Susanna Wesley: Her Remarkable Life

by Ray Comfort

The life of Susanna Wesley 1669-1742 is both intriguing and illuminating to explore. This book presents her life in ways that will astound the modern reader. Susanna was brought up in a Puritan home as the youngest of twenty-five children. As a teenager, she became a member of the Church of England. She became the wife of a chronically debt-ridden parish rector in an English village. She said, I have had a large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune. Nonetheless, Susanna managed to pass down to her children Christian principles that stayed with them.

Ray Comfort and Trish Ramos quote from Susanna's many letters and other sources to reveal a true woman of faith, who strongly endured the trials of life. Susanna Wesley: Her Remarkable Life gives readers a generous glimpse into the life of this exemplary wife and mother.

In addition, the authors provide us with contemporary illustrations and faith-building stories that parallel Susanna's experiences of walking out her faith.

Genres: Christian, Biography

161 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2015

About the author

Ray is the Founder and CEO of Living Waters and the best–selling author of more than 80 books, including, Hell's Best Kept Secret, Scientific Facts in the Bible, and The Evidence Bible. He co–hosts (with actor Kirk Cameron) the award–winning television program "The Way of the Master," seen in 200 countries. He is also the Executive Producer on the movies "Audacity," "180," "Evolution vs. God," and others, which have been seen by millions. He and his wife, Sue, live in Bellflower, California, where they have three grown children.

Reviews

[Marci Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this book and I probably would have given it 2 stars but felt at the least the historical content of the life of Susanna Wesley warranted more.

The bad:
- The authors were very repetitive and seemed to not know how to deal with the limited historical information about Susanna Wesley. They would repeat the same quotes and information several times from chapter to chapter.
- There was many discrepancies just in their own information, like that the Wesley’s second child, also named Susanna, died as a toddler but then later they said she grew up and married and her husband left her, or that a daughter was named Martha but called Matty but later said she was called Patty.
- In what I suppose is an attempt to fill the book they include a lot of quotes and excepts from other puritans which is good to understand the context of the time, but then also include quotes from modern day personalities like Michelle Duggar which really detracts from the content and reliability of the authors for me.

The good:
- The authors seem to try to be fair to Susan Wesley and her husband and show an unbiased view of their really trial-filled life. It produced empathy and an ability to just see them as they were as flawed people trying to live during hard times, in a mixture of faith and legalism or moralism.
- It includes prayers and quotes from other puritans which was helpful to see the thoughts which helped form the Wesleys.
- I enjoyed the historical content and was shocked by all the moralism that they lived in and enjoyed hearing about the late in life conversion of Susanna Wesley from rule keeper to forgiven child of God.

I wanted more and hoped that this book would be better written, but it was an easy read and enjoyable.

[D · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book shows the sad state that Arminian theology has towards the saints assurance of salvation or I should say lack of. I wish that was my greatest concern with this book, but shockingly this book advocates for child abuse, specifically the false teaching of the “breaking the will” of the child. Advocating spanking a child before one year of age so hard that they learn not to “cry too loud” . It also advocates Michelle Duggar as a “modern day Susanna Wesley” and is praised in this book for her rigid forms of child rearing, Michelle Duggar is known for her agreeable and association to Michael and Debi Pearl who are known child abusers .
I read this for historical purposes, but could never recommend to anyone due to the potential someone may learn to hurt their child through the teaching in this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book about the life of Susanna Wesley and her family. I loved all the historical content but I especially liked all the rich theological content. Some of it I thought was alittle difficult to read and understand, especially when they quoted Susanna from her letters or someone else from that time period. Because of the way people talked back then and the use of big words:) I loved how the Gospel was presented in it and I loved learning how she taught all her children the truth from a very young age.

[Sam McBratney · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is hagiography at its worst. Very poorly researched with lots of others' work quoted at length for spurious reasons. Avoid!

[Gregsie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me feel like I was reading a poorly written high school research paper. There was more quotations from various sources in the book than there were original thoughts by the authors. The majority of the time the quotes had nothing to do with Susana Wesley. The book was disjointed and repetitive and focused more on the Puritans of the day than on Susana herself.

[Laura A · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book about the life of Susanna Wesley. Such an interesting life. I dropped one star because it contained a lot of research from other authors and sometimes felt the writing let it down slightly.