Jesus and Paul and John Wesley
November 19, 2009
Perhaps we should raise Christian kids like this. We have the stories of a wonderful man named Jesus. We are told that he brought truth on how to live and was rejected and raised by God to validate his message. The stories are full of excitement and show confusion, although a clear image of his character and what others thought about him. We believe these stories are true, and here is why.
We have the miracle of Saint Paul, the staunch enemy of the followers of this Jesus who reports seeing Jesus-in-the-sky and through that encounter became a totally changed, transformed and new man. The miracle of this man cannot be doubted by unbiased students. This miracle of his transformation becomes the empirical validation of the reported resurrection of this Jesus.
Continuing, the Wesleyan would maintain, we have the experience within us, of coming closer to the presupposed spirit of Christ within us, that we are becoming new people and, extracted from time, can be considered as new people.
The logic then would be: the stories of Jesus are given credence in the miracle of St. Paul, and Christians can find credence to St. Paul within their spirits as they find it easier to love others. This is very Wesleyan, I guess, where there is the thought of the transformation and then the representation of this transformation in the experience of the Christian, e.g., growing in love and acceptance.
Filed under: Christian