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Showing posts with label 22 questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 22 questions. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2015

22 questions from the "Holy Club" of the Wesleys, John and Charles

John Wesley, with his brother, Charles, founded the Holy Club at Oxford University, which was the forerunner of the Methodist Church. (See here for more on the Holy Club.)

One feature of the group was the use of accountability questions. I have been unable to determine whether what follows is an actual list, or closely based on a list -- if it were, it would be public domain -- from the early days of the Holy Club, but here is a list of such questions:



These are 22 questions, probably quite similar to, or identical with, the questions that members of John Wesley’s “Holy Club” asked themselves every day in their private devotions, over 200 years ago.
1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
4. Can I be trusted?
5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
7. Did the Bible live in me today?
8. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
9. Am I enjoying prayer?
10. When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
11. Do I pray about the money I spend?
12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
13. Do I disobey God in anything?
14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
16. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
17. How do I spend my spare time?
18. Am I proud?
19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
20. Do I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard anyone? If so, what am I doing about it?
21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
22. Is Christ real to me?

Thank you for reading. I heard of this list a couple of weeks ago, and have been using it since.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Sunspots 520

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:


Christianity: (and politics) Christianity Today has an essay on the Indiana so-called religious freedom law, The essay points out some serious exaggerations by at least two sides in the argument over the law, and gives some good advice to Christians on the future of same-sex relationships in the US.

The 22 questions that John Wesley wanted Christians to ask themselves every day. (Public domain, and available from several other sites.)
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware recommends a web site that compares anti-virus software.
Ethics: A New York Times columnist writes about a "Moral Bucket List." He says that there are two kinds of virtues, "the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues," and we reward the first kind, but they really don't matter as much as the "eulogy virtues."
Politics: An essay on "taking the county back." The author says that Jesus didn't, and Israel, at that time, had really been taken from the Jews, in many senses.
Science: Wired tells us that honeybees aren't going to go away, but about 4,000 other species of bees are in danger.
Wired also reports on a creature known as the disco clam -- it produces flashes of light. The report has a couple of brief videos.
Sports: FiveThirtyEight presents an argument that Women's NCAA basketball is better than men's basketball.

Image source (public domain)