In this video interview, Larry Wood hosts Pentecostal scholar Frank Macchia as they discuss the connection between John Wesley and Pentecostalism. Among the topics are Wesley’s Aldersgate experience and the commonalities between Pentecostal and Wesleyan spirituality. (Part III)
Scripture plainly says again and again that Christ offered himself as the atoning sacrifice “once for all.” How then does Paul dare to suggest that Christ’s sufferings are somehow insufficient? Wesley’s answer to this question points to the heart of the faithful Christian life lived together with and before God in the world.
In this video interview, Larry Wood hosts Pentecostal scholar Frank Macchia as they discuss the connection between John Wesley and Pentecostalism. Among the topics are Wesley’s Aldersgate experience and the commonalities between Pentecostal and Wesleyan spirituality.
In this video interview, Larry Wood hosts Pentecostal scholar Frank Macchia as they discuss the connection between John Wesley and Pentecostalism. Among the topics are Wesley’s Aldersgate experience and the commonalities between Pentecostal and Wesleyan spirituality.
Wesley and his followers of the first 150 years or so did not deploy the institutional church for routine engagement in political specifics. Instead they produced Christians and citizens who understood they operated under God in a wider social accountability. Their faithfulness could bring blessings upon their nation, and their sins could contribute to divine judgment and social decay.
Wesley was “a man of one book,” meaning that for doctrine, devotion, and especially preaching, the Bible played an indispensable role. Using Wesley’s quote as a basic guide for reading Scripture, we may glean a healthy and balanced process of encountering God in Scripture by these 6 steps: read, pray, compare, meditate, consult, teach.
Austin Fischer narrates this journey—into and out of Calvinism—in his newly published book Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed. Fischer’s journey will engage readers of all theological persuasions, but it is his theological arguments for leaving Calvinism woven throughout his narration that will force readers to set the book down after each chapter and ponder the questions, “Who is God?” and “How do I know?”
Reading John Wesley continues to stir the heart of this Baptist. He understood and continues to communicate that faith is not just an intellectual endeavor. Faith is a journey, that involves both love and action expressed to our fellow humanity. This is how God expresses himself through us, and this is how God works to fashion our hearts to something new, as well.
Wesleyans, ideally, pursue a balanced faith and life – valuing both logical thought and emotive experience. A community thirsts in many ways, and people are poor in more ways than a need literal food, clothing, and shelter. The giftings of our entire community are needed to fulfill Christ’s call, and to contribute to the welfare of each person.
Contemporary Pentecostalism is in many ways an offshoot of Wesleyan-Arminian spirituality and theology via the American Holiness movement. Pentecostals specifically identify conversion, sanctification, divine healing, and the premillennial second coming of Jesus as Wesleyan-Arminian-Holiness themes that particularly impacted the formative stages of their movement’s development.
To re-discover that God is at work (and has been at work all along) reshapes our understanding of both individual and corporate purpose—our calling and our ecclesiology. Considering prevenience and mission as intertwined and inseparable brings this post’s four implications to mind.
What John Wesley thought about the Trinity was wonderfully predictable. Since his overall cast of thought was to be aligned with classic Christian doctrine, centered on the gospel, and intensely interested in spiritual experience and spiritual progress, his trinitarianism likewise exhibits these traits.
