true religion" found in Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God. It's a religion of the heart that is evidenced in the believer's life in "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." As Wesley puts it, "This is the way; walk ye in it!" Host Bob Kaylor walks us through this important sermon that gets at the essence of the gospel and how it's lived out in the lives of those who will "repent and believe the good news."

Read The Way of the Kingdom

Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and email the host with your questions and comments at [email protected]. Follow Bob on Twitter @revbkaylor.

Many evangelical Christians are aware of The Four Spiritual Laws as a shorthand version of the gospel used in evangelism. While millions of Christians have come to faith through this simple presentation, which has its roots in the Reformed tradition, those in the Methodist tribe might wonder if there is a Wesleyan version of The Four Spiritual Laws that expresses not only the salvation we have in Christ but also a version of the "wonderful plan" for our lives that involves sanctification, restoration in the image of God, and power over sin. 

Host Bob Kaylor believes he may have found it in John Wesley's letter to Ebenezer Blackwell on December 20, 1751. Near the end of the letter, Wesley outlines in four statements the gospel that the early Methodist preached and believed:

1. God loves you: therefore love and obey him.

2. Christ died for you: therefore die to sin.

3. Christ has risen: therefore rise in the image of God.

4. Christ lives evermore: therefore live to God till you live with Him in glory. 

"This is the scriptural way, the Methodist way, the true way," said Wesley. "God grant that we may never turn therefrom, to the right hand or to the left." What would it mean for 21st century Methodists to adopt this as our "Four Spiritual Laws" for evangelizing the world? 

Send your questions and comments to Bob Kaylor at [email protected] and follow Bob on Twitter @revbkaylor. 

The spontaneous revival at Asbury University has now moved into its second week. What started as a regular Wednesday chapel service has grown into a move of God that is attracting hundreds of people to Wilmore, KY, to experience this outpouring of God’s Spirit. People are coming to experience the power of confession and repentance, healing and reconciliation, testimony and spontaneous praise. There’s no central leader, no direction or agenda, just people gathering together, drawn in and sent out by the Spirit  in a way that is so unusual that national news outlets are picking it up.

But while many are rejoicing at this movement of God that began with college students and is spreading to other campuses, others are skeptical and even critical--and, not surprisingly, a lot of that criticism seems to be coming from those who are actually in the church. Some merely chalk up the revival to emotionalism, while others sniff that it’s not immediately following their prescribed social justice agenda. Still others have never been part of such a spontaneous outpouring and question any kind of ecstatic experience. In Wesley's day, movements of the God outside the established church were considered to be a dangerous form of "enthusiasm," or an irrational religious madness. 

The reality is, however, that these kinds of revivals and spiritual watershed events are a hallmark of the Wesleyan holiness tradition. Asbury experienced a similar revival back in 1970 that launched a generation of pastors and missionaries. Camp meetings and other gatherings were, and in many places still are, opportunities for the Spirit to bring renewed vision in the midst of prayer, worship, healing, and testimony. Indeed, from the very beginning, Methodism has been a movement of the Holy Spirit and a movement that has always raised questions for those in the institutional church. 

In "The Nature of Enthusiasm," written in 1750, John Wesley responds to critics of the movement by redefining what "enthusiasm" actually means and offers a prescription for discerning the work of the Holy Spirit and the will of God. It's a timely sermon for this moment in history and one that both supporters and critics of revival need to consider. 

Read The Nature of Enthusiasm

Read Kevin Watson's helpful summary

Send your questions and comments to host Bob Kaylor at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @revbkaylor. 

In Discourse I, John Wesley described the way in which people (and especially preachers) void the moral law of God by an overemphasis on faith alone. In Discourse II, he offers three ways to properly establish the law through faith: through preaching a fully biblical doctrine, through seeing faith as a means toward holiness, and through living out that law of love in our hearts and lives. The Wesleyan way sees faith and law working together to produce Christ-like character expressed in holy love of God and neighbor. 

Read The Law Established Through Faith, Discourse II

Read Dr. Kevin Watson's helpful summary

Send your questions and comments to host Bob Kaylor at [email protected] and follow Bob on Twitter @revbkaylor. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform! 

“Consider this well--that to preach Christ is to preach all things that Christ hath spoken; all his promises; all his threatenings and commands; all that is written in his book; and then you will know how to preach Christ, without making void the law.” Bringing law and grace, law and faith, into balance is one of the strengths of Wesleyan theology, paying attention to the critical role that both play in the Bible and in the life of the disciple of Jesus. Law without grace is legalism, while grace without law is antinomianism. In this first of two Discourses, John Wesley explores the ways that Christians tend to "void" the law by faith, rather than seeing obedience to the moral law as an essential outcome of faith and the path to holiness. Host Bob Kaylor takes a deep dive into this sermon and explains why it's an essential teaching for Christians in a culture of expressive individualism. 

Read The Law Established Through Faith, Discourse I

Read Kevin Watson's helpful outline and summary

Send your questions and comments to [email protected] and follow Bob on Twitter @revbkaylor. Please take a few minutes to write a review on your favorite podcast platform!