In this post, I'd like to introduce you to a book by Dallas Willard, of blessed memory, titled Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (HarperOne, 2009). We will not grow to maturity if we do not grapple with and grasp this book's thesis: knowing Christ is real knowledge, not simply believing in him.

Dallas Willard was a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California for more than forty years, up to his death in 2013. (If you don't know much about Willard, I recommend this moving tribute from his friend and another well-known author, Richard Foster: https://dwillard.org/about/richard-foster). Willard was best-known in Christian circles for his spiritual writings. I'll mention just two before getting to the point of this blog post: The Divine Conspiracy is an extended reflection on the Sermon on the Mount. I highly recommend it. The Renovation of the Heart, details how God's grace transforms us, or, in other words, how we are...

This blog post comes on an important day in the Christian view of history. Today is Ascension Day, the day we commemorate Christ's taking his place at the right hand of the Father. Ponder scriptures like these:

Psalm 47:9, "The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted."

Notice the change from plural to collective singular. The peoples become the people of God. And the military metaphors. The princes of those peoples, by implication, recognize that their power comes from and belongs to God. Their shields belong to God. He is the final authority. 

"Matthew 28:18, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

When Christians read verses like Psalm 47:9, we recognize that Christ is the fulfillment of that vision. Matthew 28:18 is a good example of the reason why we think so. Indeed, the whole New Testament orients itself around the conviction that Christ is Lord. He...

A recurring challenge in faithful Christian discipleship is having a true and realistic grasp on understanding twin aspects of our human condition. First, God created us good, in his image. We are God's beautiful image bearers. But second, something has gone dreadfully wrong with human nature. What is it that troubles us? What does God judge as "not good" in our human condition as lived in daily expression?

We could come at this point from several directions. Here I mention two verses from Psalms. 51:3 (New Revised Standard) says, "Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me." This verse is often quoted in relation to the concept of original sin. It's poetic language, we remember, and we need not read it overly literalistically to see David's point. There is a weakness in our "flesh" from the time we enter human experience that troubles us and derails our best intentions.

Psalm 78 is a long one reflecting on Israel's history as God's chosen but errant people. The...

I want to return to a theme that has been core to the Spiritual Maturity Project from its inception. It is a point so crucial to vital Christian growth, yet so easily misunderstood. To grow spiritually necessitates growing in understanding. To grow in understanding requires time, patience, and sustained study. There are no shortcuts.

Immediately, a question comes to mind: "Grow in understanding what?" Here we must pay special attention. Two key parts of the answer always must stay together. We grow in understanding the doctrinal and ethical content of the Christian faith, but that content is not a bunch of disembodied abstractions. The content of the Christian faith flows from Jesus Christ himself, from his life and teaching. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me..." (Mt. 11:29).  "But we have the mind of Christ" (1  Cor. 2:16). Understanding the doctrinal and ethical content of the Christian...

The start of another new year easily brings out the reflective side of human nature. We naturally think about possibilities, about how the upcoming year will turn out, about what we need to do differently to make life better. Given our human nature, this taking stock and envisioning a desired future comes to us almost as naturally as breathing.

To reach those desired ends, we set goals. What is not so clear is that those goals all flow toward a final one, an ultimate goal. In all our goal-setting is the intuition toward something full, ideal, perfect.

The Christian life has a goal. We easily think of it as heaven, but do we understand the Bible's portrayal of heaven? Where are we going when we go to heaven? We typically ask, "What is heaven like?" but maybe a better question is, "What kind of person will I be in heaven? How will I feel and see and experience life in heaven?" (You may be interested in our free mini-course (4 sessions) on this topic. Go to: ...

Permit me to riff on a popular Christmas song. It's the most mysterious time of the year.

Yes, it is definitely a wonderful time of the year, and I pray that your Christmas celebrations are full of joy. But let us take time to ponder the mystery. The Christian faith bears witness to a truly unprecedented event: the Creator God, the one true God, takes human nature. Immanuel has come to dwell with people. 

This basic message about the nature of Jesus the Messiah, standing out across the pages of the New Testament, sets in motion a chain of logic. Further searching leads us to see God's nature as Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - each operating distinctly but in unity of nature and purpose. We Christians are so accustomed to talking of God this way that we grow numb to the staggering reach of the vision. 

We can never grow weary of pondering the mystery. So, as a little exercise, let me offer this item from my own practice. In my morning prayer time, I use the daily...

For a long time, and in many readings of Luke 5 (or Mark 2 or Matthew 9), I have pondered the meaning of "new wine in old wineskins" (vs. 37-38). Jesus responds to the religious leaders disputing with him about certain practices, "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins."

Right away, questions press upon us about what Jesus means. What is the new wine? What is the old? What is the new wine compared to the old? Why does Luke 5 conclude with the observation that people prefer the old wine to the new wine? What does he mean by new wineskins? What is supposed to be our takeaway from this passage? 

Since I am now pastoring a congregation after so many years in higher education, I am thinking again about Jesus' references to wineskins and wine. But it is not only pastors who need to think about what Jesus is saying here, for his words...

An important part of growing spiritually is to practice stretching ourselves through reading. (Listening is also important, but it doesn't replace reading.) To move increasingly in the direction of Christlikeness, we need to expand our knowledge of teaching and content associated with the Christian life.

At Spiritual Maturity Project, we are building a resource to help people go ever deeper in their reading habits. At our web site, if you click on the "Resources" link at the top of the main page (https://www.spiritualmaturityproject.org/), it will take you to another page with several icons, one of which is "Publications." If you click on that icon, and then scroll down past the short video I did on reading the Bible well (take a few minutes to watch the video!), you will find our "Reader's Library" (https://www.spiritualmaturityproject.org/publications). You will see a list of books categorized into various fields of study, such as "Bible" or "theology." Each book comes with a...

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help people grow deeply in understanding the contents of the Bible. "Searching the Scriptures," as John Wesley often called the habit, is a means of grace for us to develop in faith, yet something seems to put a chill on this practice for far too many people. One reason has to do with a faulty assumption about the Bible and Bible reading. We have a long history in the West of assuming that the Bible is perfectly clear and that anyone can read and understand with little difficulty. As we gain familiarity with larger and larger swaths, however, the more we find the Bible putting real pressure on these easy assumptions. Consequently, too many people feel very unsure about how to understand the Bible, which inhibits reading, thereby worsening the insecurity and reinforcing the hesitance even to try reading it.

Take this example of two sets of verses, one well-known one from Psalms 8 and another, from Job 7:

(Ps. 8:3-5, NRSV), "When I look...

One very illuminating way to read the book of Acts is under this theme: "The Resurrected Jesus is King and He's Taking Over." This theme may sound too aggressive, somehow inappropriate for Christian thought, especially with our worries about how the faith is used to promote violence at times. The tricky part, then, is to stay clear exactly how Jesus takes over. A handful of snapshots to illustrate.

The events of Acts 2 through 8 take place in and around the temple area in Jerusalem. Peter preaches the Pentecost sermon there, proclaiming Jesus as Lord (ch. 2). The lame man receives healing and enters the temple with Peter and John, "walking and leaping and praising God" (ch. 3). His healing gets the crowd's attention and Peter preaches another Jesus-as-Lord sermon, which gets him (and John) in trouble with the priests and Sadducees. After an inquiry, in which Peter (with John) once again bears witness to Jesus as Lord, the temple leaders threaten them, but let them go (ch. 4). And...