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John Wesley’s Three Rules Quoted
As it turns out, before Wesley settled on “Do no harm, do good, attend to the ordinances of God,”
the three rules were:
Show up every week
Arrive on time
Start on time
Wesley Never Said 'Do All the Good You Can.' And It Matters That We Keep Saying He Did.
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can…" is not a Wesley quote — it appears nowhere in his sermons, journals, or letters — and its popularity is not harmless, because it replaces Wesley's actual first rule, "do no harm," with unconstrainted interventionism, and that reversal has theological consequences.
"Do No Harm”: How it became Wesley's Prime Directive, and then Standard Medical Practice
If you grew up Methodist — or anywhere near Methodist — you've heard the three General Rules.
Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God.
They sound like a bumper sticker. They're not. They're a protocol. And the ordering matters more than almost anyone realizes.
I used to think "do no harm" was just a nice way to start a list. Like stretching before a run. Important, sure, but the real work was in the next two — do good, stay in love with God. The action stuff. The exciting stuff.
Then I became a hospital chaplain.
"No Harm" Preaching: Three Principles for Not Accidentally Destroying Someone on Sunday Morning
I preached a Mother's Day sermon at a retirement facility once.
I thought I did a good job.
I was careful. I knew I had my own stuff about family — who doesn't — and I thought I'd kept it out of the sermon.
Stayed positive. Stayed theological. Didn't go anywhere near the personal stuff.
What is a Wesleyan Bible Study
A Wesleyan Bible study is a style — not a denomination, not a politics, not a club — but a style of rigorously faithful reading of scripture, built on John Wesley’s instructions: show up, do no harm first, read Scripture through four lenses, keep the table open, and trust that grace was already moving before you arrived.
One Chaplain's Definition of “Harm”
I know what you're thinking. "Do no harm" sounds like it could mean anything. And you're right — if I don't tell you what I mean by harm, then anyone can fill in their own definition and use it against whoever they want. "Being gay does harm." Done. Framework dismantled.
In other words, I could just point at whatever my opponent is doing, and say “look! That’s harm!”
So let me share a definition of harm.
Not from a theology book. From a hospital.
In the hospital, you learn something about life that changes how you see everything else. You learn that in a clean, nourishing, safe environment, life tends toward certain things. Wounds tend to heal. Muscles tend to relax when the situation relaxes. Hearts tend to hear each other when the room is quiet enough.
You don't make a wound heal. You can't force it. But you can stop making it worse. You can clean the environment. You can remove the thing that's still cutting. You can let the body do what bodies do when they're given half a chance.
That's what I mean by harm: the thing that's still cutting.
And that's what I mean by "do no harm": first, stop making a messy situation worse.