St. Matthew's UMC - Madison, MS

One of the gifts the United Methodist Church offers to the wider world is our way of life, our United Methodist "ethos." It is how we deeply tie our holiness to love and God and Neighbor through the way we theologically reflect. We are a people of a method, examining Scripture through the lens of tradition, experience, and reason. This method is often called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral and is one of the keys to understanding how we "do" theology.

We believe that our emphasis upon Scripture, as interpreted by tradition, reason, and experiences, along with our understanding of the open table, produces the type of generous of spirit Christians that our world so desperately needs today. As much as it has been a source of derision by some, this method of Biblical interpretation, where Scripture is primary but is rightly interpreted through the tradition handed down to us, as well as our human reason and experience, is at the foundation of how I understand and interpret God's Word. Our understanding of the Holy Scripture is at the very core of how we understand God, the world, and, well, everything. How we understand the Bible and how we share the Good News of Jesus is what has and continues to draw many to United Methodism.

In this Sermon Series "Balance' we will examine the Wesleyan Quadrilateral as a means of theological reflection, as our means to understanding who God is, who we are, and what our mission is in the world. Join us as we unpack together who we are.

Andy gives a deeper look at the Quadrilateral in this essay entilted Balance.

January 14, 2024 - Balance

Click here for Sermon Notes

Our Traditional Message