Customer Reviews

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living

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This is a wonderful little hardcover volume which, if implemented, will revolutionize your life. John Wesley espoused three simple rules: Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. Though these rules sound amazingly simple - and they are - yet to actually practice them may indeed be the hardest thing you've ever done. This small book shows how difficult the instructions of Jesus (and Wesley) can be in real life, and yet how rewarding they can also be both in this life and in the life to come, if we simply take them to heart.

The main point is to stay in love with God. If we do this, the rest will follow. As Bishop Job says, "Holy living will not be discovered, achieved, continued, and sustained without staying in love with God. And while staying in love with God involves prayer worship, study, and the Lord's Supper, it also involves feeding the lambs, tending the sheep, and providing for the needs of others (John 21:15-16). Feeding the lambs and tending the sheep are the signs of love that we exchange with God. And they are signs of the love that the world can understand. Spiritual disciplines not only include practices that bind us to God every day but they also include actions that heal the pain, injustice, and inequality of our world. It is impossible to stay in love with God and not desire to see God's goodness and grace shared with the entire world." (p. 58).

This inexpensive little volume, taken seriously by the Church of Jesus, could well ignite a holy reality that burns hot with the fire of God in our day.

Retired United Methodist Bishop Rueben Job's "Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living" (2007, 77-page pocket sized hardback) is a handy quick read commentary for John Wesley's General Rules. This small book suggests to believers the profound nature of boldly loving God. Indeed, the good bishop is determined that his readers return love for love, in Jesus Christ.

Along with Wesley, Job begins with Deuteronomy 6:5 and Mark 12:29-31 as the biblical warrants for Christian love. We believers are to love God and others unconditionally! This book reminds that there are no other rules for Christians as important.

In three chapters (on doing no harm, on doing good, and on loving God) and one appendix (litanies for the use of prayer in drawing oneself closer to God) pastor Job offers a daily guide that encourages and matures the Christian walk. This is a Wesleyan spiritualist's self-help.

The downside of this great little book is its dearth of stories and illustrations for making the good bishop's points. One wishes for more narrative from Job's long and accomplished career as he speaks for Wesley's rules. A few stories would have barely increased the length of this book while broadened its scope (helping, perhaps, to make the General Rules more preachable and shareable). Narrative scarcity, here, prevents more stars.

This book is recommended to all new to Wesley's General Rules, novice Christians, Christian spiritualists, seminarians, and Christians-in-training.

Several small groups in my church are using this little book, augmenting the book with the DVD in which Bishop Job talks about the three simple rules--Do no harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. We are buying it by the boxful and hope to use it as a starting place in building a congregation that practices the faith in a more deliberate way.

AT MY CHURCH - ST. PAUL'S UNITED METHODIST CHURCH IN NORTHPORT, NEW YORK WE USED THIS BOOK FOR A SERIES OF ADVENT CELEBRATION CLASSES. EVERYONE FOUND IT TO BE INFORMATIVE AND INSPIRING. IT CAN BE READ AND READ AGAIN FOR NEW MEANING..........IF YOU DON'T HAVE A COPY OF THREE SIMPLE RULES GET ONE TODAY...........IT WILL ENRICH AND REFRESH YOUR LIFE......GARY JASINKONIS........EAST NORTHPORT, NEW YORK.....METHODIST MEMBER...............

This is an excellent book. Our church studied it together. We have passed so far over 50 books and the total just keeps growing. We use this as an orientation class to what our church is about and mission.

Bishop Reuben Job has done an excellent job of taking John Wesley's "rules" and updating them for today. Although this is a slender volume, it is very rich in explaining the core of Christian living. I am conducting a group study on this book at my church, and the people are enjoying it. I highly recommend this book for all Christians, even those who are not Methodist.

This is one small book with a great deal of wisdom that everyone needs to have a copy for their own. Great words to live by and a challenge to do so.

Simple and easy to read. Practical advice on how to live the Christian life. Realistic and encouraging. Also some thoughtful ideas about why we often don't follow Wesley's suggestions that we do no harm, do good things, and stay in love with God.

This is a wonderfully "simple" book that turns out to be not so simple at all. The more one gets into it, the more it has to say. It is a very well written book which along with Rev. Jeanne Findley's study guide, has been a blessing to our church's adult study class.

An excellent book for those seeking a closer relationship w/ God. Three Simple Rules provides an understanding of John Wesley's fundamental precepts for living in harmony w/ God. Easy to read. Makes a great source for an advanced Bible study.