Scripture and the Wesleyan Way: A Bible Study on Real Christianity - Softcover

Jones, Scott J.; Jones, Arthur D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501867938 ISBN 13: 9781501867934

Verlag: ABINGDON PR, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

The Bible was central to John Wesley’s faith and the Christian movement he founded. In Scripture and the Wesleyan Way, you will discover a Wesleyan approach to the Bible and the Christian life through a Bible study using Wesley’s own words.In this study, authors Scott and Arthur Jones use John Wesley’s sermons to illuminate the Bible passages at the heart of Wesley’s understanding of what it means to be a real Christian. Each chapter explores a key Scripture text and one of Wesley’s sermons on it. Through their insightful and engaging study, Bishop Jones and his son Arthur show how the teachings of Wesley address questions that many of us in the twenty-first century still struggle with today.Chapters include: What is the Bible’s Message? How Can I Be Saved? A, I a Real Christian? Do I Have to Obey the Law? Am I a Sinner? How Can I Connect with God? Why is the Christian Life Not Easier? What about My Money?Additional components for an eight-week study include a DVD featuring Scott and Arthur Jones and a comprehensive Leader Guide.John Wesley discovered a challenging yet hopeful message in the Bible, which profoundly shaped his personal life and the Methodist movement he founded. As you study the Bible with John Wesley, you will hear his call to live a real Christian life and be inspired to respond to this call with faith and boldness.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Arthur Jones is the senior associate pastor and preaching pastor at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas. His passions involve preaching a real and practical faith, engaging people with the Bible and current issues that affect day-to-day life, and providing leadership and vision for the next phases of church life. Arthur is a fifth-generation Methodist preacher who grew up in churches across North Texas. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and Duke Divinity School, and the co-author of Ask: Faith Questions in a Skeptical Age. Arthur is married to Becky (a Houston native), and they have recently had their first child Sam.

Scott J. Jones is the Resident Bishop of the Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church and served as Bishop of the Great Plains area of The United Methodist Church. He was formerly the McCreless Associate Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, where he taught courses in evangelism and Wesley studies. Previous books include The Wesleyan Way, The Evangelistic Love of God & Neighbor, Staying at the Table, and Wesley and the Quadrilateral, all published by Abingdon Press. of the United Methodist Church and served as Bishop of the Great Plains area of The United Methodist Church.

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Scripture and the Wesleyan Way

A Bible Study on Real Christianity

By Scott J. Jones, Arthur D. Jones

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-6793-4

Contents

Introduction, 
1. What Is the Bible's Message?, 
2. How Can I Be Saved?, 
3. Am I a Real Christian?, 
4. Do I Have to Obey the Law?, 
5. Am I a Sinner?, 
6. How Can I Connect with God?, 
7. Why Is the Christian Life So Hard?, 
8. What About My Money?, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

What Is the Bible's Message?

The Spiritual Question and Its Importance Today

The Bible is both important and complicated. So what is its message?

Christians believe the Bible is the inspired word of God that communicates truths that are essential for human beings to live well. Through it we learn who God is, who human beings are, and how to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to the Ultimate Reality of the universe. The Bible gives us insights that are available to us in no other way, and encountering God through its words is the best way to learn how to be truly happy.

Christians believe God chose Abraham and Sarah centuries ago to be the parents of a special people. Their descendants would be blessed, and through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:23). Through many difficulties, including time in slavery in Egypt and a difficult Exodus, they arrived at a promised land and flourished. But more trouble came to them, and exile to Babylon was part of their history. In the fullness of time a descendent of King David was born, and the turning point of all human history occurred with the birth of God's Son, Jesus.

The Bible is the authoritative account of God's interaction with the people of Israel and the first generations of Jesus' disciples. It is our written record of God's self-revelation to human beings. As United Methodist doctrine puts it, "We believe the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our salvation. It is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice."

At the same time, the Bible is complicated. Our Protestant Bible has sixty-six books written over a thousand-year period in three different languages. Very few of us read it in the original languages, and even then, we sometimes don't understand the cultural references and situations that the authors were addressing. It contains many types of literature, including historical narratives, prophetic speeches, poetry, letters, and apocalyptic writings. The Bible has a diversity of literary forms, comes to us from ancient times, and contains the work of many different human authors. It is complicated.

Because it is both diverse and ancient, there are some interesting emphases within the Bible. Very important questions sometimes appear to have contradictory answers depending on which verses one chooses to quote. Christians in the twenty-first century would like to be able to say, "The Bible says ..." and use its authority to settle important questions we face. Yet, someone else can sometimes respond by quoting another part of the Scriptures with a different answer. Beginning in the 1500s, Protestants argued that the Bible was clear and its message could be understood by laypersons who should read it in their own languages. Over time, this led to many different interpretations and the splintering of the Christian church into a large number of denominations. The complexity of the Bible allows many different Christian churches to claim scriptural authority for their divergent positions.

All of us believe the Bible is important. We also know it is complicated. Which leads to the question, "What is the Bible's message?" We want to know the Bible's message because it is important, yet we struggle to understand the message because it is complicated. John Wesley can guide us in answering that question. Before turning to him, let's first think about four principles which underlie Wesley's answer to the question.

First, we believe that the whole Bible is Scripture.

Sometimes in the history of Christianity persons have suggested kicking certain books out of the Bible. And it is true that Catholics and Protestants disagree about seven books in the Old Testament that Catholics count and Protestants (following Jewish practice) do not. Such major and formal revisions to the Bible are rare. Typically, attempts to revise the Bible so far have not succeeded with churches that continue to be identified as Christian. Revising the canon, either by addition (such as the Mormons did) or deletion means that your church has chosen to leave Christianity behind and form a new religion.

Almost all of the Christians in the world claim the whole Bible to be the inspired word of God and authoritative for determining Christian faith and practice. But that means they have to decide how the whole Bible fits together.

Scholars over the last two hundred years have emphasized careful, critical understanding of how the various books came to be written and how the canon was formed. (The canon is the list of books that are understood as Scripture.) By focusing on individual books, they can gain great insight into the meaning of each verse and clarify both how and why it was written. Such scholarly progress has tended to key in on the different emphases and concerns that each biblical author expressed in his writing.

Partly growing out of such helpful scholarship, some persons have suggested that difficult passages, especially those in the Old Testament, be sorted into different buckets. One bucket might represent God's will for all time. Another might represent God's will for a particular time, and a third bucket never represented God's will but reflected the cultures in the times where they were written. By identifying and distinguishing between these buckets, such an approach is intended to help present-day Christians cope with difficult passages in the Old Testament.

The problem with a multi-bucket approach like this is that it fails to consider how the whole Bible fits together and how the same God has worked out the same purposes in many different cultures and periods of history. The Bible fits into just two sections — an old covenant and a new covenant — and the apostles settled how to interpret the relationship between them at the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15.

Sometimes people say that the Holy Spirit is still speaking today and teaching us to reject parts of the Bible that they believe should never have been included in the first place. A Wesleyan approach presumes that God has not changed God's mind and that the Holy Spirit who speaks today is the same Holy Spirit that inspired the biblical authors.

The church's job is to understand God's intent in inspiring these writings and how they all fit together rather than separate them into different buckets. The biblical authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit at a level much more directly connected to God than anything since apostolic times. Yet, we believe that the Holy Spirit is still at work, confirming in people's minds what the inspired text says and helping people interpret it correctly. We believe that the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, because salvation through Christ is offered in both parts of the Bible. The next three principles help Christians see the wholeness of the Bible.

Second, we interpret the Old Testament in light of the New...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ABINGDON PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501867938
• ISBN 13: 9781501867934
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar