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This is a special treat for

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an academic community
to have a chair

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that is endowed by

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some wonderful people who have
supported this institution

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for many years in

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really an extended
family in many roles.

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We are here to celebrate the
life of Paul and the Walls,

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and we celebrate the
contribution of the family of

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the Walls and as
well extended family

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that mean so much to
this institution.

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Then, the other side
of the benefit for

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a wonderful lecture
series and lecture and

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chair of this solemn is

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that we get to hear from
one of our own scholars,

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Randy Maddox, who will be

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introduced properly in a moment.

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But we are delighted that Randy

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has come to our institution
some years ago now,

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continues to serve
in this chair,

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and continues to educate
us all about John Wesley,

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about the western tradition,

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about matters that are deeply

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important to the roots
of this institution.

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This is a really
wonderful morning,

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a wonderful time,

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and we hope that
you all enjoy it,

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and we're glad that
you have come.

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I am Flip and Linda college.

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The daughter of Paul
T. Walls would stand,

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and then if Wesley
and Elizabeth also.

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Maybe I don't see any other
members of the family here,

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but if you all would stand
and receive our recognition.

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Wonderful folks,

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and I hope you will
take a little bit of

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opportunity to come and
thank them and greet them.

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By the way they make it to
every one in these lectures,

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and we're very grateful to
them for their support and

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continuing commitment
to this program.

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I will now ask

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our dean of the school
of theology to come,

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and properly give
an introduction

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to our lecture this morning.

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Collus Green, welcome.

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Good morning. It's

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my particular pleasure and
privilege to welcome you most

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cordially to Wesley
Methodist Church on

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this rolling wet and rainy day

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that I have no doubt that

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all of us gathered
here this morning,

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will find ourselves
strangely warmed as

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we listen to Dr. Randy Maddox

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deliver the Paul T.
Walls annual lecture,

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which this year is entitled

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Celebrating the whole Wesley,

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a legacy for
contemporary Wesleyan's.

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I also want to give my very
warm and special welcome to

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members of the Wall's family

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who are joining us this morning.

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I was supposed to be standing
in for President Ethan,

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and he was supposed
to be not here,

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but he has turned up.

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Unfortunately, he has
an ear infection,

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so it's probably
some good news and

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some bad news that he's
actually here with us.

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But I do know that
the vice president

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for academic affairs,

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Dr. Les Steel,

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is out of town, fulfilling
other duties and

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offer sincere apologies for

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not being able to
join us this morning.

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I took up my duties as dean
at the beginning of August,

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so I have not been here
with you for very long.

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Long enough to realize that
the weather in October

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is remarkably similar to my
native Northern Ireland.

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Long enough also to realize that

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the school of theology is richly

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blessed with a
remarkable constellation

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of very productive scholars,

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teachers, mentors,

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ministers, and how
shall I say it?

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Fascinating and
interesting personalities.

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None more so Randy
Maddox who is,

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as I've said, the
whole team Walls,

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professor of Wesleyan theology

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here at Seattle
Pacific University,

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a man whom I have
come to cherish as

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a very fine scholar,
a richly textured,

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interdisciplinary thinker
and a true gentleman,

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to all who know him as
a friend and a mentor.

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He is also a recognized
authority of

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both John Wesley's theology and

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the theological developments
and later Methodism.

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In addition to
numerous articles,

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he is an author of
Responsible Grace,

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John Wesley's
practical theology,

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and a contributor to
Wesleyan Quadrilateral,

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and editor on oldest gauge,

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reconsidered and rethinking

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Wesley's theology for
contemporary Methodism.

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Dr. Maddox routinely
bringing to this grinding in

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his Wesleyan tradition into

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conversation with issues of

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present Christian
life and witness,

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including some special interests

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in the science and
religion dialogue,

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the nature of evangelicalism and

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the self-understanding
of theology

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as a contemporary discipline.

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Randy holds a BA degree from
Northwest Nazarene College,

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and dynamic dip degree

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from Nazarene
Theological Seminary,

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and a PhD in theological
studies from Emory University.

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He is an ordained elder in

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the protest conference of
the United Methodist Church.

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He is a North
American Secretary of

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the Oxford Institute of
Methodist theological studies,

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general editor of
the Kings Wood books

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imprint of Abington Press,

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and the member of the
board of directors of

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the Wesley works
editorial project.

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He has also served as

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president of the Wesleyan
theological society,

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and co-chair of the
Wesleyan studies group

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of the American
Academy of Religion.

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He is married with two children,

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his wife Helen,

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is a library specialist
here at SPU.

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His daughter Erin is 21,

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his son Jarrod is 19,

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and both are our
students at SPU.

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I welcome and I give to you,

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Dr. Randy Maddox.

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Thank you, Eddie. It is
good to be with you again.

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It's always good to gather
in this lecture that

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my family gather here as well

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and to have the Wall's family.

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I would like to add my thanks to

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that of Dr. Eaton, to the Walls
family for their support of my chair,

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that allows me to do my
work in Wesleyan studies.

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I'm particularly fascinated by

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the ways in which
connections are coming up.

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If you don't know
that Sheryl Walls,

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the daughter of Linda is
a part of our faculty,

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she's affiliate
professor teaching

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in the music department,

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she is a very
accomplished professor.

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One of the things other
than this past summer

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is that John Wesley,

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whenever he played music,

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played the flute as well.

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I've only found him
constantly playing in

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his room and never
for performance,

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and that might tell
us something about

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his accomplishment
or lack there of.

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That flutes from any family.

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This year has been a busy one
for me if some of you know,

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and as an image of the brochure,

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because this year is a
special year for those who

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left to do Wesleyan studies,
particularly John Wesley.

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It's the 300th anniversary
of John Wesley III.

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Now, if you think about that,

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you can begin to understand
that perhaps this

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is some unusual situation.

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Today most of those who
know or work anything

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on the Wesley's
professional academics.

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Professional academics gathering

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conferences to read papers,

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to argue with one another,

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to debate and finding
point of interpretation.

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What do you do when you're
celebrating these dip?

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The best example for me happened

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on actually the 28th of June,

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which is the accumulative
Wesley's birthday.

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Firstly, there was
a large conference

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at Duke University
of Utah is present.

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We have about 300 people there,

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and we rolled out
a birthday cake,

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lit candles and sang happy
birthday to John Wesley.

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Watching a group
of academics brave

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as they loudly sing happy
birthday, was quite a treat.

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I always like

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the way that they didn't try to

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put a handle on breach here.

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They've got three of
them that were left so

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we had the three zeroes left.

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Otherwise, I think he had a
couple of building on campus.

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As I was standing there watching

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these perpetual academics,

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a little bit uncomfortable with

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the notion of celebrating
the birthday.

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It's properly to
ask the question,

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what is it we really do need to

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gather to celebrate birthday?

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What might that mean
for thinking about

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how we ought to reflect
on Wesley at this time?

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There's at least
three reasons we got,

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and I think they can
change our life.

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When we're dealing
with our children,

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is born and when we're

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usually doing at least
his parents work,

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we're looking at how
much they belong,

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we're there to see what's
happening in the last year.

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We even marked it out on
the sides of the wall or on

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the door frame where

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the marketer years or
grow as they grow up.

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Look how much they grow.

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As time goes on and we
started to gather as adults,

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particularly as adults to go to

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the birthdays of our parents,

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the focus shifts has
been my experience.

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You start paying more
attention to it.

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That's where I got that from.

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You come to appreciate
your parents

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and what they've
contributed to you,

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both in terms of

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your culture and even in
terms of your biology.

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Shortly after I married,

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my wife goes into a
long list of things.

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You have your mother's eyes and

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your father's nose
right down the list.

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That's where you've
got that from.

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As we move toward
the innocent life

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and celebrate his birthday,

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it changed yet even
a little more.

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The focus turns to
begin to ask questions

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about appreciating
the wisdom of age.

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You notice when they
interview anybody who

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was turned to 100 on TV,

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they always ask that question,

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"What's the secret
to long lived life?"

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Well in that context,
what I want to do

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today is I want us to look back

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to John Wesley to the whole
course of his ministry,

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not just his birth but
the whole course of

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his ministry and ask
those same questions.

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How can we looking over his
life that we see he is grown?

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What wisdom emerges from

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that growth that he
might have to offer us?

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In what ways can we
come to appreciate more

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deeply who we are
as a community that

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stands in that tradition of

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the Wesley movement

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and how it might have shaped us.

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I like celebrating
the whole Wesley and

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00:11:28,230 --> 00:11:30,230
my first section on
the handout that you

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have is the wisdom
of the whole Wesley.

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See anytime someone brings up

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the name of John
or Charles Wesley,

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particularly in this case
you can focus on John,

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and you asked, what do
you know about Wesley?

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Even those that are
part of the education

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usually if there's one
thing they can bring up,

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it is that phrase,

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the heart screams we want,

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we know the Augustinian
experience,

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we know that John
Wesley is one who

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came to understand that
the Christian life is

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not just about having the
right intellectual conviction,

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it's not just about
Orthodox belief,

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it's about experiencing
the presence

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00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:03,985
of God's love in your life,

262
00:12:03,985 --> 00:12:07,015
it's about knowing
God loves you.

263
00:12:07,015 --> 00:12:10,510
As he tells the account
about holistic,

264
00:12:10,510 --> 00:12:12,700
that time and that assurance
came through powerfully

265
00:12:12,700 --> 00:12:15,145
to him was a very
dramatic account.

266
00:12:15,145 --> 00:12:17,260
It knocked him off his feet.

267
00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:19,540
He felt his heart had
strangely warned him,

268
00:12:19,540 --> 00:12:20,680
and he is using the word strange

269
00:12:20,680 --> 00:12:22,150
there in the sense of from

270
00:12:22,150 --> 00:12:25,225
above or from an unusual source,

271
00:12:25,225 --> 00:12:27,620
not a normal source.

272
00:12:28,410 --> 00:12:30,460
What's interesting is that

273
00:12:30,460 --> 00:12:31,765
when Wesley went out immediately

274
00:12:31,765 --> 00:12:35,065
after office day and
started preaching.

275
00:12:35,065 --> 00:12:38,995
He did so with a very basic
and clear assumption.

276
00:12:38,995 --> 00:12:40,210
His assumption was,

277
00:12:40,210 --> 00:12:43,855
unless you've had an experience
just like the one I had,

278
00:12:43,855 --> 00:12:45,955
you're not really a Christian,

279
00:12:45,955 --> 00:12:47,980
and he went around
preaching that,

280
00:12:47,980 --> 00:12:49,840
looking and expecting
people to have had

281
00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:51,970
the same very dynamics

282
00:12:51,970 --> 00:12:54,640
of the psychology and
they're converging.

283
00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:56,650
They were knocked off
their feet just like

284
00:12:56,650 --> 00:12:59,330
him but they weren't
really a Christian.

285
00:12:59,730 --> 00:13:02,800
What did 50 years of

286
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:06,445
ministry contribute
to that assumption?

287
00:13:06,445 --> 00:13:09,580
I want to suggest to you that
one of the real riches of

288
00:13:09,580 --> 00:13:13,255
Wesley is that he
lived to get so old,

289
00:13:13,255 --> 00:13:16,195
he lived for another
50 years after all,

290
00:13:16,195 --> 00:13:18,145
it was actually 52.

291
00:13:18,145 --> 00:13:20,890
Then the course of
that further life

292
00:13:20,890 --> 00:13:23,245
as he ministered with
his growing movement,

293
00:13:23,245 --> 00:13:25,300
sometimes he came to
realize that some of

294
00:13:25,300 --> 00:13:28,270
his early assumptions
maybe need to be refined,

295
00:13:28,270 --> 00:13:29,890
that wisdom isn't part of that.

296
00:13:29,890 --> 00:13:32,755
It's the learning that comes
through age and practice.

297
00:13:32,755 --> 00:13:35,860
He came back to clarify
some of those assumptions.

298
00:13:35,860 --> 00:13:40,045
Of course, just getting older
doesn't always do this.

299
00:13:40,045 --> 00:13:41,470
In theology we talk about

300
00:13:41,470 --> 00:13:43,990
a current disease that we
sometimes see in theologians,

301
00:13:43,990 --> 00:13:46,780
as they get older, we call it
Hartman and the categories.

302
00:13:46,780 --> 00:13:48,490
In Wesley's case I

303
00:13:48,490 --> 00:13:50,635
won't suggest instead
that we see one

304
00:13:50,635 --> 00:13:51,760
who was open to

305
00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:54,610
deeper discernment in the
dynamics of spiritual life.

306
00:13:54,610 --> 00:13:55,990
That takes me to the first book

307
00:13:55,990 --> 00:13:57,805
that I have on my handout.

308
00:13:57,805 --> 00:14:00,880
This actually is not
something written by Wesley.

309
00:14:00,880 --> 00:14:02,200
It was an oral comment that was

310
00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:06,085
recorded and put in
his first biography,

311
00:14:06,085 --> 00:14:09,145
it comes from 1788,

312
00:14:09,145 --> 00:14:11,080
which is exactly 50 years after

313
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:13,330
his Aldersgate
experience in 1788.

314
00:14:13,330 --> 00:14:15,490
Listen to Wesley as he

315
00:14:15,490 --> 00:14:18,790
looks back on his
life since then.

316
00:14:18,790 --> 00:14:21,940
When 50 years ago, my
brother Charles and I,

317
00:14:21,940 --> 00:14:24,280
in the simplicity of our
hearts told the good people of

318
00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:28,180
England that unless they knew
their sins were forgiven,

319
00:14:28,180 --> 00:14:31,960
that is unless they
had an experience,

320
00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:34,670
they were under the
wrath and cursed by God.

321
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:39,200
I'm marveled that they
did not stone us,

322
00:14:39,900 --> 00:14:43,360
because on the method of
cycle, we know better now.

323
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:45,520
We preach assurance
as we always did.

324
00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,010
It's a common privilege
in real Christians,

325
00:14:48,010 --> 00:14:50,410
but we do not enforce
it under inhumane

326
00:14:50,410 --> 00:14:54,505
damnation denounced on
all who enjoy it or not.

327
00:14:54,505 --> 00:14:56,170
We don't come at it in

328
00:14:56,170 --> 00:14:57,370
terms of you got
to have experience

329
00:14:57,370 --> 00:14:59,905
just like ours or
you're totally lost.

330
00:14:59,905 --> 00:15:02,320
We pulled up an experience

331
00:15:02,320 --> 00:15:05,065
of God's love as
something deceitful.

332
00:15:05,065 --> 00:15:06,850
As the list is actually
going further,

333
00:15:06,850 --> 00:15:08,320
they're just saying
we hold it up as

334
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,120
an ideal, he's actually saying,

335
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:13,405
we came to appreciate that
God works in different ways,

336
00:15:13,405 --> 00:15:15,055
in different people's lives.

337
00:15:15,055 --> 00:15:17,020
When you see this
comes most clearly

338
00:15:17,020 --> 00:15:18,970
if you look at his
letters because in

339
00:15:18,970 --> 00:15:20,860
his letters what we
see is Wesley who is

340
00:15:20,860 --> 00:15:23,200
more the spiritual director,

341
00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:24,745
the personal adviser,

342
00:15:24,745 --> 00:15:26,350
not the one who is
writing a sermon

343
00:15:26,350 --> 00:15:27,910
for official consumption,

344
00:15:27,910 --> 00:15:30,280
but the one who's
talking one on one.

345
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:32,050
Since he brought
it around so much,

346
00:15:32,050 --> 00:15:34,930
he did most of the spiritual
direction through letters,

347
00:15:34,930 --> 00:15:38,095
and look at this example that
I gave as the second quote.

348
00:15:38,095 --> 00:15:41,575
It's a letter to a woman
who has written to Wesley,

349
00:15:41,575 --> 00:15:44,440
and he's basically saying,
I don't understand,

350
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:46,330
I'm beginning to doubt
my Christian experience

351
00:15:46,330 --> 00:15:48,220
because my friend over here,

352
00:15:48,220 --> 00:15:49,765
when God works in her life,

353
00:15:49,765 --> 00:15:51,820
it is just special effects,

354
00:15:51,820 --> 00:15:54,745
non-shop her feet,
it's amazing stuff.

355
00:15:54,745 --> 00:15:57,130
Now he know when I
felt that in my life,

356
00:15:57,130 --> 00:16:02,995
but it seems to be a much
smaller or more subtle thing

357
00:16:02,995 --> 00:16:05,245
or I'm fooling myself.

358
00:16:05,245 --> 00:16:08,245
This is what Wesley
says in response,

359
00:16:08,245 --> 00:16:11,410
since there's a near
reconcilable variability

360
00:16:11,410 --> 00:16:14,755
in the operations of the
Holy Spirit on human souls,

361
00:16:14,755 --> 00:16:16,720
more especially as
to the manner of

362
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:21,205
justification as to how
the Christian life begins.

363
00:16:21,205 --> 00:16:23,290
Many find the holy
spirit resting

364
00:16:23,290 --> 00:16:25,210
upon them like a
torrent while they

365
00:16:25,210 --> 00:16:27,550
experience "The
overwhelming power of

366
00:16:27,550 --> 00:16:30,145
saving grace and it knocks
them off their feet."

367
00:16:30,145 --> 00:16:32,050
An interesting thing
here, he's quoting one of

368
00:16:32,050 --> 00:16:33,910
Charles Wesley's hymns that

369
00:16:33,910 --> 00:16:36,200
was in the Methodist hymn book.

370
00:16:36,540 --> 00:16:38,935
In others the spirit works

371
00:16:38,935 --> 00:16:41,725
very differently, Wesley says.

372
00:16:41,725 --> 00:16:46,375
"He gains his influence
to infuse sweet,

373
00:16:46,375 --> 00:16:51,100
refreshing as the siren views."

374
00:16:51,100 --> 00:16:52,555
Notice they're both water,

375
00:16:52,555 --> 00:16:54,460
both symbols of the Spirit,

376
00:16:54,460 --> 00:16:56,320
but very different ways

377
00:16:56,320 --> 00:16:57,775
in which they come
into our lives.

378
00:16:57,775 --> 00:17:01,435
Here he's quoting a poem
written by his older brother,

379
00:17:01,435 --> 00:17:03,925
Samuel Wesley Jr,

380
00:17:03,925 --> 00:17:08,575
which John put into a
collection of religious poetry.

381
00:17:08,575 --> 00:17:10,675
He goes on to say,

382
00:17:10,675 --> 00:17:12,490
that he's pleased the
spiritual work in

383
00:17:12,490 --> 00:17:14,890
the latter way he knew
from the beginning,

384
00:17:14,890 --> 00:17:17,665
and it is not improbable that
he will continue as he's

385
00:17:17,665 --> 00:17:22,360
began to work in a gentle and
almost insensible manner.

386
00:17:22,360 --> 00:17:24,505
Let him take his own way,

387
00:17:24,505 --> 00:17:26,560
for God is wiser than you,

388
00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:29,450
he will do all things well.

389
00:17:29,550 --> 00:17:32,800
The wisdom of one who's been

390
00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:35,995
leading and nurturing
a spiritual movement

391
00:17:35,995 --> 00:17:37,735
for over 50 years.

392
00:17:37,735 --> 00:17:40,330
Still strongly against
the Christian life,

393
00:17:40,330 --> 00:17:42,805
not just an
intellectual conviction

394
00:17:42,805 --> 00:17:44,380
it's an experience of God's love

395
00:17:44,380 --> 00:17:45,955
and presence in our life.

396
00:17:45,955 --> 00:17:50,770
Also strongly aware that God
works in different ways,

397
00:17:50,770 --> 00:17:52,345
in different people's lives

398
00:17:52,345 --> 00:17:54,760
because God is wiser
if we wouldn't put it

399
00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:59,485
all into one cookie cutter
mass production model.

400
00:17:59,485 --> 00:18:00,910
That's my suggestion.

401
00:18:00,910 --> 00:18:02,080
My suggestion is
that when we look

402
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:04,030
at the full length
of Wesley's life,

403
00:18:04,030 --> 00:18:06,490
we can sometimes
capture images of

404
00:18:06,490 --> 00:18:09,400
his wisdom that can
be informative to us,

405
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:11,470
not just a quote he gave
one time but what's

406
00:18:11,470 --> 00:18:14,170
the wisdom that emerged over
the course of his life.

407
00:18:14,170 --> 00:18:16,270
In this example, what
we were seeing was

408
00:18:16,270 --> 00:18:17,590
particularly wisdom that related

409
00:18:17,590 --> 00:18:19,195
to the nature of salvation,

410
00:18:19,195 --> 00:18:20,920
how does salvation work?

411
00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:22,375
How do we know we're saved?

412
00:18:22,375 --> 00:18:23,605
How does it begin?

413
00:18:23,605 --> 00:18:25,900
How does God work in our lives?

414
00:18:25,900 --> 00:18:27,940
What I want to do for the
remainder of our time

415
00:18:27,940 --> 00:18:29,470
together is to play on

416
00:18:29,470 --> 00:18:31,000
that thing of salvation and

417
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:33,235
take it in a slightly
different direction.

418
00:18:33,235 --> 00:18:36,265
What do we think salvation is?

419
00:18:36,265 --> 00:18:39,610
What is the salvation that
God wants to offer us?

420
00:18:39,610 --> 00:18:41,050
What its scope?

421
00:18:41,050 --> 00:18:42,730
What is its range?

422
00:18:42,730 --> 00:18:44,920
What I want to suggest
to you is that perhaps

423
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:46,090
the most important place that

424
00:18:46,090 --> 00:18:48,025
Wesley grew over the
course of his life,

425
00:18:48,025 --> 00:18:51,040
is in a broader
understanding of just what

426
00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,430
all God is trying to offer
us in God's saving work,

427
00:18:54,430 --> 00:18:58,285
in our lives, in our
society, and in our world.

428
00:18:58,285 --> 00:19:00,190
I want to take it into
about four steps,

429
00:19:00,190 --> 00:19:02,140
so I want to suggest that
over the course of his life

430
00:19:02,140 --> 00:19:04,870
he came to emphasize with
increasing strength,

431
00:19:04,870 --> 00:19:06,835
the range of salvation.

432
00:19:06,835 --> 00:19:08,230
Then in many ways, as he

433
00:19:08,230 --> 00:19:09,610
looked at the church
of his day and asked,

434
00:19:09,610 --> 00:19:11,230
what's the thing that's
keeping the church from

435
00:19:11,230 --> 00:19:13,510
being effective as possible?

436
00:19:13,510 --> 00:19:15,040
His final conclusion
he would say

437
00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:16,090
because too many people have

438
00:19:16,090 --> 00:19:19,240
too small of a view about
what salvation is about.

439
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:21,100
Basically, they

440
00:19:21,100 --> 00:19:23,245
reduced it simply
to the question of,

441
00:19:23,245 --> 00:19:25,210
do I know that when I die,

442
00:19:25,210 --> 00:19:29,350
I'll go to heaven, just
individual forgiveness.

443
00:19:29,350 --> 00:19:32,275
Wesley would suggest to us,

444
00:19:32,275 --> 00:19:33,850
particularly the whole Wesley,

445
00:19:33,850 --> 00:19:35,560
that there's much
more to it than that.

446
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:40,670
Let's look at the dimensions
that he emphasizes.

447
00:19:41,100 --> 00:19:43,390
Roman numeral Number 2,

448
00:19:43,390 --> 00:19:46,765
the whole verse emphasizes
on holistic salvation.

449
00:19:46,765 --> 00:19:48,520
Some of these I
think, treat rather

450
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:50,080
quickly because we've
talked about them in

451
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:51,730
earlier years in lectures that I

452
00:19:51,730 --> 00:19:53,980
want to highlight each of
them as we move along.

453
00:19:53,980 --> 00:19:56,170
One of the key emphasis
of Wesley that's

454
00:19:56,170 --> 00:19:58,270
there from very early is

455
00:19:58,270 --> 00:20:00,490
that strong holistic salvation

456
00:20:00,490 --> 00:20:02,440
is not just about forgiveness,

457
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:06,445
it's about spiritual
transformation for being as well.

458
00:20:06,445 --> 00:20:09,070
He recognized that in

459
00:20:09,070 --> 00:20:12,790
the Christian tradition
there was a tendency to

460
00:20:12,790 --> 00:20:15,910
separate and emphasize
one or the other of

461
00:20:15,910 --> 00:20:17,470
two different dimensions to

462
00:20:17,470 --> 00:20:19,495
salvation that we find
clearly in scripture,

463
00:20:19,495 --> 00:20:21,235
even in the same writer.

464
00:20:21,235 --> 00:20:24,040
For example, in Romans
in Chapters 1-3,

465
00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:26,680
it's clear that the focus
is that when Paul said,

466
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:27,805
"What's our human problem?

467
00:20:27,805 --> 00:20:28,840
What's that solution?

468
00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:30,550
It's about our sins that

469
00:20:30,550 --> 00:20:32,305
we fall short, our
sins of guilt,

470
00:20:32,305 --> 00:20:34,780
our sins that we
need to be forgiven,

471
00:20:34,780 --> 00:20:39,970
and salvation is God's precious,
unmerited forgiveness."

472
00:20:39,970 --> 00:20:43,555
But the same Paul
in Romans 7 and 8,

473
00:20:43,555 --> 00:20:46,045
can talk about our
spiritual reality

474
00:20:46,045 --> 00:20:49,420
is that we don't just
need to be forgiven.

475
00:20:49,420 --> 00:20:51,850
We don't just long
to be forgiven,

476
00:20:51,850 --> 00:20:54,160
but we also sense
deeply within us

477
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,290
that the ways in
which we're living,

478
00:20:56,290 --> 00:20:59,050
have come to take possession.

479
00:20:59,050 --> 00:21:01,270
They become chains that bind us,

480
00:21:01,270 --> 00:21:04,030
they become habits
that we can't break,

481
00:21:04,030 --> 00:21:06,730
so that we keep drawing
on doing the things we

482
00:21:06,730 --> 00:21:10,720
confess time after time
and promise not to do.

483
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,015
Paul is saying there,

484
00:21:13,015 --> 00:21:14,755
"What I don't want to do,

485
00:21:14,755 --> 00:21:16,780
I find myself doing,

486
00:21:16,780 --> 00:21:17,980
what I promised to do,

487
00:21:17,980 --> 00:21:19,285
again and again I can't.

488
00:21:19,285 --> 00:21:22,345
Who will deliver me from
this body of death?"

489
00:21:22,345 --> 00:21:25,825
Then going on to talk about
the work of the Spirit.

490
00:21:25,825 --> 00:21:29,440
Well, John was one
of those who was

491
00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:32,920
strongly influenced by reading

492
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:34,660
the range of the
Christian tradition.

493
00:21:34,660 --> 00:21:37,450
Reading not only
writers that were very

494
00:21:37,450 --> 00:21:39,640
influential upon the
Western churches

495
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:41,230
from Catholic and Protestants,

496
00:21:41,230 --> 00:21:42,820
but also writers who were very

497
00:21:42,820 --> 00:21:45,130
influential upon the Eastern
Christian traditions.

498
00:21:45,130 --> 00:21:46,480
Through this reading,

499
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,010
he came in contact

500
00:21:48,010 --> 00:21:51,250
with both of these
elements of salvation.

501
00:21:51,250 --> 00:21:53,530
Both those who stressed
primarily it's about

502
00:21:53,530 --> 00:21:54,910
forgiveness and
those who stressed

503
00:21:54,910 --> 00:21:56,860
primarily it's about healing,

504
00:21:56,860 --> 00:21:58,975
and he put the two together.

505
00:21:58,975 --> 00:22:00,475
Look at the way this
comes through with

506
00:22:00,475 --> 00:22:03,040
his definition to salvation.

507
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:05,170
What is Salvation?

508
00:22:05,170 --> 00:22:07,090
In the first quote, "The

509
00:22:07,090 --> 00:22:08,590
salvation that's spoken of here,

510
00:22:08,590 --> 00:22:11,800
that is in the scripture
passage on which he's preaching

511
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:13,990
this sermon is not

512
00:22:13,990 --> 00:22:15,610
what is frequently
understood by the word.

513
00:22:15,610 --> 00:22:17,050
It's not going to heaven,

514
00:22:17,050 --> 00:22:18,460
it's not eternal happiness,

515
00:22:18,460 --> 00:22:19,750
it's not a blessing that lies

516
00:22:19,750 --> 00:22:21,295
on the other side of death."

517
00:22:21,295 --> 00:22:22,900
He's not against those things,

518
00:22:22,900 --> 00:22:25,090
I understand, he's saying
that's not all it is.

519
00:22:25,090 --> 00:22:27,250
It's a present
thing. It might be

520
00:22:27,250 --> 00:22:29,710
extended to the
entire work of God.

521
00:22:29,710 --> 00:22:32,035
Salvation is all
that God is doing

522
00:22:32,035 --> 00:22:35,230
from the earliest dawn
in embracing the soul,

523
00:22:35,230 --> 00:22:37,015
when we even begin to sense

524
00:22:37,015 --> 00:22:40,720
the spiritual life until
it's consummated in glory.

525
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,750
There is a real as well
as a relative change.

526
00:22:43,750 --> 00:22:46,375
We are inwardly renewed
by the power of God.

527
00:22:46,375 --> 00:22:48,010
We feel the love
of God shed upon

528
00:22:48,010 --> 00:22:50,620
our hearts by the Holy
Ghost that's given to us,

529
00:22:50,620 --> 00:22:53,260
which produces love
to all humankind.

530
00:22:53,260 --> 00:22:54,970
It's not just that
we're moving into

531
00:22:54,970 --> 00:22:56,515
the category of forgiven,

532
00:22:56,515 --> 00:22:58,060
God really begins to do

533
00:22:58,060 --> 00:23:01,270
a real work in our lives through
the power of the Spirit.

534
00:23:01,270 --> 00:23:03,940
Or a second one that
echoes the same thing.

535
00:23:03,940 --> 00:23:05,470
"By salvation," he says,

536
00:23:05,470 --> 00:23:08,290
"I'm may not barely according
to the boulder notion,

537
00:23:08,290 --> 00:23:10,225
the common one on the street.

538
00:23:10,225 --> 00:23:12,865
I don't mean merely
deliverance from hell going to

539
00:23:12,865 --> 00:23:15,460
heaven but a present
deliverance from sin,

540
00:23:15,460 --> 00:23:17,965
a restoration of the soul
to its primitive health,

541
00:23:17,965 --> 00:23:19,435
its original purity,

542
00:23:19,435 --> 00:23:21,565
a recovery of the divine nature,

543
00:23:21,565 --> 00:23:23,260
the renewal of our souls after

544
00:23:23,260 --> 00:23:24,910
the image of God and
righteousness and

545
00:23:24,910 --> 00:23:28,645
truth holding us in
justice, mercy and truth.

546
00:23:28,645 --> 00:23:30,655
This implies all holy in

547
00:23:30,655 --> 00:23:32,950
heavenly tempers by consequences

548
00:23:32,950 --> 00:23:35,245
of holiness and conversation."

549
00:23:35,245 --> 00:23:37,450
Now in an earlier
lecture, I pointed out

550
00:23:37,450 --> 00:23:39,100
when he uses the
word tempers here,

551
00:23:39,100 --> 00:23:40,390
but what it means are

552
00:23:40,390 --> 00:23:43,345
our dispositions,
our inclinations.

553
00:23:43,345 --> 00:23:46,840
People who have a
quiet disposition

554
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:48,820
respond in a different
ways than people who

555
00:23:48,820 --> 00:23:51,475
have a voice of disposition.

556
00:23:51,475 --> 00:23:54,355
People who have a
disposition to be greedy,

557
00:23:54,355 --> 00:23:56,920
respond in different
ways to people who have

558
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,670
a temporary disposition
to be giving.

559
00:24:00,670 --> 00:24:02,620
The key point is Wesley
doesn't see these as just

560
00:24:02,620 --> 00:24:05,575
genetic and not just give
any data that can change.

561
00:24:05,575 --> 00:24:08,260
He sees something as
dispositions that are

562
00:24:08,260 --> 00:24:11,485
built up over time,
through repeated action.

563
00:24:11,485 --> 00:24:14,035
The key point going
beyond that is,

564
00:24:14,035 --> 00:24:16,765
and those which are
unholy to be changed.

565
00:24:16,765 --> 00:24:20,020
You really can become the
person who takes on more and

566
00:24:20,020 --> 00:24:21,250
more the character of

567
00:24:21,250 --> 00:24:24,160
Christ through the
power of the Spirit.

568
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:26,425
That's what salvation is about.

569
00:24:26,425 --> 00:24:28,135
Now that thing is
clear in Wesley,

570
00:24:28,135 --> 00:24:29,095
but what's his wisdom?

571
00:24:29,095 --> 00:24:31,750
What do we see the elder Wesley,

572
00:24:31,750 --> 00:24:35,545
reflecting on that
develops a state?

573
00:24:35,545 --> 00:24:38,020
Once it gets through the
main point is the question,

574
00:24:38,020 --> 00:24:39,190
how does that work?

575
00:24:39,190 --> 00:24:40,720
It's one thing

576
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:42,190
to say you can be a
different person,

577
00:24:42,190 --> 00:24:43,360
God can change your life.

578
00:24:43,360 --> 00:24:44,380
You can be more loving,

579
00:24:44,380 --> 00:24:46,420
more patient, more kind.

580
00:24:46,420 --> 00:24:48,670
I think something
different has to happen.

581
00:24:48,670 --> 00:24:51,630
I remember here when
I was in college,

582
00:24:51,630 --> 00:24:55,300
at one time, we had a
Jesus coffee house.

583
00:24:55,300 --> 00:24:58,360
This is back in the hippie days,

584
00:24:58,360 --> 00:24:59,830
the Jesus people days which

585
00:24:59,830 --> 00:25:01,390
begins on the date behind all.

586
00:25:01,390 --> 00:25:02,680
Back there you can read about in

587
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,560
your history books in
his '70s through '60s.

588
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,350
One night I was
at a bible study,

589
00:25:08,350 --> 00:25:09,940
I was leading a
bible study in one

590
00:25:09,940 --> 00:25:12,070
of these little coffee
house near the college.

591
00:25:12,070 --> 00:25:14,770
I was preaching on the
passage in Philippians

592
00:25:14,770 --> 00:25:17,170
about happiness reminding
you that is in Christ Jesus,

593
00:25:17,170 --> 00:25:19,390
and we end at that time
after I talked about,

594
00:25:19,390 --> 00:25:20,770
what do I mean to have Christ.

595
00:25:20,770 --> 00:25:21,895
We ended with a quick prayer,

596
00:25:21,895 --> 00:25:24,205
Lord, give us the
mind of Christ.

597
00:25:24,205 --> 00:25:26,320
I went away from that
session thinking, boy,

598
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:27,640
I did a home run that time,

599
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:28,930
but this is really great.

600
00:25:28,930 --> 00:25:32,095
I came back the next day and
the places in another door.

601
00:25:32,095 --> 00:25:34,540
The reason is
because the folk who

602
00:25:34,540 --> 00:25:36,745
would pray that prayer
got out the next morning,

603
00:25:36,745 --> 00:25:39,670
and finally knew that they
still craved the use of

604
00:25:39,670 --> 00:25:42,865
the drugs that they
did the night before.

605
00:25:42,865 --> 00:25:45,100
The reason is well, if you
now have the mind of Christ,

606
00:25:45,100 --> 00:25:47,335
Christ wouldn't want
anything that's wrong,

607
00:25:47,335 --> 00:25:48,820
so it must be okay.

608
00:25:48,820 --> 00:25:52,330
The assumptions had

609
00:25:52,330 --> 00:25:55,460
been is all that takes
is one prayer to get it.

610
00:25:55,530 --> 00:25:58,810
Maybe even my
assumption could fit,

611
00:25:58,810 --> 00:26:01,780
or at least I haven't
protected against that.

612
00:26:01,780 --> 00:26:04,000
We had to get into a
lot of talk about how

613
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,115
does God bring this
change in our life.

614
00:26:06,115 --> 00:26:07,420
This is Wesley's response.

615
00:26:07,420 --> 00:26:09,640
His response focuses on how

616
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,465
it deals with living
in the means of grace.

617
00:26:13,465 --> 00:26:15,625
A Christian believer
Wesley says,

618
00:26:15,625 --> 00:26:17,245
"Love sits from the throne,

619
00:26:17,245 --> 00:26:19,525
namely love of God
and other humans."

620
00:26:19,525 --> 00:26:20,785
It means here not only

621
00:26:20,785 --> 00:26:22,360
our love for God
and other humans,

622
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:24,760
but our experience of
God's love for us,

623
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:26,785
and our experience with
the love of other humans.

624
00:26:26,785 --> 00:26:28,870
Because it's this experience
at that level that

625
00:26:28,870 --> 00:26:31,495
enables us to then
love and reach men.

626
00:26:31,495 --> 00:26:34,075
Love is what it's all about.

627
00:26:34,075 --> 00:26:36,160
In a circle near the throne,

628
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,170
thinking in here
is drawing a bowl

629
00:26:38,170 --> 00:26:40,375
like art and the center is love,

630
00:26:40,375 --> 00:26:42,025
the next circle out I noticed,

631
00:26:42,025 --> 00:26:43,765
are all the holy tempers,

632
00:26:43,765 --> 00:26:45,820
or what we would call
the fruit of the Spirit

633
00:26:45,820 --> 00:26:48,730
: Long suffering,
goodness, meekness, etc.

634
00:26:48,730 --> 00:26:51,820
In the next circle are
all the works of mercy,

635
00:26:51,820 --> 00:26:53,620
whether to the souls
or bodies of others.

636
00:26:53,620 --> 00:26:55,960
Provide basically exercise
the holy tempers.

637
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:57,670
By these, we continually improve

638
00:26:57,670 --> 00:27:00,520
them so that these are a
real meanings of grace.

639
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,725
Although this is not
commonly in written.

640
00:27:02,725 --> 00:27:04,300
In other words,
those tempers are

641
00:27:04,300 --> 00:27:06,685
developed by living
in practices,

642
00:27:06,685 --> 00:27:08,050
including in this case,

643
00:27:08,050 --> 00:27:11,650
the works of mercy
of helping others.

644
00:27:11,650 --> 00:27:13,120
He goes on to talk
about the works of

645
00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:15,670
praying and reading
scriptures etc.

646
00:27:15,670 --> 00:27:17,320
Then finally about being

647
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,450
gathered together
in a community.

648
00:27:19,450 --> 00:27:21,790
Now there's a couple of things
I point out to you here.

649
00:27:21,790 --> 00:27:23,560
One, is not just working
towards works of

650
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,155
mercy relative to
works of piety,

651
00:27:26,155 --> 00:27:28,855
he puts it closer to the center.

652
00:27:28,855 --> 00:27:30,910
One of Wesley's
deep convictions is

653
00:27:30,910 --> 00:27:32,605
that one of the reasons

654
00:27:32,605 --> 00:27:34,630
Christians don't grow as
much as they could it's

655
00:27:34,630 --> 00:27:37,150
because we only do
works of piety,

656
00:27:37,150 --> 00:27:39,070
which can remain that they're

657
00:27:39,070 --> 00:27:42,430
self-centered and don't also
live in works of mercy,

658
00:27:42,430 --> 00:27:44,230
reaching out to others if you

659
00:27:44,230 --> 00:27:47,210
want well-rounded
growth you can do both.

660
00:27:47,460 --> 00:27:50,380
The other thing is the way we

661
00:27:50,380 --> 00:27:52,420
rest at all levels of
life of the church.

662
00:27:52,420 --> 00:27:54,580
We need to do this in community.

663
00:27:54,580 --> 00:27:56,020
One of Wesley's things,

664
00:27:56,020 --> 00:27:57,430
one of the wisdom he emerged,

665
00:27:57,430 --> 00:27:59,350
one of the things
that are part of what

666
00:27:59,350 --> 00:28:02,260
shapes us as part of
the Western tradition.

667
00:28:02,260 --> 00:28:04,480
One of the messages
we can take to

668
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,370
our 21st century
culture is remember

669
00:28:06,370 --> 00:28:08,230
a focus group if you're
in the church salvation

670
00:28:08,230 --> 00:28:10,375
is not just about forgiveness.

671
00:28:10,375 --> 00:28:12,985
It's also about spiritual
transformation.

672
00:28:12,985 --> 00:28:16,960
It's about healing,
energy brings grace.

673
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,890
Now in talking about
being in the church,

674
00:28:20,890 --> 00:28:22,900
we begin to move already
to Wesley second week.

675
00:28:22,900 --> 00:28:25,500
One again found

676
00:28:25,500 --> 00:28:28,335
early in his writing that
one that grows over time.

677
00:28:28,335 --> 00:28:29,850
That is to say that salvation is

678
00:28:29,850 --> 00:28:31,170
not just for individuals,

679
00:28:31,170 --> 00:28:33,755
it's also for society.

680
00:28:33,755 --> 00:28:35,965
If you have this model

681
00:28:35,965 --> 00:28:37,720
that all salvation
about this forgiveness,

682
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,760
about when I die,
will I go to heaven?

683
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,355
That remains a very
individualistic thing.

684
00:28:42,355 --> 00:28:43,990
They can often equate to

685
00:28:43,990 --> 00:28:46,120
a very individualistic model
in the Christian life,

686
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,665
that it's just Jesus I
need, that's all I need.

687
00:28:50,665 --> 00:28:53,410
Wesley came to understand
very early on.

688
00:28:53,410 --> 00:28:55,300
He actually got this wisdom from

689
00:28:55,300 --> 00:28:59,860
his own father when his father
ministered in his church.

690
00:28:59,860 --> 00:29:03,039
While you can maybe experience

691
00:29:03,039 --> 00:29:05,425
forgiveness in some
theoretical way,

692
00:29:05,425 --> 00:29:06,925
as an individual, but you can't

693
00:29:06,925 --> 00:29:10,630
grow in the holy tempers
all by yourself.

694
00:29:10,630 --> 00:29:14,415
If salvation is about healing,
it requires commitment.

695
00:29:14,415 --> 00:29:16,455
Look at the way he puts it,

696
00:29:16,455 --> 00:29:18,720
in first, a brief

697
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,735
aphorism and then a long
quote that follows.

698
00:29:21,735 --> 00:29:23,595
"Writing in 1739,

699
00:29:23,595 --> 00:29:25,230
Wesley insisted
that the gospel of

700
00:29:25,230 --> 00:29:27,650
Christ knows no
religion with social,

701
00:29:27,650 --> 00:29:29,950
know holiness with
social holiness."

702
00:29:29,950 --> 00:29:32,050
Interesting, Methodists

703
00:29:32,050 --> 00:29:34,300
in the 19th century tended
to assume that this meant

704
00:29:34,300 --> 00:29:36,880
that Wesley was in favor of
going out there and being

705
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,940
involved in social
action, change society.

706
00:29:39,940 --> 00:29:42,115
Well, they actually it
was, we'll get to that.

707
00:29:42,115 --> 00:29:44,905
But that's not what he was
talking about in this passage.

708
00:29:44,905 --> 00:29:46,885
He went on to say in
this passage by the way,

709
00:29:46,885 --> 00:29:49,510
that means that holy
solitaries makes

710
00:29:49,510 --> 00:29:53,270
about as much sense
as holy adulterers.

711
00:29:53,340 --> 00:29:55,360
This point has to do

712
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:56,650
with living together
in the community.

713
00:29:56,650 --> 00:29:58,855
He develops that in the
quote that follows.

714
00:29:58,855 --> 00:30:01,509
"Christianity is essentially
a social religion.

715
00:30:01,509 --> 00:30:03,370
To turn it into a
solitary religion

716
00:30:03,370 --> 00:30:05,155
is indeed to destroy it.

717
00:30:05,155 --> 00:30:08,215
I mean, not only that it
cannot exist so well,

718
00:30:08,215 --> 00:30:11,350
but then it cannot exist
at all without society,

719
00:30:11,350 --> 00:30:14,815
without living and conversing
with other people."

720
00:30:14,815 --> 00:30:18,385
I don't condemn
time to solitude,

721
00:30:18,385 --> 00:30:21,670
but you have to come
back into community.

722
00:30:21,670 --> 00:30:24,040
Its key point is
because it's only in

723
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:25,660
that context that you will

724
00:30:25,660 --> 00:30:29,770
develop characters such as
simple things as meekness.

725
00:30:29,770 --> 00:30:32,290
I can really grow in meekness.

726
00:30:32,290 --> 00:30:34,810
It's easy to sit there and
pray God give me meekness,

727
00:30:34,810 --> 00:30:37,135
but how does God usually do it?

728
00:30:37,135 --> 00:30:39,685
Do that loving,

729
00:30:39,685 --> 00:30:41,905
"to address" of your mate,

730
00:30:41,905 --> 00:30:43,285
or your child,

731
00:30:43,285 --> 00:30:46,165
or your friend the times you
said now just a second bit.

732
00:30:46,165 --> 00:30:48,505
Do you see what you're doing?

733
00:30:48,505 --> 00:30:50,800
See, this importance
of society to

734
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:53,470
Christian growth is why
Wesley made small groups,

735
00:30:53,470 --> 00:30:55,300
the core of the Wesley Movement.

736
00:30:55,300 --> 00:30:57,850
Those small groups were the
beating heart of Wesley.

737
00:30:57,850 --> 00:31:01,270
If Methodist in the 18th century

738
00:31:01,270 --> 00:31:06,370
did over time prove to
turn out more members

739
00:31:06,370 --> 00:31:08,380
who had grown in
Christ likeness and

740
00:31:08,380 --> 00:31:10,480
taken on the fruit
of the Spirit as

741
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,370
characteristics of
their life then what

742
00:31:12,370 --> 00:31:15,415
was the norm in other
Christian communions.

743
00:31:15,415 --> 00:31:18,520
It was because they
lived in small groups.

744
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:19,840
It was because they had

745
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:21,715
that interaction
that's important.

746
00:31:21,715 --> 00:31:23,350
Part of what you're
getting support.

747
00:31:23,350 --> 00:31:24,580
I mean, when it
looks like in just

748
00:31:24,580 --> 00:31:26,290
going terrible and you
are ready to give up,

749
00:31:26,290 --> 00:31:27,475
there's that one there who says,

750
00:31:27,475 --> 00:31:29,170
come on we are with you.

751
00:31:29,170 --> 00:31:30,370
Sometimes it's hard,

752
00:31:30,370 --> 00:31:33,295
let me tell you a story about
how God did it in my life.

753
00:31:33,295 --> 00:31:34,600
Other times when we think we've

754
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:35,620
arrived and you're ready to

755
00:31:35,620 --> 00:31:38,410
start proving about
how good we are.

756
00:31:38,410 --> 00:31:40,630
It's the one who said,
now just a second

757
00:31:40,630 --> 00:31:42,955
look at how much
further there is to go.

758
00:31:42,955 --> 00:31:46,045
That combined support
and accountability.

759
00:31:46,045 --> 00:31:48,130
Wesley said initial focus when

760
00:31:48,130 --> 00:31:49,585
he talked about
salvation is about

761
00:31:49,585 --> 00:31:51,610
not just individuals
within society but to

762
00:31:51,610 --> 00:31:54,235
talk about how society
contribute to salvation,

763
00:31:54,235 --> 00:31:56,725
but he didn't leave it there.

764
00:31:56,725 --> 00:31:59,500
He assumed if it's
happening in small groups,

765
00:31:59,500 --> 00:32:01,810
it's going to flow over to
communities around you.

766
00:32:01,810 --> 00:32:03,490
The Christian really will live

767
00:32:03,490 --> 00:32:05,080
differently in the world
and that will not make

768
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,750
a difference in the world
to look at the third quote

769
00:32:07,750 --> 00:32:10,750
that's under that subheading.

770
00:32:10,750 --> 00:32:12,790
Strongly one of his
earliest writings.

771
00:32:12,790 --> 00:32:14,185
Somebody had written
to him and said, okay

772
00:32:14,185 --> 00:32:16,030
Wesley, what's a Methodist?

773
00:32:16,030 --> 00:32:19,150
Understand that Methodist
was a new word at this time.

774
00:32:19,150 --> 00:32:20,920
We have long arguments on

775
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,620
the scholars about what
did it originally mean.

776
00:32:23,620 --> 00:32:26,455
Some take it to be a
very derogatory term

777
00:32:26,455 --> 00:32:27,730
about those who lived by

778
00:32:27,730 --> 00:32:28,870
a method instead of

779
00:32:28,870 --> 00:32:31,885
just taking the freedom
of the Christian life.

780
00:32:31,885 --> 00:32:33,790
There's some
suggestion it may have

781
00:32:33,790 --> 00:32:35,410
been used to mean
someone who is more

782
00:32:35,410 --> 00:32:38,650
Armenian in geology in the
Netherlands and that is

783
00:32:38,650 --> 00:32:40,270
someone who believe
that God offered

784
00:32:40,270 --> 00:32:42,535
grace to all instead
of only the elected.

785
00:32:42,535 --> 00:32:44,170
Whatever it's meaning
historically,

786
00:32:44,170 --> 00:32:45,805
Wesley makes sure all Methodist,

787
00:32:45,805 --> 00:32:47,545
is someone who's
seeking to truly

788
00:32:47,545 --> 00:32:49,585
grow in Christian virtue.

789
00:32:49,585 --> 00:32:51,820
Look at his quote, "A Methodist

790
00:32:51,820 --> 00:32:53,380
is one who has the love of God,

791
00:32:53,380 --> 00:32:56,830
shed abroad in his heart by
the Holy Ghost given to you.

792
00:32:56,830 --> 00:32:58,480
One who loves the
Lord his God with

793
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,505
his heart with all his soul with

794
00:33:00,505 --> 00:33:02,965
all his mind with
all his strength

795
00:33:02,965 --> 00:33:06,085
and their obedience is in
proportion to His love,

796
00:33:06,085 --> 00:33:08,185
the source from which it flows.

797
00:33:08,185 --> 00:33:10,360
Therefore, loving God
with all his heart and

798
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,030
serves Him with all
his strength and

799
00:33:13,030 --> 00:33:15,250
lastly admits the test
time he just good to

800
00:33:15,250 --> 00:33:18,235
all man and to neighbors
and strangers,

801
00:33:18,235 --> 00:33:19,960
friends and enemies and

802
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:21,820
that in every possible
time not only to

803
00:33:21,820 --> 00:33:24,010
their bodies by feeding
the hungry clothing the

804
00:33:24,010 --> 00:33:27,055
naked visiting those that
are sick or in prison.

805
00:33:27,055 --> 00:33:30,295
But much more than if he
labored to their souls,

806
00:33:30,295 --> 00:33:32,815
that this will impact society."

807
00:33:32,815 --> 00:33:34,570
But notice that he's
talking about here is what

808
00:33:34,570 --> 00:33:36,220
we call social service.

809
00:33:36,220 --> 00:33:37,900
Christians will make a
difference in the world

810
00:33:37,900 --> 00:33:40,030
because having grown
more and more on price,

811
00:33:40,030 --> 00:33:42,910
I can still pull out
in life surfaces.

812
00:33:42,910 --> 00:33:44,500
That was the main emphasis

813
00:33:44,500 --> 00:33:46,480
through most of the life.

814
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,985
Very strong answers.

815
00:33:48,985 --> 00:33:50,650
Towards the end of his life,

816
00:33:50,650 --> 00:33:52,915
we see something
else been added.

817
00:33:52,915 --> 00:33:55,390
That is, if you're
truly committed to

818
00:33:55,390 --> 00:33:57,340
helping others while services

819
00:33:57,340 --> 00:33:59,380
is greater than
necessary at time

820
00:33:59,380 --> 00:34:01,660
we also need to do some work in

821
00:34:01,660 --> 00:34:04,225
social change that is

822
00:34:04,225 --> 00:34:06,220
trying to correct the situations

823
00:34:06,220 --> 00:34:07,945
that are creating the meeting.

824
00:34:07,945 --> 00:34:12,340
There aren't some of the meeting
coming in, so many poor, etc.

825
00:34:12,340 --> 00:34:13,480
The specific examples in

826
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,970
Wesley's life I think
it was slavery.

827
00:34:15,970 --> 00:34:18,190
For it became the initiative
wasn't enough just

828
00:34:18,190 --> 00:34:19,810
to be a group of
people that tried to

829
00:34:19,810 --> 00:34:22,180
help the slaves or

830
00:34:22,180 --> 00:34:25,825
to feed and care for
freed slaves etc,

831
00:34:25,825 --> 00:34:27,999
but we haven't been
around and address

832
00:34:27,999 --> 00:34:30,670
and challenge the very
structure of slavery.

833
00:34:30,670 --> 00:34:32,710
He became one of the
supporters in Britain at

834
00:34:32,710 --> 00:34:35,320
the movement that led to
the abolition of slavery.

835
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,840
The last letter he ever
wrote in his life is to

836
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:40,150
William Wilberforce
heading that movement,

837
00:34:40,150 --> 00:34:42,640
for example, look at the quote,

838
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,350
"Where is the justice,

839
00:34:44,350 --> 00:34:45,940
it is thought that slavery in

840
00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:47,800
these challenging the mindset

841
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,520
that leads to saying
slavery is okay.

842
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,740
Whereas the justice of
inflicting a severe as

843
00:34:53,740 --> 00:34:56,440
peoples on those that
have done us no wrong,

844
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,600
of depriving those
that never injured us

845
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:00,970
in word or deed of
every comfortable life,

846
00:35:00,970 --> 00:35:02,950
of carrying them from
their native country

847
00:35:02,950 --> 00:35:04,915
and depriving them
of liberty itself.

848
00:35:04,915 --> 00:35:07,600
To which an Angolan has
the same natural right as

849
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,635
an Englishman and at which
he sets as high a value.

850
00:35:10,635 --> 00:35:12,210
Where is the justice
and taken away

851
00:35:12,210 --> 00:35:14,550
the lives of innocent
in offensive manner,

852
00:35:14,550 --> 00:35:17,205
murdering thousands of
them in their own land."

853
00:35:17,205 --> 00:35:18,645
Wesley understands that

854
00:35:18,645 --> 00:35:20,130
the picking of
slaves usually took

855
00:35:20,130 --> 00:35:23,795
place in combat in Africa.

856
00:35:23,795 --> 00:35:26,770
By the end, to their
own countrymen,

857
00:35:26,770 --> 00:35:29,020
many thousands year
after year on shipboard.

858
00:35:29,020 --> 00:35:30,490
If you read the the
statistics of how many

859
00:35:30,490 --> 00:35:32,380
died on a ship
during the process

860
00:35:32,380 --> 00:35:36,685
over and then casting them
like dung into the sea.

861
00:35:36,685 --> 00:35:39,130
Tens of thousands
and cruel slavery to

862
00:35:39,130 --> 00:35:42,160
which they are sold
and justly reduced.

863
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,115
For western style patient
who has to do not just with

864
00:35:45,115 --> 00:35:46,705
my heart really want

865
00:35:46,705 --> 00:35:48,745
and may having a
sense of forgiveness.

866
00:35:48,745 --> 00:35:51,100
But experiencing
the love of God and

867
00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:53,485
going up to live in the
world of Life of love.

868
00:35:53,485 --> 00:35:55,180
That love will make me to serve,

869
00:35:55,180 --> 00:35:59,020
but at times will also lead
me to say this is wrong.

870
00:35:59,020 --> 00:36:01,390
Let's make it different.

871
00:36:01,390 --> 00:36:04,060
Salvation is not just
for individuals,

872
00:36:04,060 --> 00:36:06,085
is for society as well.

873
00:36:06,085 --> 00:36:08,050
If there's a width
and by the way,

874
00:36:08,050 --> 00:36:09,850
to the later West against it,

875
00:36:09,850 --> 00:36:11,050
he tied together into

876
00:36:11,050 --> 00:36:12,985
smaller groups, and
social transformation.

877
00:36:12,985 --> 00:36:14,980
What happens in later
mechanism is they give up

878
00:36:14,980 --> 00:36:16,810
the small groups and they focus

879
00:36:16,810 --> 00:36:19,105
entirely on social gospel.

880
00:36:19,105 --> 00:36:20,965
Pretty soon you get people
that are converting now

881
00:36:20,965 --> 00:36:22,750
because there isn't a
spiritual formation that

882
00:36:22,750 --> 00:36:26,260
can give the consistency
to do the transformation,

883
00:36:26,260 --> 00:36:29,450
Wesley kept those
moving together.

884
00:36:29,910 --> 00:36:32,500
Let me come in briefly
on the fourth one.

885
00:36:32,500 --> 00:36:35,200
It's one you'll recognize those

886
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,035
of you who've been in the
past a few years ago.

887
00:36:38,035 --> 00:36:39,190
Wesley is interested in

888
00:36:39,190 --> 00:36:42,160
pili or Wesley is
always holistic.

889
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:44,890
His emphasis that
God carries not

890
00:36:44,890 --> 00:36:47,170
only about your souls
but your bodies.

891
00:36:47,170 --> 00:36:48,970
Now here, Wesley's going
against what had been

892
00:36:48,970 --> 00:36:52,705
a long standing tendency
in the British tradition.

893
00:36:52,705 --> 00:36:54,925
Whereas the scripture
is very clear,

894
00:36:54,925 --> 00:36:56,800
that God created human body and

895
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,215
soul and said this is good,

896
00:36:59,215 --> 00:37:02,000
this is all part
about him after.

897
00:37:02,340 --> 00:37:06,130
The philosophical
trends of much of

898
00:37:06,130 --> 00:37:08,440
the Greek tradition
instead gave it

899
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:09,880
a name that suggested your soul

900
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:11,260
is all that nearly matters.

901
00:37:11,260 --> 00:37:15,430
The body is incidental
if left behind in fact,

902
00:37:15,430 --> 00:37:16,750
maybe it's even negative and the

903
00:37:16,750 --> 00:37:18,310
sooner it's left
behind and conquered,

904
00:37:18,310 --> 00:37:20,365
the more likely you
are to be free.

905
00:37:20,365 --> 00:37:23,485
God cares about
souls, not bodies.

906
00:37:23,485 --> 00:37:26,620
Wesley couldn't buy that.

907
00:37:26,620 --> 00:37:28,900
Look at the weekend
budget, for example,

908
00:37:28,900 --> 00:37:31,315
in the 11th one to
one of his preachers.

909
00:37:31,315 --> 00:37:34,240
His features within the
same counties helped us

910
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:36,055
improve as well as

911
00:37:36,055 --> 00:37:38,695
our spiritual world was going
and Wesley writes back.

912
00:37:38,695 --> 00:37:40,390
It would be a double
blessing if you give

913
00:37:40,390 --> 00:37:42,955
yourself up to the
great physician.

914
00:37:42,955 --> 00:37:44,755
There is an image of God,

915
00:37:44,755 --> 00:37:46,885
the great physician,

916
00:37:46,885 --> 00:37:48,730
that he may heal stolen body

917
00:37:48,730 --> 00:37:50,530
together and unquestionably,

918
00:37:50,530 --> 00:37:52,195
this is God's design.

919
00:37:52,195 --> 00:37:57,100
He wants to give you both
inward and outward health.

920
00:37:57,100 --> 00:38:00,130
Wesley encouraged
you to pray for it.

921
00:38:00,130 --> 00:38:03,535
But he did much more than
just encourage prayer.

922
00:38:03,535 --> 00:38:05,395
Wesley is independent,

923
00:38:05,395 --> 00:38:08,140
if God cares about inward
and outward health,

924
00:38:08,140 --> 00:38:09,460
we act in our own
light and we've

925
00:38:09,460 --> 00:38:11,515
got coming to church
and in our ministry.

926
00:38:11,515 --> 00:38:13,420
From early on, he developed

927
00:38:13,420 --> 00:38:14,875
the Methodist movement
as a movement

928
00:38:14,875 --> 00:38:18,430
didn't just administer to the
soul but also to the body.

929
00:38:18,430 --> 00:38:21,040
As I pointed out in
that earlier lecture,

930
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:22,990
Wesley was raised in a time when

931
00:38:22,990 --> 00:38:25,360
Anglican clergy were trained
in medicine because in

932
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:27,700
most of the small villages
there wouldn't be physicians

933
00:38:27,700 --> 00:38:30,385
and so they get both the
medical and spiritual care.

934
00:38:30,385 --> 00:38:33,385
If we live in a time when that
was starting to separate,

935
00:38:33,385 --> 00:38:35,455
the physicians are
starting to separate,

936
00:38:35,455 --> 00:38:37,870
he refused to separate.

937
00:38:37,870 --> 00:38:41,605
That he led the Methodists
in setting up, for example,

938
00:38:41,605 --> 00:38:44,050
free clinics at which the poor

939
00:38:44,050 --> 00:38:46,150
in particular would
come for medical care,

940
00:38:46,150 --> 00:38:47,905
look at the second quote,

941
00:38:47,905 --> 00:38:49,480
"I will still remain for

942
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,145
the need of the
poor that are sick.

943
00:38:51,145 --> 00:38:53,965
There were so many expense
and so little profit.

944
00:38:53,965 --> 00:38:56,050
I saw the poor people
pining away in

945
00:38:56,050 --> 00:38:58,420
several families
ruined and remedy.

946
00:38:58,420 --> 00:39:01,870
So I think that god of
a desperate expedient.

947
00:39:01,870 --> 00:39:04,420
I will care and
give you physic or

948
00:39:04,420 --> 00:39:07,630
medicine myself," and he did,

949
00:39:07,630 --> 00:39:09,190
he brings them in,

950
00:39:09,190 --> 00:39:11,560
he gives his prescription.

951
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:13,870
We talked a little bit that a

952
00:39:13,870 --> 00:39:15,610
little book he wrote
called a Primitive

953
00:39:15,610 --> 00:39:19,285
Physic or Elementary Medicine.

954
00:39:19,285 --> 00:39:20,395
A book in which

955
00:39:20,395 --> 00:39:23,320
more editions some more
copies than anything else.

956
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:24,640
Much they grow, stayed in

957
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:26,260
current moment than
anything else he wrote.

958
00:39:26,260 --> 00:39:28,450
A collection of remedies
he drew from reading

959
00:39:28,450 --> 00:39:33,205
over 100 works in medical
treatment to draw the remedies.

960
00:39:33,205 --> 00:39:36,130
Book he wanted to be circulated.

961
00:39:36,130 --> 00:39:38,515
He looked at the
third, fourth year.

962
00:39:38,515 --> 00:39:40,465
What is the business
of an assistant?

963
00:39:40,465 --> 00:39:43,265
Now these are the
unordained Methodist

964
00:39:43,265 --> 00:39:44,725
that were helping him

965
00:39:44,725 --> 00:39:46,150
run the movement. What
are they supposed to do?

966
00:39:46,150 --> 00:39:48,580
Is they go from town to town
and visit a class meetings,

967
00:39:48,580 --> 00:39:49,780
visit the Methodist people.

968
00:39:49,780 --> 00:39:53,280
He says, the assistance
among other things,

969
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,190
should be careful to
in every society,

970
00:39:56,190 --> 00:39:58,545
be sure they're normally
supplied with books,

971
00:39:58,545 --> 00:40:01,575
books that can help them grow,
particularly with campus.

972
00:40:01,575 --> 00:40:02,940
This would be his initiative of

973
00:40:02,940 --> 00:40:06,300
Thomas Aquinas's imitation
and practice with

974
00:40:06,300 --> 00:40:07,800
instructions for children
that makes it the

975
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,265
catechism and with primitive
visit is both medicine.

976
00:40:11,265 --> 00:40:13,290
If you look at the list,
let me get to what books,

977
00:40:13,290 --> 00:40:15,630
you get the only two that
occur on every list,

978
00:40:15,630 --> 00:40:17,670
our campus and primitive visit.

979
00:40:17,670 --> 00:40:19,200
He always wanted to get him

980
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:20,910
a book as a model
of how to care for

981
00:40:20,910 --> 00:40:22,575
the soul and a book

982
00:40:22,575 --> 00:40:25,480
as a model of how to
care for the body.

983
00:40:25,860 --> 00:40:28,270
It wasn't just his preachers,

984
00:40:28,270 --> 00:40:30,295
he encouraged his
late people as well.

985
00:40:30,295 --> 00:40:32,260
As you turn it up over
to the next quote,

986
00:40:32,260 --> 00:40:34,180
you'll see that he
actually constructed in

987
00:40:34,180 --> 00:40:35,770
the Methodist society an office

988
00:40:35,770 --> 00:40:37,060
of the visitor of the sick,

989
00:40:37,060 --> 00:40:38,650
what we would
probably today call

990
00:40:38,650 --> 00:40:40,585
a parish nursing program,

991
00:40:40,585 --> 00:40:43,300
to go around visiting in
their homes and helping them.

992
00:40:43,300 --> 00:40:46,120
The last point I
made on this one,

993
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:47,455
and again when we get to wisdom,

994
00:40:47,455 --> 00:40:48,280
not just what did he

995
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:49,690
do and how did he broaden it,

996
00:40:49,690 --> 00:40:51,085
but what wisdom emerged

997
00:40:51,085 --> 00:40:53,170
is Wesley's increasing
emphasis to say,

998
00:40:53,170 --> 00:40:54,430
that it's not enough
just to treat

999
00:40:54,430 --> 00:40:55,540
yourself when you're sick,

1000
00:40:55,540 --> 00:40:57,490
the most important thing is
to take care of yourself,

1001
00:40:57,490 --> 00:40:59,155
so you don't get sick.

1002
00:40:59,155 --> 00:41:01,660
Wellness, we would call it.

1003
00:41:01,660 --> 00:41:05,020
Exercise. The book Primitive
Physic is prefaced by

1004
00:41:05,020 --> 00:41:06,310
a list of directions for how to

1005
00:41:06,310 --> 00:41:09,055
live in order to
preserve health.

1006
00:41:09,055 --> 00:41:11,740
He applied this to the
spiritual life as well,

1007
00:41:11,740 --> 00:41:13,420
so that you see
in another letter

1008
00:41:13,420 --> 00:41:15,280
he writes to Kurt Dixon,

1009
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,080
who is another of
his preachers,"I'm

1010
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:18,550
pleased to hear that your wife,

1011
00:41:18,550 --> 00:41:21,430
Mrs. Dixon health, body,

1012
00:41:21,430 --> 00:41:22,975
and soul increases,

1013
00:41:22,975 --> 00:41:27,535
certainly exercise is the
best medicine for both."

1014
00:41:27,535 --> 00:41:33,010
Living wellness and seek
to help others to do so.

1015
00:41:33,010 --> 00:41:36,520
It's not just for our souls
that God's concerned about,

1016
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,800
God's concerned about
our bodies as well,

1017
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,420
and calls us to be.

1018
00:41:40,420 --> 00:41:42,940
But that leads me to

1019
00:41:42,940 --> 00:41:46,825
the point that is perhaps
the most unusual,

1020
00:41:46,825 --> 00:41:49,660
it was in his day when

1021
00:41:49,660 --> 00:41:50,740
Wesley said that the things that

1022
00:41:50,740 --> 00:41:52,315
we'll look in this last point,

1023
00:41:52,315 --> 00:41:54,715
most of the folk laughed at him.

1024
00:41:54,715 --> 00:41:57,370
It's one that we
paid less attention

1025
00:41:57,370 --> 00:42:00,310
to in earlier parts
of this series.

1026
00:42:00,310 --> 00:42:03,580
Let me focus on it a little

1027
00:42:03,580 --> 00:42:07,270
more solidly for
conclusion this time.

1028
00:42:07,270 --> 00:42:11,620
Who does God really care
to bring salvation to?

1029
00:42:11,620 --> 00:42:14,200
Now, that earlier tendency
in the Christian tradition,

1030
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,330
to say that God cares only
about souls not bodies,

1031
00:42:16,330 --> 00:42:18,910
has a very clear implication.

1032
00:42:18,910 --> 00:42:23,545
That means God cares only
for those that have souls.

1033
00:42:23,545 --> 00:42:28,225
Their clear assumption
was that's human soul.

1034
00:42:28,225 --> 00:42:30,940
By St Augustine's time on,

1035
00:42:30,940 --> 00:42:32,770
when you look at the pictures,

1036
00:42:32,770 --> 00:42:34,119
when you look at
their descriptions

1037
00:42:34,119 --> 00:42:35,425
of what heaven was like,

1038
00:42:35,425 --> 00:42:36,610
it was a place that existed

1039
00:42:36,610 --> 00:42:39,325
above right now,
not in the future.

1040
00:42:39,325 --> 00:42:42,820
It was a place populated
by spiritual beings,

1041
00:42:42,820 --> 00:42:44,425
who spent their time as

1042
00:42:44,425 --> 00:42:47,945
spirits with at most a
very ephemeral body,

1043
00:42:47,945 --> 00:42:50,835
with the ultimate
spirit being God,

1044
00:42:50,835 --> 00:42:53,895
singing, playing harps,
floating on clouds.

1045
00:42:53,895 --> 00:42:56,040
All those images we
get on greeting cards,

1046
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,480
none of which come
from Scripture.

1047
00:42:58,490 --> 00:43:02,265
Wesley bought it
for a long time.

1048
00:43:02,265 --> 00:43:05,280
We see, for example,
in the first quote,

1049
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:06,870
he was trained in
this tradition,

1050
00:43:06,870 --> 00:43:07,920
and for much of his life he

1051
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:09,690
just assumed that's what it was.

1052
00:43:09,690 --> 00:43:11,430
Look at the quote, it's from

1053
00:43:11,430 --> 00:43:14,130
his preface to his first
volume of sermons,

1054
00:43:14,130 --> 00:43:18,040
"I'm a spirit come from
God and returning to God,

1055
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,995
just hovering over
the great Gulf."

1056
00:43:20,995 --> 00:43:23,080
You almost get Jonathan
Edwards image of

1057
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,035
being hang over like
that spider on the web.

1058
00:43:26,035 --> 00:43:29,965
"Till a few moments, I
am no more seen, I die.

1059
00:43:29,965 --> 00:43:33,400
I drop into an
unchangeable eternity".

1060
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,415
That's interesting,
unchangeable eternity.

1061
00:43:36,415 --> 00:43:37,825
Later in life we talk about how

1062
00:43:37,825 --> 00:43:40,360
we go on rolling
through all eternity,

1063
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:42,325
it's rather a different image.

1064
00:43:42,325 --> 00:43:44,500
"I want to know one
thing, the way to heaven.

1065
00:43:44,500 --> 00:43:47,110
How we land safe on
that happy shore,

1066
00:43:47,110 --> 00:43:49,780
and God himself has
condescended to teach the way,

1067
00:43:49,780 --> 00:43:51,820
for this very end He
came from heaven".

1068
00:43:51,820 --> 00:43:54,295
Notice, heaven is a
place above us God

1069
00:43:54,295 --> 00:43:57,800
comes from to show us
humans how to get here.

1070
00:43:58,590 --> 00:44:00,910
Parts of the Scriptures
talking about,

1071
00:44:00,910 --> 00:44:02,020
but it misses so much,

1072
00:44:02,020 --> 00:44:03,100
and as Wesley,

1073
00:44:03,100 --> 00:44:05,380
in his later years went back

1074
00:44:05,380 --> 00:44:08,125
and did a commentary
on the Old Testament,

1075
00:44:08,125 --> 00:44:10,945
and begin to live
in those passages.

1076
00:44:10,945 --> 00:44:13,390
Genesis and Isaiah,

1077
00:44:13,390 --> 00:44:17,020
they talk about the new
heavens, the new earth.

1078
00:44:17,020 --> 00:44:19,810
They talk about creating
Jerusalem and rejoicing,

1079
00:44:19,810 --> 00:44:21,985
where now it's not just
humans who were there,

1080
00:44:21,985 --> 00:44:25,340
the lions, and
tigers, and bears.

1081
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:28,420
Wesley became convinced,

1082
00:44:28,420 --> 00:44:30,220
God cared about them then,

1083
00:44:30,220 --> 00:44:32,275
and God still does now.

1084
00:44:32,275 --> 00:44:36,760
Look at the later quotes
in sermons preached,

1085
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:38,650
in the 1780s,

1086
00:44:38,650 --> 00:44:41,845
towards the end of his life,
first, the new creation,

1087
00:44:41,845 --> 00:44:43,870
he spends a whole sermon

1088
00:44:43,870 --> 00:44:46,825
emphasizing our hope
isn't just heaven above,

1089
00:44:46,825 --> 00:44:48,955
our hope is the new
heavens and the new earth,

1090
00:44:48,955 --> 00:44:52,915
when God will recreate
the entire created order.

1091
00:44:52,915 --> 00:44:55,810
Not just are humans
going to be there,

1092
00:44:55,810 --> 00:45:02,290
but plants and even
pulpitis, and ground.

1093
00:45:02,290 --> 00:45:04,315
There's something
powerful about that.

1094
00:45:04,315 --> 00:45:06,100
As one who is born
and raised in Iowa,

1095
00:45:06,100 --> 00:45:09,160
if there's not a little bit
of a smell of pine trees,

1096
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,245
and a view of the
mountains out my window,

1097
00:45:11,245 --> 00:45:14,530
it's not going to be heaven.

1098
00:45:14,530 --> 00:45:15,730
That's what Wesley's picked up.

1099
00:45:15,730 --> 00:45:18,160
He speculates about how these
elements will be new and

1100
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,995
how it'll be a
continual Paradise,

1101
00:45:20,995 --> 00:45:22,240
obviously he gets
into questions like,

1102
00:45:22,240 --> 00:45:23,545
can there be rain there,

1103
00:45:23,545 --> 00:45:24,670
can there be darkness there?

1104
00:45:24,670 --> 00:45:26,050
All of these speculation.

1105
00:45:26,050 --> 00:45:29,020
His key point is God cared
about it and said it is good.

1106
00:45:29,020 --> 00:45:32,920
Now, God will care about
it and allow it to

1107
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:34,810
participate in the
fullness of what God

1108
00:45:34,810 --> 00:45:38,185
desires for all of his good.

1109
00:45:38,185 --> 00:45:39,730
Then he wrote a sermon that

1110
00:45:39,730 --> 00:45:41,215
particularly got him in trouble,

1111
00:45:41,215 --> 00:45:44,260
or at least got Methodists
to be ridiculed.

1112
00:45:44,260 --> 00:45:47,020
There was a sermon called
the General deliberates.

1113
00:45:47,020 --> 00:45:49,450
In this sermon, Wesley
talks about the

1114
00:45:49,450 --> 00:45:52,475
salvation, specifically
of animals.

1115
00:45:52,475 --> 00:45:55,215
What he argues is
very interesting.

1116
00:45:55,215 --> 00:45:56,730
His main point is to say,

1117
00:45:56,730 --> 00:45:59,980
if God cares about all,
God will deliver all,

1118
00:45:59,980 --> 00:46:01,825
so animals too will be saved.

1119
00:46:01,825 --> 00:46:04,000
But then he gets into an
interesting speculation.

1120
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:05,440
He says, besides,

1121
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:06,640
the kind of God we know is

1122
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:07,855
the kind of God who
wouldn't have allowed

1123
00:46:07,855 --> 00:46:10,630
us to have the possibility
of temptation and loss,

1124
00:46:10,630 --> 00:46:15,250
just in order to restore
it to the same level.

1125
00:46:15,250 --> 00:46:16,300
Would you let your children go

1126
00:46:16,300 --> 00:46:17,320
through something
that could hurt them,

1127
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:18,640
if all you we're going
to do in the end is just

1128
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,650
put them back where they
were to start with?

1129
00:46:20,650 --> 00:46:22,240
Well with God we only knew that,

1130
00:46:22,240 --> 00:46:23,620
if indeed God knew

1131
00:46:23,620 --> 00:46:25,165
there was something even
better that could come,

1132
00:46:25,165 --> 00:46:26,470
only by going
through this can you

1133
00:46:26,470 --> 00:46:28,135
get to this better stage.

1134
00:46:28,135 --> 00:46:29,335
Wesley gets to argue,

1135
00:46:29,335 --> 00:46:30,805
humans will not be
just like that,

1136
00:46:30,805 --> 00:46:32,350
we will have even
greater abilities,

1137
00:46:32,350 --> 00:46:35,575
even greater blessings
than they have,

1138
00:46:35,575 --> 00:46:38,350
and he applies the same thing
in this sermon to animals.

1139
00:46:38,350 --> 00:46:40,555
He argues that in the
resurrected existence,

1140
00:46:40,555 --> 00:46:43,630
animals will have reason and
intelligence like we do.

1141
00:46:43,630 --> 00:46:44,830
Animals will be able to have

1142
00:46:44,830 --> 00:46:47,500
a conscious relationship
to God as we do now.

1143
00:46:47,500 --> 00:46:49,240
You're getting Narnia, but it's

1144
00:46:49,240 --> 00:46:53,770
in the future.

1145
00:46:53,770 --> 00:46:55,315
Many laughed at it,

1146
00:46:55,315 --> 00:46:57,310
not recognizing, for example,

1147
00:46:57,310 --> 00:46:59,350
that Wesley actually
took the idea from

1148
00:46:59,350 --> 00:47:02,860
a Swiss botanist,
Charles Baehni,

1149
00:47:02,860 --> 00:47:04,630
who was at that time

1150
00:47:04,630 --> 00:47:06,910
the head of the French
Academy of Sciences,

1151
00:47:06,910 --> 00:47:08,830
he wasn't just making

1152
00:47:08,830 --> 00:47:14,440
it up himself.

1153
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:15,580
Most importantly, and this

1154
00:47:15,580 --> 00:47:17,410
gets me into the
issue of wisdom.

1155
00:47:17,410 --> 00:47:19,240
Wesley knew that
folks would look at

1156
00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:21,010
this sermon and maybe smirk.

1157
00:47:21,010 --> 00:47:22,690
In fact, he published

1158
00:47:22,690 --> 00:47:24,400
in the Armenian magazine
a similar thing,

1159
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:25,330
and he said "That
many of you will

1160
00:47:25,330 --> 00:47:26,649
consider this a triviality."

1161
00:47:26,649 --> 00:47:30,850
he says, "but think about it",

1162
00:47:30,850 --> 00:47:31,975
he says "I've been close to

1163
00:47:31,975 --> 00:47:34,210
the heart of God's
goodness and wisdom.

1164
00:47:34,210 --> 00:47:36,295
Because what God cares about,

1165
00:47:36,295 --> 00:47:38,140
we know we should
care about it."

1166
00:47:38,140 --> 00:47:40,525
That's the whole importance
of Eschatology anyway.

1167
00:47:40,525 --> 00:47:42,040
The key thing with
eschatology is

1168
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:43,600
whatever God cares
about ultimately,

1169
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:45,175
we are meant to care about

1170
00:47:45,175 --> 00:47:47,455
appropriately even now.

1171
00:47:47,455 --> 00:47:49,180
You get that last quote,

1172
00:47:49,180 --> 00:47:50,965
"why do I do these speculations?

1173
00:47:50,965 --> 00:47:54,010
Because they may
encourage us to imitate

1174
00:47:54,010 --> 00:47:57,880
the one who's mercy is
over all His words."

1175
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,194
Is it any wonder
that this sermon

1176
00:48:01,194 --> 00:48:03,580
was included as the
first chapter in

1177
00:48:03,580 --> 00:48:06,580
a book used to raise
money to found

1178
00:48:06,580 --> 00:48:08,680
the Royal Society for
the Prevention of

1179
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,185
Cruelty to Animals in the 1820s?

1180
00:48:11,185 --> 00:48:12,850
Is it any wonder that in

1181
00:48:12,850 --> 00:48:14,620
the 1790s when an
Anglican preacher

1182
00:48:14,620 --> 00:48:16,030
could speak on animal
rights and he was

1183
00:48:16,030 --> 00:48:17,680
accused of being a Methodist?

1184
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:21,700
Now there's a lot

1185
00:48:21,700 --> 00:48:22,780
of questions of the game.

1186
00:48:22,780 --> 00:48:25,300
Wesley doesn't solve them all
for us, are spiders there?

1187
00:48:25,300 --> 00:48:27,850
Do cats go to heaven?

1188
00:48:27,850 --> 00:48:32,560
How could this work?
What about mosquitoes?

1189
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,510
There's a lot of questions,

1190
00:48:34,510 --> 00:48:36,310
but the key thing is to say,

1191
00:48:36,310 --> 00:48:37,180
when we're thinking
about what is

1192
00:48:37,180 --> 00:48:38,230
God's saving way in

1193
00:48:38,230 --> 00:48:41,215
our world and how do we
participate in that.

1194
00:48:41,215 --> 00:48:43,855
We need to appreciate
more deeply.

1195
00:48:43,855 --> 00:48:45,880
That it's not just for us,

1196
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,260
it's for the whole of creation.

1197
00:48:48,330 --> 00:48:50,440
Many of these things are in

1198
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,725
our blood and still echo today.

1199
00:48:53,725 --> 00:48:55,840
Several of them for
historical reasons

1200
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:57,490
fell out over time.

1201
00:48:57,490 --> 00:48:58,720
If we had another hour,

1202
00:48:58,720 --> 00:49:01,150
I could trace how
small groups fall out.

1203
00:49:01,150 --> 00:49:03,915
How much of the care
for the body falls out.

1204
00:49:03,915 --> 00:49:06,180
How particularly this
emphasis on care for animals,

1205
00:49:06,180 --> 00:49:07,350
it stayed in Britain
for a while,

1206
00:49:07,350 --> 00:49:11,740
it fell out almost
immediately in North America.

1207
00:49:11,740 --> 00:49:13,480
These things are not
just things we can say,

1208
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:14,890
let's celebrate, we have them.

1209
00:49:14,890 --> 00:49:17,080
They may also stand up as
things that we can say,

1210
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:18,220
these are parts
of our tradition,

1211
00:49:18,220 --> 00:49:20,770
we need to spend some time
paying attention to them,

1212
00:49:20,770 --> 00:49:22,870
and ask how do we
reappropriate them and make

1213
00:49:22,870 --> 00:49:25,450
them more central to who we are.

1214
00:49:25,450 --> 00:49:27,220
What I can say for sure is,

1215
00:49:27,220 --> 00:49:29,020
there could be no
better way to celebrate

1216
00:49:29,020 --> 00:49:31,780
the 300th anniversary
of John Wesley's birth,

1217
00:49:31,780 --> 00:49:33,760
than to be like him,

1218
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:35,410
that is to be people who go

1219
00:49:35,410 --> 00:49:38,230
into our churches and our world,

1220
00:49:38,230 --> 00:49:40,660
seeking to make it clear
in our proclamation,

1221
00:49:40,660 --> 00:49:42,895
and even more clear
in our lives,

1222
00:49:42,895 --> 00:49:45,430
that God is concerned
not only with

1223
00:49:45,430 --> 00:49:48,655
forgiveness, but
with transformation.

1224
00:49:48,655 --> 00:49:50,380
Not only with individuals,

1225
00:49:50,380 --> 00:49:52,255
but with society as well.

1226
00:49:52,255 --> 00:49:54,520
Not only souls,

1227
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,965
but also with humanly body.

1228
00:49:56,965 --> 00:50:00,025
Not only with human beings,

1229
00:50:00,025 --> 00:50:04,135
but with the redemption
of the whole of creation.

1230
00:50:04,135 --> 00:50:06,580
If we can make those
things a little more

1231
00:50:06,580 --> 00:50:09,655
alive today and into the future,

1232
00:50:09,655 --> 00:50:12,985
Wesley himself would
join the celebration.

1233
00:50:12,985 --> 00:50:28,870
Thank you. [APPLAUSE].

1234
00:50:28,870 --> 00:50:30,790
Thank you Dr. Randy Maddox.

1235
00:50:30,790 --> 00:50:33,940
What a privilege it is for
us as a community to take

1236
00:50:33,940 --> 00:50:35,470
some time just to
pause and think

1237
00:50:35,470 --> 00:50:37,825
about the life of John Wesley.

1238
00:50:37,825 --> 00:50:40,690
May we be inspired,
and challenged,

1239
00:50:40,690 --> 00:50:41,980
and encouraged to live

1240
00:50:41,980 --> 00:50:45,140
our lives individually
and corporately.

1241
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:49,195
Thank you for your
encouragement to that.

1242
00:50:49,195 --> 00:50:51,190
On behalf of the University,

1243
00:50:51,190 --> 00:50:52,510
I'd like to invite you now

1244
00:50:52,510 --> 00:50:54,520
to a reception in
the fine center.

1245
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:55,960
I think we can go inside,

1246
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,210
along the hallway,
it's still raining.

1247
00:50:58,210 --> 00:51:01,170
This is the other part of
the first Methodist Church,

1248
00:51:01,170 --> 00:51:04,750
and I just thank you for
being here. You're dismissed.