“Don’t Check Your Brain At The Door“, by Rev. Mike Holly
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a process for reflecting on faith and how we live out our faith from four sources. Those four sources are Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. We are encouraged as United Methodists to reflect on our faith and the difficult questions we face in life using these four sources.
One issue is that the term “quadrilateral” has come to be misleading in that it seems to say that there are four equal sources for building a framework for faith. In fact, one of the main scholars who helped bring the term to the masses regrets ever using the word “quadrilateral.” Instead, we acknowledge that the first sources is the Bible itself. The Scriptures, I have been taught, have everything that we need in order to find faith and to understand how to live out that faith. It is our main source.
However, we should not and really can not interpret the Bible on our own. We need the lessons of those who came before us (the tradition of understanding about the Bible). We also need both our own knowledge and perception as we read the Bible so that we can understand it from our own perspective. While the word “quadrilateral,” may be misleading, the concept of having four sources to help us navigate through the murky and difficult issues of modernity is a beautiful gift given to each of us.
~Mike Holly
The Word
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
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