In 1756 John Wesley wrote out his exhortations for pastors in his charge in a booklet entitled Address to the Clergy<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And let’s just say Wesley had high <\/b><\/i>standards for preachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
For instance: Along with his studies of Greek and Hebrew and Latin and various sciences, the ideal preacher should also have “some knowledge of geometry”.<\/p>\n\n\n
I kid you not.<\/p>\n\n\n
Nevertheless, I did find within Wesley’s Address some advice that would set the American church back on a proper course, if it were to be followed. Wesley says the pastor must be kind but tough. Never shrinking away from confronting sin:<\/p>\n\n\n
“Should not compassion, should not tenderness, hinder us from giving pain? Yes, from giving unnecessary pain. But what manner of tenderness is this? It is like that of a surgeon who lets his patient be lost because he is too compassionate to probe his wounds. Cruel compassion! Let me give pain, so I may save life. Let me probe, that God may heal.”<\/p>\n\n\n
Progressive Christianity pats American culture on the head and says, “God loves you just the way you are.”<\/p>\n\n\n
This has the appearance of love and compassion, but it is not.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Let the pastor probe, that God may heal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1756 John Wesley wrote out his exhortations for pastors in his charge in a booklet entitled Address to the Clergy.\u00a0 And let’s just say Wesley had high standards for preachers.\u00a0 For instance: Along with his studies of Greek and Hebrew and Latin and various sciences, the ideal preacher should also have “some knowledge of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9558,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557\/revisions\/9558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}