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- 1. Life Of St. John In Outline
Daniel Steele
Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.
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Daniel Steele preaches about the life of the apostle John, highlighting his close relationship with Jesus as a first cousin, his youthful enthusiasm, intense insight, and special favor from the Lord. John, along with his brother James, possessed a fiery temperament and were known as 'sons of thunder' for their swift and vehement proclamation of the truth. John's perspective was focused on the divine side of events, seeing everything as contributing to the manifestation of the sons of God, the hope of the world, based on his personal experiences and revelations of the Son of God.
1. Life of St. John in Outline
THE facts relating to this eminent apostle which are recorded in the New Testament are soon told. He was the son, apparently the youngest son, of Zebedee and Salome, the sister of the Virgin Mary, "the mother of the Lord." Hence he was a first cousin to Jesus, the Messiah. There is reason for the widely spread belief that he was the junior of the other apostles, and by reason of his near kinship, his youth and his natural enthusiasm, his intensity of thought, of speech, of insight, and of life, he became the special favorite of our Lord Jesus. Like the other apostles, except Judas, the traitor, John was a Galilean. The fact has a moral value, inasmuch as it separated him from the political intrigues and demoralizing speculations rife in Jerusalem. He retained the simple faith and stern heroism of earlier times. With his brother James he shared the ardor of the Galllean temperament fitly described by the epithet Boanerges, sons of thunder; which their Master early applied to them. From this we understand that they were very effective speakers, swift, startling and vehement in the utterance of the truth like fire shut up in their bones. John regards everything on its divine side. He sees all events, the past and the future, contributing to the manifestation of the sons of God, the sole hope of the world. Of this he had himself been assured by ocular evidence and inward revelation of the Son of God, like that which thrust Paul into the Christian ministry. He could say: "We have seen and do testify." He produced conviction not by labored argument, but by confident affirmation
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Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.