|
To Wesleyan Seniors: As your faculty, we know some of
you are thoughtfully preparing for interviews with District Boards of
Ministerial Development (DBMD). Thus, you should be
in the process of examining yourselves seriously in
relation to what The Wesleyan Church believes. To help you, we have
prepared these explanations of two key statements from our 21 Articles
of Religion. Below you will find Article 5 on the Bible and Article
14 on Sanctification. The Wesleyan Articles of Religion are in bold
face type and our narrative explanation is interspersed in regular type-face. We want you to understand not only what The
Wesleyan Church believes, but that we, your Religion faculty, also stand firmly behind these statements. We encourage you to examine these two questions in your head and heart before
meeting with your DBMD. Always your advocate, The |
|
What Wesleyans Believe about the Bible 5. The Sufficiency and Full Authority of the Holy Scriptures for
Salvation a. We believe that the books of
the Old and New Testaments constitute the Holy Scriptures. Wesleyans do not take their cues
from the Quran or the Book of Mormon, nor do we
limit God's word to the Jewish Scriptures, which we call the Old
Testament. We believe that God has set aside the books listed at the
end of article 218 as the Holy Scriptures, the list that Protestants
widely consider to be the "canon"—the "measuring rod"
against which we must measure ourselves. We include the book of James even
though Luther criticized it. We include Hebrews and Revelation even
though it took a while for "all Christians in all places" to come
to agreement on them. We include the Pastoral Epistles and 2 Peter despite
ancient and modern debates over them. At the same time, we exclude other
books from the early centuries like the Shepherd of Hermas
and 1 Clement. It is not that these were not good books—we can
learn much from them—but they were not authoritative Scripture.
Similarly, we can no doubt gain from reading books we omit from the Old
Testament like the Apocrypha. Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and other
early Protestants leave them in. But we Wesleyans
accept as authoritative Scripture only those books that are in evangelical
translations like the NIV, NLT,
or ESV. b. They are the inspired and
infallibly written Word of God… Wesleyans believe
the Bible is inspired. We do not
believe these books were the mere opinions of people in the first century or
ancient And we believe the way
they wrote it was infallible: every word
accomplished and accomplishes what God ordains it to do (Isaiah 55:11).
God's word cannot fail in its purpose. Indeed, we believe that the
words of the biblical authors held an authority they may not even have realized,
as when Paul distinguished what he thought was his opinion from what the Lord
had said (1 Corinthians 7:12). God had purposes for Paul's words of
which Paul himself was not even aware. c. … fully inerrant in their
original manuscripts and superior to all human authority, Wesleyans not only
believe that God inspired and breathed the words of Scripture.
We not only believe that it is infallible and accomplishes everything
it sets out to do. We also believe that when it sets out to affirm a
truth, it is inerrant in what it
affirms. Some Wesleyans take these affirmations very narrowly, so might even go
to great lengths to show that the earth has four "corners"—bumps
where the globe is out of round (as in Revelation 7:1). Others think God revealed the truths of the
Bible more in the categories of its original audiences, so that we are
liable to misunderstand it if we try to force
modern categories of science, psychology, or economics on it. But we all strongly believe that the affirmations
of Scripture are the affirmations of God, which trump any preacher or
supposed human authority that might
contradict it. We speak here of original
manuscripts because
we do not assign inerrancy to a particular version or translation of the
Bible. We refuse to diminish the gospel by arguing over which
translation of the Bible to use. We do not have the original
manuscripts, the original papyri on which Paul or James wrote. But we refuse to get contentious over those few places
where ancient manuscripts might vary from one another. d. … and have
been transmitted to the present without corruption of any essential
doctrine. We may not have the original
manuscripts of the Bible, but we have no doubts
about the faithful transmission of the
Bible through the years. You can confidently root your faith and
practice in the Bible as we have it today. At the same time, we do not rest
any important practice or doctrine on such a narrow basis as a single
biblical text. So we need not fret over a practice like snake handling,
which rests on a single verse in a contested text (cf. Mark e. We believe that they contain
all things necessary to salvation; so that whatever is not read therein, nor
may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man or woman that it
should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or
necessary to salvation. A person does not need a handbook
to the Bible, a Manual or denominational Discipline to figure out
how to be saved. It is all right there in the Bible for the Holy Spirit
to show you. We believe the Bible has in it all things necessary to
salvation. We believe no church can require
as an article of faith something that the Holy Spirit has not revealed
in the Bible. Certainly, God has worked through the ages to make the
full implications of Scripture clear to the church, such as in the doctrine
of the Trinity. But God sowed the seeds of
these common beliefs in the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit unfolded
these beliefs as the church meditated on the meaning of Scripture. Some of our church rules and
preferences are not necessary to salvation, despite the fact that we
require them of our members. Our membership commitments are the way we
apply the values of the Bible to living a holy life in our own generation,
and these values work out differently as society changes. But we need believe no other doctrine or follow any
other practices than what God has revealed in Scripture in order to be saved.
Although we sometimes require our members to live in ways that are
beyond the explicit teachings of the Bible (e.g., not holding slaves,
abstaining from alcohol), we believe these are not requirements for salvation. Of course
the task of determining what the Bible affirms is not just an individual
task, as if the import of the Bible is a matter of personal opinion. It
is a path that we as the church have trod for two millennia and that we
continue to tread. The Wesleyan Articles of Religion are an embodiment
of our core conclusions as Wesleyans. f. Both in the Old and New
Testaments life is offered ultimately through
Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and humanity. Wesleyans do not believe people in the Old Testament were saved by works, while we
are now saved by faith. We believe that all people in all times have been saved in the same way—through Christ.
Even the priests and sacrifices of the Old Testament looked forward to
the only Mediator between God and humanity: Christ. Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses were saved
by Christ just as we are today. g. The New Testament teaches
Christians how to fulfill the moral principles of the Old Testament, calling for
loving obedience to God made possible by the indwelling presence of His Holy
Spirit. Wesleyans believe that the New
Testament shows us the moral principles of the Old Testament, which
Jesus and the New Testament summarize as the love of God and others.
God demands from us a life of loving obedience that is
made possible by the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit.
Distinctive of our fellowship is the strong belief that God does not demand
of us what He does not equip us to do. God not only commands loving
obedience of us. Wesleyans believe He empowers us to do it. To Wesleyans the
Bible shows us what God is like, and Christ shows us how to live. Wesleyans do not argue much about
statements of faith or doctrinal matters because we are especially interested
in loving obedience to God that issues in holy living. Wesleyans offer
their hand in fellowship to all kinds of people who love God and love
others, for we believe the Bible was given to us to teach sound doctrine
and to inspire sound, holy living which only the indwelling presence of
His Holy Spirit can make possible. h. The canonical books of the Old
Testament are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua,
Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of
Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos,
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachi. The canonical books of the New
Testament are: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians,
2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1
Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation. Wesleyans list here
the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, the books that are the
measuring rod of our faith, the Holy Scriptures, the God-ordained sacrament
of revelation. |