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No ‘Half Christian’: The Amazing Life and Legacy of John Wesley¹

By William P. Farley

On April 2, 1739, a thin, 5-foot, 2-inch, 36-year-old Anglican priest mounted a small eminence in a brickyard just outside Bristol, England. An Oxford graduate, he had been trained to do all things with decency and order. Decency did not include field preaching. But three things motivated him to break with convention: God had been blessing the field preaching of his friend, George Whitefield; most churches had shut their doors to him; and he was consumed by a passion to reach the lost.

The weather was probably cold and rainy. The sermon was most likely long and hard to hear, but 3,000 came to listen, and many were converted. "As soon as he got up to the stand," wrote one listener, "he stroked back his hair and turned his face toward where I stood, and I thought he fixed his eyes on me. When he spoke, I thought his whole message was aimed at me. When he finished I said, ‘This man can tell the secrets of my heart.’ "²

And so began the long, fruitful, amazingly productive ministry of John Wesley (1703–91). From his earliest days, he had made up his mind to never be what he called "half a Christian." He wasn’t. During the next 52 years, he rode over 250,000 miles by horseback (averaging 4 hours per day, 7 days per week in the saddle). He preached an average of 2 sermons per day, answered immense correspondence, wrote a complete commentary on the Bible, edited and published a Christian library in 50 volumes, read omnivorously, wrote book reviews on contemporary literature, trained hundreds of men for the ministry, and gave pastoral oversight to an exploding parachurch organization that would later become the Methodist church.

Of him J.C. Ryle wrote: "Those only who read the Journals he kept for 50 years can have any idea of the immense amount of work that he got through. Never perhaps did any man have so many irons in the fire at one time, and yet succeed in keeping so many hot . . . . He wrote as if he had nothing to do but write, preached as if he had nothing to do but preach, and administered as if he had nothing to do but administer."³

Of himself, Wesley wrote: "Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry, because I never undertake more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit."⁴ This rest, coupled with his intense singleness of purpose, was the secret of his spiritual productivity.

Early Years

Wesley’s upbringing had a great deal to do with his usefulness to God. Born in 1703, in Epworth, England, to Samuel and Susannah Wesley, John was the 15^th of 19 children. His father, the village Episcopal priest, came from sturdy Puritan stock. John’s grandfather and great-grandfather suffered rejection during the same persecution that imprisoned John Bunyan. Our hero grew up with a mixture of Spartan discipline and tender affection—the same crucible that produced many of history’s great Christian leaders.

He attended Oxford and was ordained in his 20s. At age 27, he and his brother, Charles, organized a group of students to encourage one another in mutual growth in holiness. They visited prisons, prayed constantly, gave alms to the poor, and met for prayer and Bible study. The other students derisively nicknamed them the "holy club."

Despite these exertions, he was still not converted. Depending on his good works, good intentions, and personal efforts for God’s acceptance, he knew from intimate experience the agony of bondage to the Law. He had zeal without knowledge, and suffered incessant guilt, feelings of inadequacy, and fear of death.

At age 32, he sailed with his brother to the state of Georgia in the United States to evangelize the Indians. En route the ship passed through a terrible storm. Huge waves crashed over the deck, even shattering the main mast from its base. Wesley thought he was going to die. He was terrified because he lacked peace with God.

He couldn’t help contrasting his panic with the peace and calm of 26 Moravian missionaries also onboard. Wesley didn’t possess the new birth that assured and calmed them, but he wanted what they had. After 2 years of fruitless missionary efforts in Georgia, he returned to England convinced that he needed conversion just as much as the Indians he was seeking to evangelize.

Age 35, and an ordained Anglican priest for over 10 years, he went to an evening meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. "Someone was reading Luther’s preface to the epistle to the Romans," he later wrote. "About a quarter before 9, while he (Luther) was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ; Christ alone, for salvation . . . . He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."⁵

Wesley was a new man. The longer and deeper one has been in bondage to self-justification, the greater the joy of salvation by faith alone. Within a few months he preached the Bristol sermon with which this article opened and launched, in the power of the Holy Spirit, a 52-year ministry that changed the course of English history.

The Man

God gave John Wesley several unique qualities that deserve consideration. First, he placed a tremendous emphasis on preaching. He saw clearly that this was the first work of any servant of God. Sunday, April 8, 1739, is illustrative. At 7 a.m. he preached to about 1,000 in Bristol. A little later in the day he preached to 1,500 in the open air on the top of Hannam-Mount in Kingswood. Still later that day he preached to 5,000 at Rose-Green. Two days later he went to Bath where he preached three more times to similar crowds. All this with no microphones, shouting into the wind and elements in the open air.⁶

Second, God’s power was with him. Despite the fact he was an average preacher, it was not unusual for people to be tremendously affected by the Holy Spirit’s convicting presence. The following entry in his diary was typical: "Many of those that heard began to call upon God with strong cries and tears. Some sank down, and there remained no strength in them."⁷ Neither Wesley’s gifts nor personality explain these results. He depended completely on God’s supernatural anointing, and God dispensed it liberally throughout his ministry.

Third, he was courageous. He feared no man. God’s anointing brought tremendous persecution. Crowds were often difficult and violent. "As soon as we went out," Wesley said of one place, "we were saluted, as usual, with jeers and a few stones and pieces of dirt."

"Wesley and his friends," wrote one biographer, "were often attacked by gangs armed with clubs, whips, bricks, stink bombs, wildfire, or rotten eggs. Sometimes bulls were driven through the audience or horsemen overrode them."⁸ In the face of this terrific opposition Wesley pressed forward, always seeking first the kingdom of God—like Paul, fearless. (Notice the contrast between the new Wesley and the fear-filled unbeliever in the Atlantic storm.)

Wesley’s boldness also appeared early in his ministry when he returned to his hometown. When the village rector who had replaced his deceased father refused to let him preach because of his enthusiasm, he mounted his father’s grave that was next to the church and preached to a substantial crowd in the open air with momentous results.

Fourth, he was always a loyal Anglican. He did not want to start a new church. Although thousands were saved through his ministry, he ran it as a parachurch organization within the Church of England. This was a weakness. He refused to recognize what was really happening—God was calling out a people for himself from within a dead church structure. After his death, his followers broke away from Anglicanism and formed the Methodist church. It numbers over 9.7 million members today, but for the most part, the anointing of Wesley is gone.

Lessons From the Life of Wesley

What can we learn from the life of John Wesley? First, the hand that rocks the cradle often rules the world. John and Charles Wesley owed most of what they were to their mother’s diligent training, high moral expectations, pious example, and hours of spiritual instruction. As she toiled to raise 19 children, I am sure she often lost sight of the truth that God was using her in a special way, but He was.

Second, God sometimes retains men in the misery of unbelief to amplify the joy and privilege of conversion when it finally comes. Like Luther before him, and Spurgeon after him, when Wesley saw justification by faith alone, the relief and joy overwhelmed him. It was the defining moment of his life, and his preaching continually related back to the reality of his joy in the free and sovereign grace of God.

Third, truth is unfashionable to the degree that God’s power impels it. Wesley knew persecution in direct proportion to the power of God resting on him. We have little persecution because we have little power. Most of us are no threat to the devil. But if God gave us Wesley’s spiritual power—the power to shake this nation—all hell would break out against us, just as it did for John.

Fourth, from John’s life we learn the priority of preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit. God shook England through the dynamic of His Word proclaimed by John with passion and conviction. This has always been God’s pattern, and it will never change. There are no great awakenings without God-empowered preaching.

Fifth, Wesley’s life reminds us there is a place for the unmarried minister in God’s kingdom. Wesley married Molly Vazeille at age 47. It was a mistake, and though they never divorced, eventually they separated. His calling was probably not compatible with marriage. He was always on the road, constantly busy, and single-mindedly committed to the expansion of God’s kingdom. He could not give the time and attention to a wife that marriage vows demand. Quite possibly God had called John to the single life.

William P. Farley Pinnacle Communications, Spokane, Washington. For His Glory, by William Farley, can be ordered from Pinnacle Press, P.O. Box 8146, Spokane, WA 99203.

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