John Wesley — "I have often thought, that if I were to choose a text to preach from, it should …"
I have often thought, that if I were to choose a text to preach from, it should be 'God is love.'
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More from John Wesley
"The first thing that I would advise you to do, is, to get a clear and distinct notion of the state of the world."
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"I have been writing a sermon on the use of money. Oh, what a flat, unprofitable subject it is!"
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About John Wesley (1703-1791)
English Anglican cleric and founder of Methodism, whose open-air preaching and class-meeting structure created the largest 18th-century evangelical revival. Closely associated with Charles Wesley (his hymn-writing brother) and George Whitefield (early co-revivalist, later doctrinal opponent). For an intellectual contrast, see George Whitefield, Calvinist evangelical revivalist — Whitefield's predestinarian Calvinism vs Wesley's free-grace Arminian theology split the early Methodist movement permanently in the 1739-41 break. The founding evangelical Calvinist-Arminian schism — the two parallel evangelical traditions American Christianity descends from.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
If forced to choose a single biblical text as the foundation of all his preaching, Wesley would pick 'God is love.' This reveals his conviction that love — not doctrine, ritual, or church hierarchy — is Christianity's irreducible core. Everything else in the faith flows from this one truth. It's a declaration that religion's highest purpose is not fear or rule-following, but recognizing and practicing divine, unconditional love.
Relevance to John Wesley
Wesley founded Methodism partly in reaction against cold, formalistic Anglican worship, insisting faith must be felt in the heart. His doctrine of 'entire sanctification' taught that Christians could be perfected in love — transformed so love governed every thought and action. He preached over 40,000 sermons, often outdoors to the poor and working class. Selecting 'God is love' as his supreme text perfectly captures his theology: salvation is about love, not institutional membership.
The era
Wesley preached when the Church of England was widely seen as rigid, elitist, and disconnected from ordinary people, while Enlightenment thinkers challenged religious authority with reason and science. The early Industrial Revolution created massive urban poverty and social dislocation. Emphasizing 'God is love' was Wesley's counter-argument: faith should be warm, personal, and transformative. It also grounded his famous social activism, including fierce opposition to slavery and hands-on ministry to miners and factory workers.
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