Customer Reviews

Journal of John Wesley

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wesley was a passionate man, highly emotional. All you have to do is read the reflective writings in this book to see for yourself. At the same time, he was scholarly, analytical, logical. Wesley was deeply spiritual. In sum, he was multidimensional. Fortunately we get to share some of the difficulty he encountered as we read what he went through at various stages of his life.

He agonized over a woman, seeking God's will on the matter. Modern writers would call him a "hopeless romantic." He wrote, "My heart was with Miss Sophy all the time. I longed to see her, were it but for a moment."

Wesley's personal library must have been extensive because in his will, which is included in this book, there are numerous references to books. The man traveled extensively as one on a mission from God. Many lives were positively influenced by this man of God. His legacy remains in books such as this one. For that we can thank God.

John Wesley endured much opposition and persecution to his message of salvation and love through Jesus Christ. His journal reveals a very mortal but spiritual giant of a man. I love this book and will treasure it always. It is one of the best investments I ever made in a Christian or secular book! Beautiful and truly remarkable!

For those interested in reading the daily journals of an outstanding Christian minister and brilliant Christian theologian, these are the books.

Amazing honesty, daily activities, thoughts about a variety of topics etc. are in these pages. A lot of snippets about all kinds of things fill the pages.

John could be brutally honest in talking about himself and his dealings with others, but he could also not completely understand them (witness his dealings with women).

This is the best set of journals I have read, of course I am interested in John Wesley.

J. Robert Ewbank, "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

If you are interested in the origins on Methodism, or the works of a master evangelist, this massively abridged journal of an incredible man, John Wesley, is a great place to start. Originally in multiple volumes, his journals spanning his adult life - covering 50 years & over 100,000 miles of field preaching on horseback, have been condensed into this current form.

It has 2 introductions which nicely cover elements of Wesley's life that are excluded from the rest of the book; such as Wesley's influence and his family life and marriage (mentioned twice in the journal itself that I recall, and even then barely!) The latter 25% of the book is fascinating, either because of the selection of journal entries or Wesley just shared more of his observations and opinions as he got older. His faith in God is compelling and striking and inspiring. His dedication to spread the Word no matter what was against him, his calmness, and ability to not only get back up from being beaten, but with a prayer and forgiveness on his lips (and then to often convert the mob!) was remarkable.

Kindle format review.
- It has a good interactive table of contents, as well as sub-tables of content.
- It has a footnote whenever a spelling or punctuation error was actually original to the journal as Wesley wrote it.
- Some of the footnotes shouldn't be there, they were just old English words not often used or with spellings that have changed since.
- Some of the footnotes are not coded right so look like <=##&&
- There are lot of other distracting typos, such as an exclamation point written as 1 (such as Oh1 instead of Oh!); the letter m written as rn (such as hirn instead of him), words running together and numerous others presumably from bad scanning and little editing.
These are distracting, especially as there's a lot to concentrate on. I hope the publisher will correct these, but don't be put off by them. It's a book worth taking the time to read.

Great history of John Wesley and the Methodist church, but also of how God brings renewal when human institutions begin to take over. This version works well on the Kindle. I recommend also getting his Sermons on Several Occasions - Enhanced Version, also for the Kindle. It has the sermons which he refers to in the Journal. The two work well together.