Thru the Bible-9

 

Thru the Bible-9 2022. 4. 24.

 

As If the Heart Mattered: A Wesleyan Spirituality (2)

 

Religion of the Heart: OrthoKardia

 Wesley’s vision of Christianity: orthodoxy (right belief), orthopraxy (right action), and orthokardia (right heart).

 Works of piety: praying, searching the Bible, taking the Sacraments, fasting, fellowship of believers.

 Works of mercy: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, assisting the stranger, comforting the afflicted.

 

The Porch of the House: Repentance

 Repentance as “Poverty of Spirit”: humility

 Repentance as “Self-Knowledge”: self-knowledge

 

The Door of the House: Faith

 Wesley went on to say that without faith as a “disposition of the heart”―that is, trust― the intellectual assent had no saving power. But the opposite is also true.

 The faith that is the door of Wesley’s “house of religion” is, as its heart, the specific faith that our sins are forgiven and our broken relationship with God is healed.

 The “door of faith,” is marked with the sign of the cross, and it is only reachable from the porch of repentance. Furthermore, it is only by going through this specific door of the forgiveness of sins that we gain access to the house of holiness.

 

The House itself: Holiness

 Wesley saw holiness as nothing more or less than love. Wesley’s belief that the biblical view of the final goal of life is a life of love.

 Love is clearly the highest virtue in the Scriptures and so characterizes the “house of religion.” Faith is not the end or the highest goal of life; faith is but the door that leads to love, it is the “handmaid to love.”

 Love defined by the total self-giving of Jesus on the cross is radically different from eros. Eros is the word used to describe erotic love in Greek, while agape is the self-giving love of God.

 If all of our behavior can be traced back to this motivation of love, then we have arrived at what Wesley called “Christian perfection.”