Three Simple Rules
By Reuben Job
Four Week Study Guide
(All Scripture taken from New Revised Standard Version)
Session I: Charting a New Course
Even as people of faith, we find our lives can be messy, filled with addiction, fretfulness, and fears. John Wesley believed that living a holy and good life required help from a caring community, commitment to the practice of spiritual discipline, and ongoing instruction. For him, the Great Commandment (see below) superseded all others as “a guide to the highest form of faithfulness” (p.9).
Wesley gave the Methodist movement General Rules which were the practical application of what it meant to follow Christ – they were outlined and the people were instructed on them within the class structure. Accountability for practice was centered in the classes that formed the United Societies (pg.17 & Discipline ¶103). Thus, the General Rules became distilled into this behavioral trinity – “Do No Harm, Do Good, Stay in Love with God.” These three simple rules gave new life to the movement (p.17). Living in a new way, becoming a new creation is risky business. It requires sacrifice – the willingness to undergo a radical transformation – it requires creating a way through the wilderness where there was no way before.
Consider this scripture: Mark 12:29-31. Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with your entire mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Read: Preface/ Introduction (pp. 7-17)
Questions:
1. Lack of reconciliation in our world makes our faithfulness to Christ seem inauthentic.
How can we say we are Christians when we behave toward one another the way we do?
2. How are we to listen to Jesus? How are we to live our lives? Is there a better way to practice
our faith that includes and is open to others?
3. Do we look at one another and see ourselves becoming one in Christ? Can others look at us
and see God at work in our lives? Do we have life-giving lives?
4. What is the path to radical faithfulness for you? What does this mean for you? What would it
take for you to be on that road?
5. My desire to “do good” is not limited by the thoughts and actions of others, nor is it controlled
by that of others, for I have decided to follow Jesus! This is also a song that Christians of the
Garo tribe in India sang. Although the author is anonymous, it was translated into the English
language prior to the 1950s. The hymn tune is from an Indian Folk Melody. The words are:
“I have decided to follow Jesus; I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus; No turning back, no turning back.
(2) Though I may wonder, I still will follow…;
(3) The world behind me, the cross before me…;
(4) Though none go with me, still I will follow…;
(5) Will you decide now to follow Jesus?...:”1
How does this song speak to you and your experience? How does it relate to what you just read?
Additional Scriptures
1 Corinthians 13:11-13. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
John 17: 11. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. (Jesus’ prayer)
Colossians 3:12-17. As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Galatians 5:22-26. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
(More information about this tune can be found at www.ajoyfulnoise.net/followJesus.htm)