I've been diving into Mark Olson's annotated edition of Wesley's 'A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,' and it's like having a theological GPS for Wesley’s dense writings. The annotations don’t just explain—they connect dots across Wesley’s sermons, letters, and even his lesser-known works. It’s scholarship that feels alive, not dusty.

One night, I cracked open the book during a small-group Bible study on holiness. When someone asked, 'But how is perfection even possible?', I flipped to Olson’s footnote comparing Wesley’s 1725 diary entries with his later sermons. Suddenly, we weren’t just debating—we were tracing Wesley’s own spiritual evolution. That’s the magic here: it turns abstract theology into a conversation.

I do wish the full sermon texts were included (you’ll still need your Works of Wesley nearby), but Olson compensates by unpacking key phrases like 'altogether Christians' with cultural context. Did you know 18th-century Anglicans heard that term completely differently than we do? These aren’t just trivia—they reshape how you read every page.

Fair warning: this isn’t light devotional material. I tried reading it with my morning coffee and kept reaching for a highlighter instead of my toast. But when prepping a sermon on Matthew 5:48 ('Be perfect...'), Olson’s cross-references to Wesley’s debates with Calvinists became my secret weapon. The ebook version? Lifesaver—tap a footnote, and it jumps to the expanded endnote without losing your place.

For fellow Wesley nerds: Olson spots subtle shifts in how Wesley describes 'sin remaining' versus 'sin reigning' across decades. It’s like watching a theologian refine his thoughts in real time. If your bookshelf has Lindström or Maddox, this belongs beside them—not as a replacement, but as a fresh lens that makes familiar texts spark new insights.