Remnant Magazine: Issue 2

A PU BLICAT ION OF THE HOL INESS PARTNERSHIP

REMNANT F O R S UC H A T IME AS T H IS

Puny God pg. 6

The Gospel

Famine pg. 20

Transformed

By Love pg. 12

The Covenantal Intent of Church Membership pg. 22

ISSUE 2 | AP RI L 2 0 2 2

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CONTENTS

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Rev. Jared K. Henry For Such a Time As This

Dr. Douglas Hopkins Puny God

Steven Matlock Transformed By Love

Rev. Michael D. Johnson Overwhelmed

Rev. Amber Cook The Gospel Famine

Dr. Scott Sherwood Rediscovering the Covenantal Intent of Church Membership

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The Purpose of

Remnant

As a publication of the Holiness Partnership, the purpose of Remnant Magazine is to promote Scriptural holiness through applicable theology and practice.

The Holiness Partnership is a Wesleyan-Holiness organization seeking to re-discover the vision and understanding of biblical Christianity, re-emphasize the biblical doctrines of the Holiness church, re-invigorate the local church for mission and evangelism, and re-capture fidelity to biblical truth. We, at Remnant, pray that the Holy Spirit guides our messages, helps us bring clarity to holiness approaches to cultural issues, fosters a charitable dialogue in a polarized world, and enables us to speak the truth boldly in love, even in a time when the truth is unpopular.

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F OR SU CH A TIME AS THI S

By Rev. Jared K. Henry

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he theme of this issue of Remnant, along with the Holiness Partnership’s conference in Kansas City — the Gathering — is “For Such a Time As This.” These words are drawn from Scripture in the book of Esther. This book shares with us the compelling narrative of a young lady who rises to a particular place at a particular time in which she faces hard and costly decisions. Her courageous actions, encouraged by her cousin Mordecai, countermine an attempt to annihilate the people of God in the Persian empire.

It is not a coincidence that you are in the position in which you now serve. Your current context of ministry, giftedness, location, and setting within history are not haphazard and random. A historic pandemic, unprecedented political upheaval, social unrest, and war have not taken God by surprise. False teaching and cultural ideology being promoted within the context of God’s people has not diminished the Kingdom of God. Divisive philosophies, rejection of holy living, ignoring evangelism, and refuting transformation from sinner to saint has not changed God’s salvific work in the world today!

Brothers and sisters, we have the daring hope that the message of full salvation is still the great need of our hour! That Jesus has provided for the forgiveness of sins by shedding his own blood on the cross of Calvary and given the precious promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to those who seek this blessing. And that promise includes power. Power for what? Power for purity of heart and effectiveness in ministry!

Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles would come behind the spread of the Gospel and hear testimonies of people redeemed from darkness. Then they would ask: “Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit since you believed?” Why this interest in “being filled”? Because it was a necessary ingredient for effective, potent evangelism and mission. It was staying power. It was keeping power. It was power that could take a rag tag bunch of uneducated failures and create a movement orchestrated by God that spread across the world.

We seem to be moving into a season of hard conversations, declining church attendance, increased immorality, and biblical illiteracy. With that, we face a great temptation to despair. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalms 121:1-2). Are these times difficult? Yes. Is there temptation to compromise and flee from the harvest? Yes. Is there a price to pay and sacrifices to make? Yes. But we have come to this moment for such a time as this. This is the moment of darkness and despair that the world desperately needs to see and hear a holiness church declare the hope that has been revealed to us in Scripture and incarnate in Jesus! Do not grow weary in welldoing now; there is too much at stake. This is our time. This is the hope we have been given.

Jesus still sets the captives free! Jesus can still forgive the vilest sinner. Jesus can still sanctify through and through the spirit, soul, and body of every consecrated believer! And He can still keep us holy all the way to Heaven! Praise His Name!

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“This is the moment of darkness and despair that the world desperately needs to see and hear a holiness church declare the hope that has been revealed to us in Scripture and incarnate in Jesus!”

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pu ny g od

By Dr. Douglas Hopkins

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“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”1 - A.W. Tozer A particular scene in The Avengers causes me to laugh out loud every time I see it. It takes place toward the end of the movie, when Loki, a chief antagonist in the story, attempts to take over the world with his alien army. The character Loki is a demi-god from a distant planet and considers himself above all living things on the earth. Loki’s belief is primarily consistent with his experiences, as no one could defeat him, at least until he comes face to face with the Hulk!

In the heat of their confrontation, Loki screams: “Enough! You are all beneath me. I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by a….” However, Loki’s speech is interrupted as Hulk snatches him by his ankle and proceeds to whip him back and forth, smashing him into the ground each time like a rag doll. While Loki lies on the ground beaten and dazed, Hulk concludes his smashing with the iconic reply: “Puny god.”

If Loki were a god as he professed and could be smashed as terribly and quickly as he was by the Hulk, he most certainly is a “puny god.”

When it comes to thinking about the God of the Bible, the only true and living God, I want to stay away from anything that would attempt to diminish Him in any way. The God of the Bible is the Lord of glory; the sovereign “I Am”; the all-knowing, ever-present Potentate. I want to exalt the LORD in every aspect of His being, because what I think about God is the most important thought I will ever have.

Having a true and correct image of God as revealed in Scripture matters; anything less is idolatry. Therefore, it may be rightly said that our image of God must be derived from Scripture and not primarily philosophy. Or, as the Apostle Paul writes, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty de-

ceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”2 In her book, The Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop informs her readers, “The history of Christian doctrine is in some degree a history of the development and dominance of prevailing philosophies into which the Christian faith has been fitted. A shock always accompanies the emergence of a new philosophy into history, and certain features of Christian theology undergo more or less significant changes…”3 She continues, “Today Christian doctrine is confronted by existentialism and ‘process’ philosophy.”4 Dr. Wynkoop wrote these words in the 1960s, and we are experiencing their reality today with the emergence of open theism, a product of process philosophy combined with Wesleyan-Arminian theology.

Today, there is an expectation in academic circles to branch out from one’s area of discipline and experiment by crosspollinating with another area of study. As a result, new perspectives emerge from these academic pursuits, along with further questions and new tools. When we are talking about the nature and image of GOD, new does not mean better. Yet, in the last few decades, certain philosophers have attempted to bridge their discipline with theology, giving birth to a new vision of God who is limited by time.

This is a belief that God — they dare say the God of the Bible — is merely a celestial friend who neither knows your tomorrow nor even your next five seconds because He respects your free will. This is a “god” who cannot declare the end from the beginning5 because He neither knows the outcome nor the journey one will take to get there. “He cannot know,” they say, because if God knows, then we are not free to choose our path. The epitome of love is the freedom to choose on behalf of another.

So, as the argument goes: if God is love

Having a true and correct image of God as revealed in Scripture matters; anything less is idolatry.

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and love gives choices, but God knows the choices you’ll make, how can that be love?

Rather than allowing the God of the Bible to be as He has revealed Himself to be, as One who both knows the end of things while respecting the freedom of creation to choose it, they looked to philosophy to make sense of things.

What is Open Theism? The following definition is from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Open Theism is the thesis that, because God loves us and desires that we freely choose to reciprocate His love, He has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us. God desires that each of us freely enter into a loving and dynamic personal relationship with Him, and He has therefore left it open to us to

The god of open theism offers a solution that seemingly makes sense to the problem of evil and suffering in the world: “God didn’t know.”

choose for or against His will.”6 Words matter. And while the “god” of open theism is loving and respectful of my free will, this “god” has no real plan for the future because he does not know what I will choose until I choose it. This “god” cannot see past the nose on my face. And the most audacious of all, this “god” has invited me to be a collaborative partner in both governing and developing creation. Thus, I am elevated to collaborator rather than confessing lordship and living obediently. In this sense, open theism allows “god” and me to create a reality consisting, at least in part, of my own desires.

This is Minecraft on a whole new level!

To this new vision of God, I say, “puny god!”

Yet the allure of open theism is real, especially when you have lost someone or something you loved. Or, when you face suffering and cannot wrap your mind around a loving God allowing such things that He knew would occur and has the power to intervene and change but didn’t. The god of open theism offers a solution that seemingly makes sense to the problem of evil and suffering in the world.

The answer is simple: “God didn’t know.”

This is the philosophical crux: the “god” of open theism can only know what is and was. Anything that has not yet happened cannot be understood by God or anyone else, they would tell us. This philosophical answer regarding time and what is knowable, when superimposed upon the God of the Bible, offers those in the midst of tragedy a tidy solution: “God didn’t know you would be facing this until you found out yourself.” Accordingly, amid tragedy, being the kind and compassionate God He is, He grieves with you, is a present help in times of trouble, and will not leave you or forsake you (all of which is always true of God). And immediately, the one suffering is alleviated from any theological crisis that would call God’s goodness into question.

So, is this vision of God a biblical image or one of our own making so that we can feel better about the way things are? Is this the true nature of God or us trying to cram an ocean of divinity into a tea cup of mortal intellect?

Since the beginning of all that is, God has been revealing Himself to His creation.

And since the fall of humankind7 when our

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forefather and foremother sought knowledge and fulfillment outside of God’s ways, humanity has been trying to form a “god” that fits into its own mold.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are often referred to as the pre-historic period.

God reveals to us that humanity was created in the image and likeness of God. But in Genesis 3, sin entered into the world through human disobedience, and this likeness was marred. Immediately we read of guilt, fear, shame, and blame as the new experience for humanity.

In Genesis 4, we are given a portrait of this new image of humanity. It involves envy, murder, and death. Broken relationships are part of the new normal, and we are given examples of people who boast in their sin. At the conclusion of this chapter, we are told that Adam had another son (presumably, he had many children in keeping with the blessing to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth), but this son was made in Adam’s image. His name was Seth. Seth matters because, despite all the other children born before the fall, God gave a word to Adam and Eve after they sinned.8 This word involved a lineage that would one day provide humanity with hope and a future, culminating in the birth of Jesus the Christ.

By the time we reach Genesis 6, we are told that the overwhelming majority of people on the earth are wholly unlike God, neither in the way they view life nor what they hope to do with it. Consequently, God seeks to cleanse the world, beginning anew with Noah, who had continued to walk faithfully with the Lord.

Fast forward to the final chapter of this pre-historic section, we are given yet another glimpse into fallen humanity’s attempts at making a god that conforms to their own liking. At the tower of Babel, we discover a people putting their God-given talents and minds together for the purpose of reaching heavenly places and dictating to the gods when and where they will meet. If they were to succeed, this action gives the edge to humanity and all but domesticates their god.

However, the one true God does not stand for it and refuses to allow humanity to think of Him in ways inconsistent with who He really is. So, in keeping with His word given to Adam and Eve, God reveals Himself to a man named Abram, a man of the lineage of Seth. Through

Abram and his eventual family, God intended to make Himself known to the world.9 From the beginning of creation, Jesus Christ was chosen to be the Savior of the world. I Peter 1:20-21a tells us that Jesus “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God...” In other words, the coming of Christ was God’s plan all along. That’s what Paul speaks to when he wrote in Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” God’s plan for Christ Jesus started at creation. Why? Because He foreknew.

The lineage of the Messiah suggests that God had full knowledge of generations preceding and leading up to the birth of Christ.

From Adam and Eve was born Abel, Cain, and Seth. Through Seth’s family came Enoch, who lived for 365 years and walked with God. Methuselah was the son of Enoch and lived to be 969 years old and was grandfather to Noah. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Through the generations of Shem’s family came Abram. Abram had Ishmael (Hagar), and Isaac (Sarah), the child of promise. Isaac was the father of Esau and Jacob.

God told Isaac’s wife Rebekah that the older shall serve the younger. Jacob had twelve sons, who later became known as the twelve tribes of Israel. Judah was one of his sons; it was said of him, “You are he whom your brothers shall praise… The scepter shall not depart from Judah.”10 From the tribe of Judah came Jesse and David, which led to Christ.

Scripture includes family lineage to reveal that God foreknew His plan of redemption from the beginning. Consider the prophet Isaiah and hear the Word of the Lord: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of

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his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”11 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”12 From David’s lineage came Joseph (Jesus’ legal lineage of David) and Mary, who gave birth to JESUS, heir to David’s throne, an eternal throne as God foretold.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”13 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteous-

ness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”14 So, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”15 An angel, sent by God, came to Mary before she was pregnant and said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”16 As Mary was nearing her due date, we are told, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. And all went to be registered, each to his own town.”17 Joseph belonged to the house and line of David and so he and Mary traveled south to the town of David known as Bethlehem, approximately ninety miles away from Nazareth.

Interestingly, Bethlehem means “house of bread,” and Jesus, the “bread of life,” was born there. Still, far more interesting than that is the Prophecy in Micah 5:2, which states, “But you Bethlehem... though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose

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origins are from of old, from ancient times” (or eternity).

God in His infinite foreknowledge looked ahead and knew of Caesar Augustus’s census.

Knowing that His Christ would come from the line of David, God chose Mary and Joseph of Nazareth and planned the Messiah’s birth to coincide with their time in Bethlehem as a sign to those who would believe.

Furthermore, according to Matthew’s Gospel, we find the holy family fleeing to Egypt escaping Herod’s wrath. When the Magi from the east failed to return to Herod with an update on the location of this new king born in Israel, he set out to kill every male child two and under in the area. The holy family’s time in Egypt resulted in the fulfillment of Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” If God never intended for Hosea’s words to be attributed to His son Jesus, then either Matthew misused them, or God got lucky that everything worked out as it did. God’s foreknowledge of Herod’s evil deeds did not make Him culpable. Yet, Herod was still guilty of murder.

The Bible teaches that God, in His wisdom, permits what He could prevent in His sovereignty. So, does this make God any less good? Especially when you consider that “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”18 Even God took suffering upon Himself — suffering is part and parcel of the human experience in this postfall world.

Friends, God never promises an easy path. The opposite is true; we are called to a life of faith amid difficulty and strife. Life is about knowing God and making Him known in the earth. Whether we experience trouble or blessing, comfort or discomfort; whether we abound or find ourselves abased, the invitation to know God more and the commission to make Him known stands until He returns.

The theory of an open future was not derived from reliable biblical exegesis but is a doctrine demanded by untrusting philosophers as an attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible God of the Bible.

This open view unlocks the door to so-called new truths as their “god” grows and changes with the human experience. Undoubtedly, this open theology leads to redefining morals as one argues for what is perceived as a better understanding of love in any and every relational form. However, truth does not change,

is not in process, and we certainly do not have a say as collaborative partners in what truth or God becomes. That would be a puny god indeed!

I leave you with this: A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there.”19 Herein lies the gravity of this topic, to get it wrong is to stand by and watch our beloved Holiness Movement go into theological eclipse.

“O Lord God Almighty, not the God of the philosophers and the wise but the God of the prophets and apostles; and better than all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, may I express Thee unblamed?

They that know Thee not may call upon Thee as other than Thou art, and so worship not Thee but a creature of their own fancy; therefore enlighten our minds that we may know Thee as Thou art, so that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Tozer, A.W. The Knowledge of the Holy. (Harper & Row: San Francisco, 1961), 9.

2 Colossians 2:8 (NKJV) 3 Wynkoop, Mildred Bangs. Foundations of WesleyanArminian Theology. (Beacon Hill Press: Kansas City, 1967), 21.

4 Ibid.

5 Contra. Isaiah 46:9-10 6 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link: https://iep.utm. edu/o-theism/) 7 Genesis c.3 8 See Genesis 3:15 9 Genesis 12:1-3; Revelation 13:8 10 Genesis 49:10 11 Isaiah 11:1-5 (ESV) 12 Jeremiah 33:14-15 (ESV) 13 Isaiah 7:14 (ESV) 14 Isaiah 9:6-7 (ESV) 15 Galatians 4:4 (ESV) 16 Luke 1:30-33 (ESV) 17 Luke 2:1, 3 (ESV) 18 Romans 8:32 (ESV) 19 Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy. 12.

20 Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy. 9.

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TRANSFORMED BY

LOVE

BY STEVEN MATLOCK

Photo by Danielle Keltner

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sat on the sideline watching the other boys play ball, feeling completely alone. From my earliest memories, I had never felt like I belonged or fit in anywhere, least of all in the company of other boys. Any spark of belief that I might learn to fit in had long ago been extinguished. My heart was broken. I cried with longing inside, always careful not to let those tears appear on my cheeks or give even a hint outwardly of the bitter anguish I wrestled with inside.

From my earliest memories, I had longed to be just “one of the boys.” To fit in. To belong. To matter. I longed to be “a real boy” for even a day. To experience the carefree abandon of their crazy antics and the familiar brotherhood of their rough-andtumble play. To just once wrestle with another boy and not feel awkward and afraid. But it was too late for that. I was in my late teens and the opportunity to know and be known by my peers in that way was passed (or so I believed). So, I remained on the sideline, mourning for the boy who was forever lost and asking God, “why?”

Just a few years prior, the longing I had to be one of the boys had taken on a new twist. The ardent desire for friendship and relationship that always seemed just beyond my reach began to feel like something more.

For a long time, I fought against those feelings. I cried out to God and begged Him over and over to please take those feelings from me. I hated myself a little more every day and began to believe the lie that God also hated me.

The relief and deliverance I sought never came and, in the end, I reluctantly resigned myself to an identity I would live with for many years. I didn’t even have a label to put on it at the time. I just knew I wasn’t like any other boy I had ever known, and I believed I never would be. Later, I discovered that guys like me were called “gay,” and I adopted that as my identity because it seemed to fit what I was experiencing.

For years, I wrestled constantly with my identity. Raised in church, I had a deep longing to know God and have a personal relationship with Jesus. There were days when I did my best to pursue that relationship but there were more days when I believed the lie about my identity and pursued love and friendship in all the wrong places. Eventually, I came to believe that God hated me as much as I hated myself. Year after year I wrestled with sinful

I believed the lie about my identity and pursued love and friendship in all the wrong places. desires and behaviors that pulled me deeper and deeper into a false identity and deeper and deeper into despair.

In my late twenties, I endured a period of eighteen months where the depression I felt was so great that my every waking thought was of ending my life and wishing I had the courage and means to do it. I gave myself over to sinful addictions and pursuits in a futile attempt to lessen the gnawing pain and emptiness I felt at the core of my being.

Eventually, I turned to sinful relationships in pursuit of something, anything, that might bring even a tiny amount of comfort. I persis-

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tently cried out to God, telling Him that I just wanted someone to love me. If He refused to love me, why would He condemn me for finding love elsewhere? I just wanted to feel loved, to feel like I mattered to someone and that I belonged somewhere.

Many more years came and went as I wrestled between a desire to know God and a desire to fully and completely embrace a homosexual identity. I longed for freedom from the deep pain I was in, but no relief ever seemed to come. I felt trapped in a cycle of sinful behavior that led to more and more despair which, in turn, led to more and more sinful behavior. But even during those long, dark days, God was working behind the scenes in ways that I would not see or understand until much later.

In His providence, God set in motion a series of job loses which ultimately led me to relocate for a job several hours away from the place I had called home for many years. At the time, I thought the move was only about following a job I loved, but God had much more

Photo by Danielle Keltner

in mind. So much more!

Shortly after the move, I entered the doors of a little Nazarene church in my new neighborhood for the first time. I knew I wanted to be in church, but I had little expectation beyond simply having a place to sit in a pew on Sunday mornings week after week.

However, God had not brought me there to let me be content to just exist from week to week as I had for so many years. He knew that I was finally at a place where I was ready to surrender my old identity and embrace the love that He had always desired to bestow on me.

It wasn’t long before I began to experience love and genuine care from the pastor and the people of that little church. The more they loved on me and invested in me, the easier it became to believe in God’s love for me.

The biggest turning point for me came first in regular conversations with my pastor, beginning shortly after I started attending the church. He never set an agenda for our meetings. He simply sat with me and listened to me

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I don’t think I would ever have become fully aware of the lifechanging power of God’s love for me without having first experienced it through my pastor and the church.

share whatever it was I needed to share each week. He took time to hear me and understand me without trying to fix me. That was exactly what I needed. He just loved me for who I was and where I was and was completely at ease in waiting on the Holy Spirit to begin doing the changing that needed to happen in me. Because of that, I became more and more open to allowing the Holy Spirit to work and I understood on a new level what it meant for God to love me unconditionally because I experienced my pastor’s unconditional love.

Over the past year and a half, several others from the church have invested time in listening to and praying for and with me on many occasions. Each one more interested in learning who I was as a person than they were concerned with my same-sex attractions or trying to fix those things about me that they didn’t understand. As a result, I’ve been able to open up more and more along the way and share my life with others in a way that has been both healing and spiritually refreshing.

Great spiritual growth has taken place in me

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simply because a group of people decided to love me with no agenda and no list of expectations for how quickly I should change or pressure regarding what that change should look like. They just invested in me as a friend, expressed eagerness to learn from me about my experiences, prayed with me when I asked them to, and allowed the Holy Spirit to do His work in me. There is no greater motivation to change than unconditional love. That happened for me first through my pastor, then others in the church, and finally through having my heart opened to the unconditional love of God. I don’t think I would ever have become fully aware of the lifechanging power of God’s love for me without having first experienced it through my pastor and the church.

It took some time and a whole lot of prayer, but finally I put my faith in Jesus Christ, and He began to work miraculous changes in me. My old identity centered around my sexual temptations was replaced with a new identity as a child of God. The Holy Spirit began to reveal to me all the ways that He had watched over me throughout my life.

Even during what seemed to be the darkest and most hopeless times of my life, God was protecting me, loving me, and drawing me to Himself.

A part of me was always seeking God from my earliest memories but it took people being willing to show me what God’s love looked like for me before I could begin to receive God’s love. For the first 25+ years of my life, the enemy had me convinced that God hated me, and I was almost 30 years old before I began to see that as a lie. Since that time, it’s been a 20-year journey of seeking and doubting before I finally arrived at a place where I could begin to rest in God’s love.

Temptation never ends as I still struggle with doubts about God’s love. But I am reminded in my time with the Lord and my brothers and sisters in Christ that His love is a powerful thing! My relationship with God continues to deepen and grow. I know He has changed me.

I’m not even close to who I used to be just a couple of years ago.

For the first time in my life, I no longer see my life in Christ as optional. He is giving me courage and strength to fight through every confusion and doubt with the understanding that my relationship with him is secure.

Turning back is no longer a part of my think-

I am now living the life I was meant to live, as the man God created me to be.

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ing. God has done too much for me for me to ever consider turning away from Him again. I love the life I have now in Him! Even the scars allow God’s mercy and grace to shine brighter through me and that is an incredible blessing.

I’ve wrestled long and hard in my relationship with God and He has blessed me beyond measure through that process. I would never have known the depth of His grace and mercy as I do now without the struggles I’ve been through, and I can’t help but feel grateful for every scar because they have driven me into His arms of love and remind me daily of the scars He bore for me.

God has radically transformed me and sanctified me to a life of real peace and true identity as a child of the King. The life I thought could never be, now is! Because of Jesus! God has delivered me from homosexual

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sin, empowered me to walk in victory over temptation, and implanted within me a deep desire for Himself. Because of Jesus, I am now living the life I was meant to live, as the man God created me to be.

As I look back, I no longer see a lifetime of hopeless despair; I see a loving God relentlessly pursing me. Constantly, I am overwhelmed as He increasingly reveals His love to me. All those years when I thought He was so far away, He wasn’t. Instead, He was orchestrating events and protecting me from destruction until the day my blind eyes were opened, and I could finally see things as they really are. He was there all along. Now, I belong to Jesus. I matter to Jesus. My heart cries out in praise to my Redeemer who daily showers me with blessings. Oh, how great the Savior’s love for me!

Steven Matlock is a Board Certified Mental Health Coach and director for Journey to Freedom Ministries, a ministry of Columbia Church of the Nazarene in Columbia, Kentucky. Journey to Freedom helps men and women find freedom from sexual bondage and experience life-changing transformation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

To learn more, visit: columbianazarene.org/journey-to-freedom

Photo by Danielle Keltner

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By Rev. Michael D. Johnson

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hat can or should we do when we become overwhelmed?

It seems like life itself is overwhelming. Almost like the very nature of life is to weigh humans down. We ultimately know that is not the case because God created us and gave us life so that we could experience fullness and abundance from Him, but our feelings many times tell us there is no hope.

The circumstances of life multiply and, like trying to swat at gnats swirling from every side, it’s as if our efforts are futile, and there is no hope of getting away. We know we can’t stand there and do nothing; we have to try to walk or run away or swat away as many gnats as we can from our faces, but are all our efforts in vain?

Is life bound to be a futile effort of swatting at gnats or a blowing into the wind?

Or can it be different? Can it be something more?

Let’s take a quick moment and address four reasons why life is overwhelming:

1.

There are just too many things going on simultaneously, too many voices clamoring for attention, too many choices and too many fires to put out.

2.

The pain is unbearable, the pain is relentless, the pain seems like a constant companion and there is no end in sight.

3.

Unpleasant, bitter, broken memories of the past keep echoing through our minds and hearts stealing any possibility that this moment can be fully experienced and enjoyed.

4.

The guilt and shame of our own mistakes, sin, and failures seem like a cloud of doom which will not only envelope us but will surely suffocate the breath and life out of us, leaving us with nothing but a hollowed-out shell with no life, no meaning, and no fulfillment.

I know of course that there could be other reasons why you are overwhelmed, but these four seem prolific in my life and according to what I see and hear from those around me.

So, how indeed can we keep from suffocating under the avalanche of too much and/or the harsh and unyielding pain and/or the resounding noise of past trauma and/or the crushing load of guilt and shame?

Let me give you four suggestions:

If there are just too many things, voices, choices, and crises: Stop everything. Get into a quiet place, turn off your phone and simply kneel or lay in

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prayer before the Lord. Let me clarify what I mean by prayer: in this situation, I don’t mean filling the time and space with your words, concerns, and complaints but instead simply waiting in complete silence before the Lord with the simple prayer, coordinated with your heartbeat and/or breathing: “Lord, help… Lord, help… Lord, help.” And don’t be in a hurry to hear something or have a mental epiphany. Let there be silence, go slow, and wait; God makes all things beautiful in His time.

If the pain is like unending torture in your body, mind, or spirit: The most important thing is to find the root cause. Treating the symptoms or simply covering up the pain will not ultimately help.

Find a doctor, a counselor, and/or a pastor to help with the pain in your body, heart, mind, and spirit. Track your pain and what causes it to flare up. With prayer and wise counsel, try and connect the dots to determine what triggers the pain, and then carefully follow the treatment plan. It’s not enough to know what is causing the pain; do the difficult and disciplined work of changing patterns of behavior or circumstances, etc. that are consistently trying to shipwreck your health.

If the past is like a broken record: Pray and then try and practice a type of “temporary amnesia.” Consider how you might respond to this situation if you didn’t have any past experiences (positive or negative) with said situation. Try and look at the present moment as an adventure to be had and the possibility that you are getting ready to receive a moment full of delectable tastes, soothing sounds, majestic views, and satisfying/uplifting experiences. If you had no past experience to compare it to, let us consider the possibility that this forthcoming moment could be a gift from God for our joy or comfort or growth.

If guilt and shame are smothering and suffocating you: Remember that guilt can be a tool from God to lead you away from painful, sinful, and unhealthy behaviors and that shame is most often a weapon utilized by Satan to try to accuse, condemn, steal, kill, and destroy. The answer to both shame and guilt is found in the gospel and person of Jesus who will take our burdens, forgive our sin, cleanse us from unrighteousness, and remove any decrees or accusations against us. Jesus disarms all of our enemies and sets us free. We can receive this freedom as we pray and confess, giving thanks and praise to the One who loves us, died for us, and saves us, as we walk in His holy ways, instead of in the ways of darkness.

Remember in all these things to look at situations and people like Jesus does (with a heart and eyes full of love, desiring the Father’s glory and redemption for all creation).

Also, remember to believe whatever God says about us personally and accept His conviction, promises, warnings, and commands. Though we are often looking for quick and easy answers, let’s learn to wait upon the Lord. We must always remember that God is who He says He is, and He does what He says He will do. We are who God says we are, and we can do what God says we can do.

These few brief words that I have given you today may not serve as an end to the crushing weight and overwhelming oppression that you feel in life, but what I hope my words will do is point you to Jesus and His words, the Bible! And then to the prayer room and to Godly professional helpers so that in partnership with God’s people you can be lifted up, set free, and made new. Then you can live each moment in joy and peace and fulfillment in and with Jesus Christ, our friend and our Savior, as you share the hope with those around you!

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The Gospel Famine

By Rev. Amber Cook

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our out of ten people in the world today have no access to the Gospel.1 FOUR OUT OF TEN. If any statistic should haunt those living in the heritage of the Wesleyan holiness movement, it is this one.

Forty percent of the global population has no access to a Bible, a Christian, or a local church. This “Gospel Famine” not only ranks as the greatest evangelistic challenge for our generation but remains the greatest “social injustice” issue of our time. There is no deeper human need than that of salvation, and four out of ten people have no access to the Gospel. As people who have the call to social holiness in our DNA, we must rise to meet the missiological need around us.

The Joshua Project has been working with evangelical churches and missions agencies around the globe to keep track of “unreached people groups.” These are whole, unique cultural/linguistic groups of people who make up the 4 in 10. The majority of these people are found in what has come to be called the 10/40 window, meaning the area of the globe found between and around the 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north latitude lines in the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. As the small number of Christian missionaries working among these people groups see the first indigenous converts to Christianity, they are measuring progress by markers that should break our hearts: the first Christian wedding ceremony in living memory in a community; the first child of a particular people group for generations to be born into a Christian home; the first indigenous Bible teachers and preachers raised up in a community.2 These are realities that Christians in the Western world take for granted, but

they will not be reality for peoples around the world unless Christ-followers answer the call to global evangelization, leading people to the place of born-again conversion. Not only that, but these realities are being threatened in our own contexts, partially due to a more relaxed posture taken by Christians toward evangelism.

The most disheartening part of our current missionary-sending and overseas giving in the evangelical world is the disparity between how much is sent to those in the 4 in 10 versus the other 6. Even while many missions organizations are becoming aware of this disparity, we still send more people and resources to places where the Gospel is already present. While certainly all people and places are worthy of ministry, funding and partnership, we must not lose sight of our commission to go to ALL people.

As holiness people, we must take this call seriously. The Holy Spirit was not given for our personal holiness alone but to fill us with power for a specific purpose as detailed in Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere — in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”3 As Holy Spirit-filled people, we have the power to see this commission fulfilled. The Lord is still looking for those who, empowered by His Spirit, will be His witnesses to those most disconnected and difficult to reach — the ends of the earth.

The significance of Acts 1:8 is enhanced by a simple three letter word: “and.”4 God’s missional call to bring people to repentance and salvation applies to our home community

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(our Jerusalem), our wider community (our Judea), those close to us geographically but far from us culturally (our Samaria), AND to the ends of the earth. While those in our domestic communities have access to the Gospel (to a Bible, a Christian, and a local church), the gap between our neighbors and the Gospel continues to widen with the ever-increasing secularization and religious pluralization of our society. In a country plagued with division,...

We must be a set-apart people who continue to minister to and with those in our Samaria.

The answer to the missiological need in our day is not simply sending missionaries to the 10/40 Window — it is BECOMING missionaries wherever we find ourselves to whomever God’s Spirit would lead us, both locally AND globally.

People’s lives around us and on the other side of the world are in turmoil and spiritual death. As holiness people, we understand that Jesus offers all people a transformational and eternal hope. We can not allow ourselves to become comfortable “doing church” when people near us OR far from us are ignorantly bound for hell. We have been empowered as witnesses. We have been filled with His power to proclaim the Good News of Jesus. The Church must grasp again her evangelistic mandate; we must make ourselves available to bring those caught in the “Gospel Famine” the relief they most desperately need.

The Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net These progress markers were shared with me in October of 2021 in the context of an interview with a Global Partners missionary serving in a Muslim context. Identity/location cannot be shared due to security concerns.

3 New Living Translation.

4 “The Power of &” is a principle taught by Dr. Dennis Jackson, the Executive Director of Global Partners.

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Rediscovering the

Covenantal Intent

Church Membership of

By Dr. Scott Sherwood

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he Church of the Nazarene’s membership covenant is called the Covenant of Christian Character. Historically, it was known as the “General Rules” and was based very closely on the structure and content of John Wesley’s “General Rules” for Methodist societies from the 18th century. While Wesley never intended for the Methodist societies to become a church, he did view the content of the General Rules as biblically essential to the Christian life.

For Wesley, these were never intended as a list of rules to be followed in order to earn God’s favor. Instead, they were necessary evidences of a life redeemed by the Lord and filled with His Spirit. The Church of the Nazarene presents the Covenant of Christian Character much the same way. In fact, the Covenant of Christian Character paints a beautiful and compelling portrait of the saved and sanctified life. When read as a list of what

the Lord wants to produce in and through a disciple’s life, any sincere Christian would be drawn to any community that purports to help them have this kind of life. It describes the life we all wish our co-workers, and family members, and neighbors would live.

If everyone could somehow find the grace to live this way, God’s will would truly be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

While the Covenant of Christian Character is still the Church of the Nazarene’s official membership covenant, it does not always function as such in local churches and has even been left out of the denominational membership class curriculum and publications entitled “Nazarene Essentials.” What are we missing by allowing our primary membership covenant to fade into disuse? If we understand how the General Rules were designed by John Wesley to function in the earliest Methodist Societies, we will be closer

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to a vision of how the Covenant of Christian Character could function in our churches.

While Wesley’s 1738 “Rules of the Band Societies” consisted of piercing accountability questions, it did not specify for the participants which vices to avoid or which virtues to seek. The publication of the “General Rules” in 1743 was the logical next step to fill this gap. During the four years leading up to the publishing of the General Rules, Wesley had visited the societies at Bristol, Kingswood, and London and found it necessary on several occasions to purge the membership of dozens guilty of “disorderly walking.”1 By 1743, there were ninety-three band societies in London alone, which made assessing discipline very cumbersome. This circumstance led Wesley to “formulate and publish in the course of the year The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle upon Tyne. By doing this Wesley expressed his definitive intentions for all his societies.”2 It is interesting to note that the class meeting developed quite incidentally after the publishing of the General Rules as part of a fundraising effort. When Wesley and his leaders saw the effectiveness of a leader taking responsibility for a small group’s weekly giving, they saw that the strategy could be used for even greater purposes.3 Anyone who wanted to pursue a more disciplined life with God could join “on trial,” as a sort of novitiate during which one tried on this rule of life within the community.4 Wesley intended for these groups to be open to the most irreligious characters as long as they desired to “flee from the coming wrath” and pursue a holy life. Once admitted, participants were expected to fairly quickly show evidence of this desire and were inspected regularly regarding it. Wesley explained it as such:

Nothing can be more simple, nothing more rational, than the Methodist discipline: It is entirely founded on common sense, particularly applying the general rules of Scripture. Any person determined to save his soul may be united (this is the only condition required) with them. But this desire must be evidenced by three marks: Avoiding all known sin; doing good after his power; and, attending all the ordinances of God. He is then placed in such a class as is convenient for him, where he spends about an hour in a week. And, the next quarter, if nothing is objected to him, he is admitted into the society: And therein he may continue as long as he continues to meet his brethren, and walks according to his profession.5

The “General Rules” were necessary evidences of a life redeemed by the Lord and filled with His Spirit.

While it is rare today for any written statement or covenant to function as the central unifying and lifegiving core of a movement, the General Rules “were the basis for everything by which Methodism was known during its formative years.”6 While initiatives in the church today often are handed down with the encouragement to tailor the initiative to one’s own context, Wesley insisted that the General Rules be used “without alteration.”7 The current United Methodist Discipline recognizes the centrality of the General Rules for the early Methodists along with their corresponding practices: In addition to these writings, Wesley established the conference to instruct and supervise the Methodist preachers.

He produced Minutes to ensure their fidelity to the doctrines and disciplines of the Methodist movement. These writings and structures filled out the Wesleyan understanding of the church and the Christian life.8

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There was no better instigator of growth in grace, according to Wesley, than face-to-face relationships centered on helping each other receive grace and live it out.

Wesley’s commitment to the General Rules was not without a willingness to review and alter them. After reviewing the General Rules at Conference in 1756, Wesley wrote that they “did not find any that could be spared. So we all agreed to abide by them all, and to recommend them with all our might.”9 Throughout the ensuing years, his private correspondence to leaders routinely calls them to the Rules.10 He mentioned and extoled the Rules more and more as he grew older.11 This attention most likely shows that he remained personally committed to their centrality and perhaps that he was concerned about them falling into disuse.

While the General Rules themselves along with the corresponding practices would strike most modern Wesleyan Holiness evangelicals as demanding and invasive, their intent was to nurture “an ongoing relationship with God... as a continual growth in love.”12 Wesley was clearly passionate about faith being authentically and fully lived out toward complete “holiness of heart and life.”13 He never saw the Rules as an end in themselves or even as the primary means to that end; instead, he saw them as a biblical standard against which one could regularly compare his own life to ensure growth in grace. Wesley defined Methodists during his life as people who “unite together to encourage and help each other in... working out [their] salvation, and for that end watch over one another in love.”14 Wesley’s General Rules and the practices surrounding them, which is to say the whole of Methodism, was aimed at transformation of character: A Methodist is one who has “the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him;” one who “loves the Lord his God with all

his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength.”

God is the joy of his heart, and the desire of his soul; which is constantly crying out, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee “my God and my all!

Thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever!”15 Toward this end, the literature ascribes a multiplicity of functions to the

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General Rules. It is necessary to understand with some nuance how they functioned in order to safeguard any current use against the dysfunction that would inevitably result from using the same document in substantially different ways.

The General Rules as Discipline Every preacher was held to the General Rules and examined for their adherence, and every new society member received their own copy. As a way of examining the effectiveness of the leaders as well as the adherence of the members, Wesley would sometimes personally examine each society member in detail regarding the Rules, offering extensive explanations to each along the way.16 Further, he trained leaders to conduct “house-to-house instruction of the society members,” the first order of which was to “read, explain, [and]

enforce” the Rules.17 Requiring adherence to the General Rules may have slowed membership growth, but it also galvanized it. While upwards of twenty to thirty thousand would attend the outdoor preaching and scores would attend the societies, there were only twenty thousand members by the 1760s. Newcomers could only attend three times without joining the group. Once someone joined, they underwent quarterly examinations in order to test their continued desire for salvation.18 “This tight discipline resulted in a membership limited to those who were serious about Christian living and were able to demonstrate that concern in specific ways.”19 After all, as Kevin Watson points out, “Wesley’s goal was not to get as many people as he could to pray a certain prayer. Rather, his goal was to get as many people as he could to trust in Christ, not just for one moment, but for the rest of their lives and with all of their lives.”20 To modern ears, “rules” and “discipline” are synonymous with “laws,” but The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church insists that “Wesley rejected undue reliance upon these rules. Discipline was not church law; it was a way of discipleship.”21 Richard Heitzenrater tells the story of a band leader who wrote to Wesley in 1744 about his inability to follow all of the directions “in the strict sense as they are penned.” Concerning the Lord’s Day restrictions, he insisted that cows must be milked and processed since they could not wait until Monday. Wesley’s response was, “Quite right.”22 It is not an entirely settled matter of debate whether Wesley would have insisted on the General Rules as a test for church membership. His insistence that the General Rules do not require anything more or less than Scripture itself may suggest that he would. His allowance for a grace period of sorts between the beginning of someone’s lack of adherence to the Rules and their actual ouster suggests that he may have allowed for some latitude. That he placed so much value upon the therapeutic value of the Lord’s Supper suggests that he may have found a way for individuals to retain church membership, perhaps by means of a penitent band or similar construct. Nevertheless, the current United Methodist Church Book of Discipline suggests that the early American Methodists interpreted Wesley as having just as high a standard for church membership as

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he did for society membership: “Membership in the church was serious business. There was no place for those whom Wesley called the ‘almost Christians.’”23 While it has been the conventional wisdom since before Wesley that the church must allow room for nominal members, John Miley insists that Wesley would do exactly as Methodist polity of his own time (1850) did: class meetings were obligatory, and those who refused to participate were dropped from membership in the Methodist Church; nevertheless, it was made clear that it was for “a breach of rules, and not for immoral conduct.”24 Any expression of church has a responsibility to require its members to do those things constitutive of right relationship with God. A church that leaves it entirely to individual discernment invites an unbiblical antinomianism.

Wesley never demonstrated any interest in establishing a lowest common denominator of expectation for Methodists, nor did he intend the General Rules to be an unattainable ideal toward which everyone would benefit from at least getting closer.

Wesley was convinced that by God’s grace, the vision of the Christian life described in the General Rules was a high and attainable calling.

He did not intend to fashion for God an order of super Christians but instead actual Christians who live out a “disciplined acceptance of the obligations inherent in

responding to grace, the disciple’s participation in the journey of salvation — going on to perfection in love.”25 When addressing what Wesley meant by perfection, Albert Outler offers this quote: The loving God with all the heart, so that every evil temper is destroyed and every thought and word and work springs from and is conducted to that end by the pure love of God and our neighbour.26 It was nonsensical to Wesley that one would be a disciple of Christ without being disciplined by Christ’s body. This discipline is not an attempt to cast out those who do not measure up. It is a method of supportive relationships that foster greater connection with the source of this pure love.

The General Rules as a Conversation The General Rules were intended to function as the centerpiece of a conversation, which in this context is understood as an “interaction among persons seeking God together, and thus an apprehension of divine grace.”27 The conversation that was fostered by the Rules served as the primary means of “watching over one another in love.”28 The purpose of this conversation was not an invasive interrogation but rather “a process of mutual response and support,” since the leader was not immune from accountability.29 There was no better instigator of growth in grace, according to Wesley, than face-to-face relationships centered on helping each other receive grace and live it out.30

The General Rules as a Promise Wesley believed that “every command has the force of a promise... it is not only a direction what I shall do, but a promise of what God will do in me.”31 Thus, the General Rules should also be received as general promises of what God has promised to those who believe.

Wesley not only had confidence in how far down God in His grace would reach in order to save the lost but also in how high God in His grace would lift those who trust in Him. This distinctive of Wesleyan

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theology is powerful, for it allows statements such as the General Rules to have the force of a promise that Christians can help each other realize rather than a legalistic law through which they earn a particular spiritual standing.

positives of God’s presence, and staying plugged in to the pipelines of His presence.

The Rules serve as a poor substitute for God’s Word and God’s presence, but they have proven to be a helpful guide into both.

The General Rules as Both a Pathway to and Product of Divine Presence

The General Rules as the Content of Christian Fellowship

Following all of these rules does not fulfill the promise in and of itself. Wesley said:

Kevin Watson writes that the basic goal of the General Rules and the corresponding practices was to make it more likely that Christians would live out their faith.34 “With this stress on accountability within voluntary societies, the Methodist movement within the Church of England offered an alternative account of what Christian fellowship meant.”35 Wesley argued that “the rediscovery of mutual accountability in fellowship” was the single greatest mark of Methodism:

They well know, that although none can be a real Christian, without carefully abstaining from all evil, using every means of grace at every opportunity, and doing all possible good to all men; yet a man may go thus far, may do all this, and be but an Heathen still.32 “Repentance and its fruits” are themselves the result of grace and will lead to a greater experience of the “healing presence of the Sprit,” which will bring further renewal and transformation.33 The General Rules are designed as helps to holiness through methodical attention to avoiding obstacles to God’s presence, paying attention to the

Wesley not only had confidence in how far down God in His grace would reach in order to save the lost but also in how high God in His grace would lift those who trust in Him.

If it be said... “you destroy the Christian fellowship...,” I answer, That which never existed, cannot be destroyed... Which of those true Christians had any such fellowship with these? Who watched over them in love? Who marked their growth in grace? Who advised and exhorted them from time to time? Who prayed with them and for them, as they had need? This, and this alone, is Christian fellowship: But, alas! where is it to be found? Look east or west, north or south; name what parish you please: Is this Christian fellowship there? Rather, are not the bulk of the parishioners a mere rope of sand? What Christian connexion is there between them? What intercourse in spiritual things? What watching over each other’s souls? What bearing of one another’s burdens? What a mere jest is it then, to talk so gravely of destroying what never was! The real truth is just the reverse of this: We introduce Christian fellowship where it was utterly destroyed. And the fruits of it have been peace, joy, love, and zeal for every good word and work.36

The General Rules as a Preventative to Backsliding Some locales had such numbers of converts in response to field preaching that

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little attempt was made to organize them into societies. Wesley’s account of Pembrokeshire underscores the critical role the General Rules and their corresponding practices played in preventing the once-awakened from falling “faster asleep than ever.”37 Wesley believed that one of the miracles of grace was the restoration of one’s freedom to obediently choose further cooperation with God’s grace, but also to do the opposite.

The General Rules as a PreConversion Guide to “Works Meet for Repentance” During a “Christian conference” in London in 1743, Wesley spoke of the General Rules’ value as a guide to the unconverted to “works meet for repentance:”38 Q. 2. Is faith the condition of justification?

A. Yes; for every one who believeth not is condemned; and every one who believes is justified.

Q. 3. But must not repentance, and works meet for repentance, go before this faith?

A. Without doubt; if by repentance you mean conviction of sin; and by works meet for repentance, obeying God as far as we can, forgiving our brother, leaving off from evil, doing good, and using his ordinances, according to the power we have received.39 Wesley grew into this view in part due to a controversy with the Moravians in 1740 over the “undermining of the fruits of

repentance such as doing good works and using the ordinances of God in the name of faith.”40 Wesley viewed works as a therapeutic cooperation with grace and never as a means to earning salvation. Randy Maddox perhaps captures best this “catechumenate” function: Participation in the society came to serve for newly awakened members like the catechumenate in the Early Church, preparing them for entry into restored relationship with God. As the revival matured it became common for assurance and revitalized spiritual life to come only after participating for a year or more in the foundational levels of the society.41

The General Rules as a PostConversion Preparation for Entire Sanctification As Ted Campbell says it, through these methods “one’s will and affections were progressively transformed, so that by grace a person came to the point where she genuinely disliked evil and genuinely desired to do good.”42 The General Rules had no higher function than this: “to nurture the reshaping of their character into Christ-likeness.”43

The Sustainability of These Functions As has been noted above, Wesley showed increasing concern throughout his life about the commitment of Methodists to the General Rules. This interest may have resulted from a hunch that they were slipping from

What would happen if there were to be a resurgent movement of people covenanting together for mutual support and accountability around an agreed-upon biblical vision of the Spirit-filled life?

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the role he intended them to serve, or from a growing belief in their importance, or both.

Whatever their source, his concerns proved to be well founded. Later in his life, he summed up his greatest concern this way: I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.44

Conclusion What would happen if there were to be a resurgent movement of people covenanting together for mutual support and accountability around an agreed-upon biblical vision of the Spirit-filled life? What would happen if our basic membership covenant, which has its literary roots in John Wesley, also began once again to function as Wesley intended? If we were to focus more on the quality of disciples rather than the quantity, would we lose the quantity all together? Did Wesley?

Rupert Davies, ed. The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 9, The Methodist Societies – History, Nature, and Design (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), 11.

2 Davies, The Works of John Wesley, 11.

3 Davies, The Works of John Wesley, 11. For decades the bands continued as a sub-group of the class meetings, but as the importance of the class meetings increased, the bands decreased. While Wesley never stopped urging their formation, they did not survive far into the nineteenth century.

4 Elaine A. Heath and Scott T. Kisker, Longing for Spring: A New Vision for Wesleyan Community (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2010), Kindle locations 787-788.

5 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 7 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 209.

6 David Lowes Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules: The Form and Power of Methodist Discipleship,” in Aldersgate Reconsidered, edited by Randy Maddox (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), 40.

7 Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules,” 40.

8 The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church 20082012 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009), Kindle locations 2549-2553.

9 Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules,” 40.

10 Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules,” 42.

11 Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules,” 43.

12 Thomas Edward Frank, “Discipline,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, edited by William Abraham and James 1

Kirby (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 247.

Kevin M. Watson. A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley’s General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2009), 38.

14 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 353.

15 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 341.

16 Watson, “Aldersgate Street and the General Rules,” 40.

17 Watson, 41.

18 Richard Heitzenrater, “The Founding Brothers,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, William J. Abraham, James E. Kirby, ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 39.

19 Richard Heitzenrater, “The Founding Brothers,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, William J. Abraham, James E. Kirby, ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 39.

20 Watson, A Blueprint for Discipleship, 37. Kindle Edition.

21 The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church 20082012, Kindle locations 2474-2476; Frank, “Discipline,” 247.

22 Richard Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 153.

23 The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church 20082012, Kindle locations 1592-1596.

24 John Miley, Treatise on Class Meetings (Cincinnati: Swormstedt & Poe, 1854), 74.

25 Thomas Edward Frank, “Discipline,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies edited by William Abraham and James Kirby (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Kindle locations 5790-5792. Frank is quoting David Lowes Watson.

26 A. C. Outler, John Wesley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), Kindle locations 3785-3787.

27 Thomas Edward Frank, “Discipline,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, edited by William Abraham and James Kirby (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Kindle locations 5843-5844.

28 Watson, A Blueprint for Discipleship, 103.

29 David Lowes Watson, The Early Methodist Class Meeting (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1992), 99-100.

30 Kenneth Collins, The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of Wesley’s Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 61.

31 Outler, John Wesley, Kindle locations 4006-4014.

32 Wesley, Addresses, Essays, and Letters, “A Blow at the Root” (1762).

33 Collins, The Scripture Way of Salvation, 61.

34 Watson, A Blueprint for Discipleship, 115.

35 Ted Campbell, Methodist Doctrine: The Essentials, Revised Edition (Nashville: Abingdon, 2011), 73.

36 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 251.

37 Watson, A Blueprint for Discipleship, 107.

38 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 275.

39 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), 275.

40 Collins, The Scripture Way of Salvation, 62.

41 Randy Maddox, Responsible Grace (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1994), 219.

42 Campbell, Methodist Doctrine, 96-97.

43 Maddox, Responsible Grace, 212.

44 Wesley, Addresses, Essays, and Letters, “Thoughts Upon Methodism.”

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R EM NA N T M A G A ZIN E

CONTRIBUTORS

Rev. Jared K. Henry

Dr. Douglas Hopkins

Steven Matlock

Lead pastor of Mackey Church of the Nazarene in Mackey, Indiana and president of the Holiness Partnership

Lead Pastor of Nicholasville Grace Community Church of the Nazarene and president of Bresee Bible College (KY District School of Ministry)

Board Certified Mental Health Coach and director for Journey to Freedom Ministries, a ministry of Columbia Church of the Nazarene in Columbia, Kentucky

Rev. Michael D. Johnson

Rev. Amber Cook

Dr. Scott Sherwood

Writer, speaker, and lead pastor of Liberty Church of the Nazarene in Vilonia, Arkansas

Lead pastor of Grace Fellowship Wesleyan Church in Princeton, Indiana and former Global Partners missionary

President of Nazarene Bible College, a trustworthy partner to Wesleyan Holiness churches in preparing adults for evangelism, discipleship, and ministry to the world

EDITORIAL STAFF Executive Editors Rev. Jared K. Henry Bill Castillo

Managing Editor Mallory Auer

A P RI L 2022

the GATHERING FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

May 3-5, 2022 KC First Church of the Nazarene Kansas City, Missouri

Please Join Us for speakers, workshops, and conversations that will inspire you in these challenging times to live and lead with holiness "for such a time as this."

To learn more and purchase your ticket, visit: theholinesspartnership.com/event-details

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WHO WE ARE The Holiness Partnership is a Christian organization in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.

Our mission is to re-discover the vision and understanding of biblical Christianity, re-emphasize the biblical doctrines of the Holiness church, re-invigorate the local church for mission and evangelism, and re-capture fidelity to biblical truth.

FOLLOW US theHolinessPartnership.com @theHolinessPartnership @theHolinessPartnership @theHPartnership

REACH OUT info@theholinesspartnership.com PO Box 78 Mackey, IN 47654