Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1988.

Preface

Ch1: The secret of the easy yoke

Ch2: Making theology of the disciplines practical

Ch3: Salvation is a life

Ch4: “Little less than a God”

Ch5: The nature of life

Ch6: Spiritual life: the body’s fulfillment

Ch7: St. Paul’s psychology of redemption—the example

Ch8: History and the meaning of the disciplines

Ch9: Some main disciplines for the spiritual life

Ch10: Is poverty spiritual?

Ch11: The disciplines and the power structures of this world

Epilogue

Appendix 1: Jeremy Taylor’s counsel on the application of the rules for holy living

Appendix 2; Discipleship: for super—Christians only?

PREFACE:

1) We need an understanding that can guide us into a constant interaction with the Kingdom of God as a real part of our daily lives, an ongoing spiritual presence that is at the same time a psychological reality. In other words, we must develop a psychologically sound theology of the spiritual life and of its disciplines to guide us. Pg xi

2) This book is a plea for the Christian community to place the disciplines for the spiritual life at the heart of the gospel. Pg xi

3) I want us to take the disciplines seriously. I want to inspire Christianity to remove the disciplines from the category of historical curiosities and place them at the center of the new life in Christ. Pg xi-xii

CHAPTER 1: THE SECRET OF THE EASY YOKE

1) We are touching upon a general principle of human life. It's true for the public speaker or the musician, the teacher or the surgeon. A successful performance at a moment of crises rests largely and essentially upon the depths of a self wisely and rigorously prepared in the totality of its being--mind and body. And what is true of specific activities is, of course, also true of life as a whole. As Plato long ago saw, there is an art of living, and the living is excellent only when the self is prepared in all the depths and dimensions of its being. Further, this is not a truth to be set aside when we come to our relationship with God. We are saved by grace, of course, and by it alone, and not because we deserve it. But grace does not mean that sufficient strength and insight will be automatically "infused" into our being in the moment of need. Abundent evidence for this claim is available precisely in the experience of any Christian. We only have to look at the facts. A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is not more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living. Pg 4-5

2) And in this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as He lived in the entirety of His life--adopting His overall life-style. Following "in His steps" cannot be equated with behaving as He did when He was "on the spot." To live as Christ lived is to live as He did in all His life. Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the "second mile," turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully--while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does. Pg 5

3) So, we should be perfectly clear about one thing: Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth. These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Christlikeness, were set forth by Him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person--one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God Himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays. Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow Him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one's enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do. Pg 7-8

4) Oswald Chambers observes: "The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of principles to be obeyed apart from identification with Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us." In other words, no one ever says, "If you want to be a great athlete, go vault eighteen feet, run the mile under four minutes," or "If you want to be a great musician, play Beethoven violen concerto." Instead, we advise the young artist or athlete to enter a certain kind of overall life, one involving deep associations with qualified people as well as rigorously scheduled time, diet, and activity for the mind and body. Pg 8

5) Emphatically, I am writng about what it means to follow Him and about how following fits into the Christian's salvation. I want to explain, with some precision and detailed fullness, how activities such as solitude, silence, fasting, prayer, service, celebration--disciplines for life in the spiritual kingdom of God and activities in which Jesus deeply immersed Himself--are essential to the deliverance of human beings from the concrete power of sin and how they can make the experience of the easy yoke a reality in life.

CHAPTER 2: MAKING THEOLOGY OF THE DISCIPLINES PRACTICAL

1) Summary--there is a constant tension within Christians between what they know what they should do or be and what they are.

2) We believe in our hearts that we should be Christlike, closely following our Lord. However, few of us, if any, can see this as a real possibility for ourselves or others we know well. It does not seem to be something we could realize through definite practical measures we clearly understand and know how to implement. Pg 12

3) "Theology" is a stuffy word, but it should be an everyday one. That's what practical theology does. It makes theology a practical part of life. A theology is only a way of thinking about and understanding--or misunderstanding--God. Practical theology studies the manner in which our actions interact with God to accomplish His ends in human life. And a thoughtless or uninformed theology grips and guides our life with just as great force as does a thoughtful and informed one. Pg 14

4) Practical theology's overall task is, in effect, to develop for practical implementation the methods by which women and men interact with God to fulfill the divine intent for human existence. That intent for the church is two-fold: the effective proclamation of the Christian gospel to all humanity, making "disciples" from every nation or ethnic group, and the development of those disciples' character into the character of Christ Himself "teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20). Pg 15

5) Full participation in the life of God's kingdom and in the vivid companionship of Christ comes to us only through appropriate exercise in the disciplines for life in the spirit. Pg 26

CHAPTER 3: SALVATION IS A LIFE

1) It is precisely this appropriate recognition of the body and of its implications for theology that is missing in currently dominant views of Christian salvation or deliverance. The human body is the focal point of human existence. Pg 29

2) Docetism is the ancient heresy that Christ did not in fact have a real body at all but only seemed to have one. This thinking remains alive and well today in the hearts and minds of many who say He was human as well as divine but in fact do not believe and cannot even imagine that He had a full-fledged human body. They cannot do so because we tend to think of the body and its functions as only a hindrance to our spiritual calling, with no postive role in our redemption or in our participation in the government of God. One of our most important tasks here will be to make clear how and why the use of the body for postive spiritual ends is a large part of our share in the process of redemption. Pg 30

3) The surrender of myself to Him is inseparable from giving up of my body to Him in such a way that it can serve both Him and me as a common abode, as John 14:23, 1 Cor 6:15-20, and Ephesians 2:22 testify. The vitality and power of Christianity is lost when we fail to integrate our bodies into its practice by intelligent, conscious choice and steadfast intent. It is with our bodies we receive the new life that comes as we enter the Kingdom. It can't be any other way. If salvation is to affect our lives, it can do so only by affecting our bodies. If we are to participate in the reign of God, it can only be by our actions. And our actions are physical--we live only in the processes of our bodies. To withhold our bodies from religion is to exclude religion from our lives. Our life is a bodily life, even though that life is one that can be filled solely in union with God. Pg 30-31

4) Spirituality in human beings is not an extra or "superior" mode of existence. It's not a hidden stream of separate reality, a separate life running parallel to our bodily existence. It does not consist of special "inward" acts even though it has an inner aspect. It is, rather, a relationship of our embodied selves to God that has the natural and irrepressible effect of making us alive to the Kingdom of God--here and now in the material world. When our presentation of the Gospel fails to do justice to this basic truth about the nature of human personality, Christianity inevitably becomes alientated from our actual everyday existence. Pg 31

5) We've somehow encouraged a separation of our faith from everyday life. We've relegated God's life in us to special times and places and states of mind. And we've become so used to this style of life , we are hardly aware of it. When we think of "taking Christ into the workplace" or "keeping Christ in our home," we are making our faith into a set of special acts. The "specialness" of such acts just underscores the point--that being Christian, being Christ's, isn't thought of as a normal part of life. [This brings up the question:] How can we come to grips with such a pervasive and powerful tendency in Christian thought and practice that actually removes our saving relationship with God from all of the little events that make up our lives? Pg 32

6) Salvation is not just forgiveness, but a new order of life. What does it mean to be "saved"? One specific errant concept has done inestimable harm to the church and God's purposes with us-- and that is the concept that has restricted the Christian idea of salvation to mere forgiveness of sins. Once salvation is relegated to mere forgiveness of sins, though, the discussion of salvation's nature are limited to debates about the death of Christ, about which arrangements involving Christ's death make forgiveness possible and actual. Such debates yield "theories of atonement." And yet through these theories the connection between salvation and life--both His life and ours--becomes unintelligible. Why? it is because they are of no use in helping us, as the apostle Paul puts it, to understand how, being reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we are then "saved by His life." (Romans 5:10) How can we be saved by His life when we believe salvation comes from His death alone? So, if we concentrate on such theories exclusively, the body and therefore the concrete life we find ourselves in are lost to the redemption process. And when that happens, how else could we see the disciplines for the spiritual life but as historical oddities, the quaint but misguided practices of troubled people in far-off and benighted times? Pg 33-34

7) The message of Jesus Himself and of the early disciples was not just one of the forgiveness of sins, but rather was one of newness of life--which of course involved forgiveness as well as His death for out sins. And yet that newness of life also involved much more beside. To be "saved" was to be "delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son," as Col 1.13 says. We who are saved are to have a different order of life from that of the unsaved. We are to live in a different "world." Pg 36-37

8) The resurrection was a cosmic event only because it validated the reality and the indestructibility of what Jesus had preached and exemplified before His death--the enduring reality and openness of God's kingdom. With all of this clearly in view, it becomes understandable why the simple and wholly adequate word for salvation in the New Testament is "life." [ref John 10.10; 1 John 5.12; Eph 2.5] Once we forsake or cloud this meaning of "salvation" (or "redemption" or "regeneration") and substitute for it mere atonement or mere forgiveness of sins, we'll never be able to achieve a coherent return to concrete human existence. We'll never be able to make clear just exactly what it is that our lives have to do with our "salvation." Futile efforts of believers throught the centuries somehow to tack obedience--or "works" or "law"--onto grace, or to insist that Christ cannot be our Savior without also being our Lord, are historical proof of this point. Pg 37

9) But the idea of redemption as the impartation of a life provides a totally different framework of understanding. God's seminal redemptive act toward us is the communication of a new kind of life, as the seed --one of our Lord's most favored symbols--carries a new life into the enfolding soil. Turning from the old ways with faith and hope in Christ stands forth as the natural first expression of the new life imparted. That life will be poised to become a life of the same quality as Christ's, because it indeed is Christ's. He really does live in us. The incarnation continues. Obedience, "works," effectual lordship are then natural parts of such salvation, of this new kind of life. They come as God's continuing gifts within our interactive relationship to Him--not as something outside it that perhaps limps along behind at a distance or disappears totally. Like blossoms from that seed, they sprout from the life itself. Pg 38

10) [faith displays itself on the pages of the New Testament in three major dimensions: Pg 39]

1. The presence of a new power within the individual, erupting into a break with the past through turning in repentance and the release of forgiveness. The old leaf automatically falls from the branch as the new leaf emerges. Thus we have the biblical representation of repentance, as well as forgiveness, as something given to us by God in Psalms 80:3; 85.4; Rom 2.4; Acts 5.31; and 2 Timothy 2.25.

2. An immediate but also a developing transformation of the individual character and personality (2 Cor 5.17; Rom 5.1-5; 2 Pet 1.4-11)

3. A significant, extrahuman power over the evils of this present age and world, exercised both by individuals and the collective church. (Matt 28.18)

To enjoy this three-dimensional life is just what it means to be "translated" into the Kingdom of God's dear Son, as Colossians 1.13 explains, or to "have our citizenship in heaven." (Phil 3.20, NIV) Pg 40

11) [talking about the spiritual disciplines] Here we find the positive role of the body in the process of redemption, as we choose those uses of our body that advance the spiritual life. Pg 40 Only as we correctly appreciate that role can we understand the New Testament view of salvation as a life, for a life is, of course, something we live, and we live only in the actions and dispositions of our body. This runs directly counter to the view of faith as an interior act of mind that secures forgiveness alone and has no necessary connection with the world of action in which normal human existence runs its course. But the New Testament knows nothing of such a purely "mental" faith. The faith of the New Testament is a distinctive life force that orginates in the impact of God's word upon the soul, as we see in Rom 10.17, and then exercises a determining influence upon all aspects of our existence, including the body and its social and political environment.pg 40-41

12) [There is an overwhelming impression, however, that the body is actually a hindrance to our redemption and the best we can do is reach a standoff with it, barely managing by the grace of God to keep it from spiritually defeating us until we manage to get rid of it.] After all, doesn't the Bible refer to it as a vile body in Phil 3.21, and as earthly and corruptible in 1 Cor 15.48-50? Doesn't Christ Himself indicate that evil things pour forth to defile mankind in Mark's gospel (7.20-23)? Doesn't Romans chapter three characterize it as having a throat like an open grave, a tongue and lips full of deceit and poison, a mouth full of cursing and bitterness, feet in hurry to shed blood? Doesn't it leave behind it a path of destruction and misery? It's true that our bodies can overwhelm us with their impluses and terrify us with their vulnerability. [Thus] How could this vile, dangerous thing possibly be of benefit in realizing our deliverance? Pg 41-42

13) The body's sad condition is a sure indication that it does not now exist in its true element. We would not judge the possibilities of automobiles merely by a survey of those we find in the junk yard or the possibility of plant life by considering only plants that have starved of necessary nutrients. The human body was made to be the vehicle of human personality ruling the earth for God and through His power. Withdrawn from that function by loss of its connection with God, the body is caught in the inevitable state of corruption in which we find it now. To readjust our view of the possibilities of our body and the spiritual life the body can experience, the next three chapters are devoted to an explanation, from the biblical viewpoint, of who we are and what spiritual life is. Pg 42

CH 4: LITTLE LESS THAN GOD

1) It's essentially impossible to determine our nature by observation alone, because we are only seen in a perpetually unnatural posture [because we live in a fallen world and in a fallen state]. Pg 45

2)Without an understanding of our nature and purpose, we cannot have a proper understanding of redemption. What "salvation" is depends upon what is being saved. Before something can be saved it must face the risk of being lost. And, essentially, it is the nature of what is being saved that determines how it can be at risk and at loss. For example, "saving" an investment is a different kind of project from saving a life, a reputation, or an injured pet, because investments, lives, reputations, and pets are different kinds of things. So, if we want to know what it is to save a human being, to redeem the human soul or personality, we cannot find a better way to begin than by asking: what did God make when when He made us, and how could creatures such as we be at risk and loss? Pg 45

3) When God made us He made creatures capable of astonishing presumption. We humans can almost forget that we are dust. Yet as we breathe and eat and sleep, we also think and aspire. In that paradox, that puzzle in which the pieces do not truly fit together, we can either applaud ourselves for such a rare and amazing accomplishment or we can begin to understand that we are touched by powers beyond ourselves. We are creatures given such diverse possibilities that they can actually lead us to Heaven or to Hell. Pg 47

4) In creating human beings in His likeness so that we could govern in His manner, God gave us a measure of independent power. The locus or depository of this necessary power is the human body. That body is our primary area of power, freedom, and --therefore--responsibility. Pg 53

5) In us some small part of the potential power in our body stands at the disposal of our conscious thought, intention, and choice. In essence, an individual's character is nothing but the pattern of habitual ways in which that person comports his or her body--whether conforming to the conscious intentions of the individual or not. Pg 53

CH 5: THE NATURE OF LIFE

1) Ruskin proceeds to contrast this "true" life with the "false" life that is possible, and too often reality, for human beings: a false life of custom and accident "in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand; that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is moulded by them instead of assimilating them." How often do we feel like this in our day-to-day life, doing and saying things we don't mean to get along with the world around us? Pg 59

2) Individual growth must include internal growth--internal complexity. As life unfolds, it develops this internal complexity as well as an external scope that multiplies the effect of its inherent powers. The expansion of internal parts and powers in the orderly "helpful" way proper tothe living thing's nature then serves as foundation for it to extend its powers into its external surroundings. It is a law of life: :To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away what he hath." (Mark 4.25). The larger and stronger plant or animal crowds out the others and appropriates resources to become stronger still, limited only by the life cycle of its kind. Pg 60-61

3) The astonishing human power to use what is beyond ourselves is one of the main clues to who and what we are. The more power we get [through technological or scientific advances] the more power we can get. In our spiritual disintegration we may not be able to rule the earth, but we have the power several times over to ruin it utterly. We seem to have the potentiality to tap into the inexhaustible powers of all creation. For instance, by his unaided energies a man can leap a barrier about his own height, if he is in good physical condition; ut with practice and the right kind of pole he can vault triple that height or more. Unaided he can swim a broad river, but in the right social and technological setting he can effortlessly cross oceans or fly above the highest mountains. Without the assistance of appropriate tools he may find it difficult to number a flock of sheep, but with computers he can plot the trajectory of a rocket to other planets or beyond or analyze unimaginably complex data. The limits of our power to transcend ourselves utilizing powers not located in us--including of course the spiritual--are yet to be fully known (ref 1 John 3.2). Pg 61-62

4) Life in general can carry on within limits even though some of its specific needs are not adequately met. A plant or animal without the appropriate food, light, or space may lead a weakened and deformed existence, but one that is still a life. Human life is not what it could be, though it is still here, still going on. But the question is, what is human life being cut off from to leave it in such a sad and depleted condition? Pg 62-63

5) In the hierarchy of abilities, any disruption or malfunctioning of the higher powers deforms and weakens the lower ones. An animal that is unable to perceive or move--its highest powers--is distorted in its other powers--taking in nourishment, for instance. [Matthew 6.23 illustrates this truth]. Pg 63

6) Yet there is a life higher than natural thought or feeling for which the "living being" in human nature was made. It is the spiritual. Disruption of that higher life wrecks our thinking and valuation, thereby corrupting our entire history and being, down to the most physical of levels. It is this pervasive distortion and disruption of human existence from the top down that the Bible refers to as sin (not sins)--the general posture of mankind. Robbed of spiritual truth and reality--of right relationship to the spiritual Kingdom of God--the social, psychological, and even the physical life of mankind is disordered and corrupt. The evil that we do in our present condition is a reflection of a weakness caused by spiritual starvation. Pg 63

7) In this condition of fundamental lack and disconnection we are described by St Paul as being dead, "dead in trepasses and sins" (Eph 2.1). It is a condition displaced only when by a new relationship to God we become "alive unto Him." The light bulb is dead when disconnected from the electrical current, even though it still exists. But when connected to the current, it radiates and effects its surroundings with a power and substance that is in it but not of it. Pg 64

8) [What is spirit?] Very simply, spirit is unembodied personal power. Pg 64

9) The biblical worldview also regards the spiritual as a realm fundamental to the existence and behavior of all natural or physical reality (see especially John 1.1-14; Col 1.17; Heb 1.2; 11.3). And it is one in which people may participate by engaging it through the active life tendency called "faith" as we see in Hebrews 11.3, 27. It integrity in our minds is sternly guarded by the second of the ten Commandments. (Ex 20.4)

10) [note on faith as the "substance" from Barnes commentary: It seems to me, therefore, that the word here has reference to something which imparts reality in the view of the mind to those things which are not seen, and which serves to distinguish them from those things which are unreal and illusive. It is what enables us to feel and act as if they were real, or which causes them to exert an influence over us as if we saw them. Faith does this on all other subjects as well as religion. A belief that there is such a place as London or Calcutta, leads us to act as if this were so, if we have occasion to go to either; a belief that money may be made in a certain undertaking, leads people to act as if this were so; a belief in the veracity of another leads us to act as if this were so. As long as the faith continues, whether it be well-founded or not, it gives all the force of reality to what is believed. We feel and act just as if it were so, or as if we saw the object before our eyes. This, I think, is the clear meaning here. We do not see the things of eternity. We do not see God, or heaven, or the angels, or the redeemed in glory, or the crowns of victory, or the harps of praise; but we have faith in them, and this leads us to act as if we saw them. And this is, undoubtedly, the fact in regard to all who live by faith and who are fairly under its influence. notes from Heb 11.1 as found in e-sword.]

11) When Eve through mistrust of god (Gen 3.6) took the fatal step, she and Adam did not cease to be "living beings." But they nevertheless died, as God said they would. They ceased to function in harmony with that spiritual reality that is the foundation of all things and of whose glory the universe is an expression. They were dead to God. The small reservoir of independent powers that was resident in their bodies continued to function as it does in "living beings" in general, but the connection through which these powers would have been properly ordered and fulfilled was broken. Pg 66

12) A "spiritual life" consists in that range of activities in which people cooperatively interact with God--and with the spiritual order deriving from God's personality and action. A person is a "spiritual person" tot he degree that his or her life is correctly integrated into and dominated by God's spiritual Kingdom. Pg 67

13) Spirituality is a matter of another reality. It is absolutely indispensible to keep before us the fact that it is NOT a "committment" and it is not a "life-style," even though a committment and a life-style will come from it. Pg 67

CH 6: SPIRITUAL LIFE: THE BODY'S FULFILLMENT

1) [referring to the term "unspiritual"] We mean whatever is taken without regard to is place in the spiritual rule of God through His creation. Pg 80

2) Such failure to attain a deep satisfying life always has the effect of making sinful actions seem good. Pg 81

3) We do not have any knowledge or experience that is totally free from involvement with our bodies pg 82. When I see a table, the location of my body in relation to it is stamped on how it appears to me. I cannot see the bottom of the table because my head is above it, and I can only infer the relative position of my body from how things appear to me at any given moment. My perceptual consciousness is always marked by the specific state of my body. Even our decisions, choices, and actions issue from our sense of the position and posture of our bodies in our physical and our social world. Loss of balance or dizziness is essentially the loss of our grip upon our posture in relation to the surounding physical environment. "Disorientation" is more general term for the inability to grasp our place in our experienced surroundings, physical or social. Our experience of others is also inescapably an experience of their embodied existence. Pg 83

4) Human personality is not separable in our consciousness from the human body. Pg 84

5) But while the human being is to be identified with his or her body, within teh embodied self there are diverse and powerful forces that turn the individual personality into a battlefield. Pg 84

6) Sometimes, as it did for Simon Peter, it often appears as if the body has a life of its own capable of action to some degree independent of, or in conflict with, our conscious thoughts and intentions. Everyone knows, of course, that the vital functions of our body--heartbeat, respiration, digestion, general metabolism,and so forth--normally lie beyond the direct control of our consciousness. All of us have also experience the conflict between the basic drives for food, sleep, and sex, for example, and our intentions to behave in certain ways. Pg 85

7) The disciplines for the spiritual life, rightly understood, are time-tested activities consciously undertaken by us as new men and women to allow our spirit ever-increasing sway over our embodied selves. They help by assisting the ways of God's Kingdom to take the place of the habits of sin embodied in ourselves. Pg 86

8) "Flesh" in its biblical usage seldom means the mere physical substance that makes up the parts of the body. Flesh is generally spoken of in the Bible as something active, a specific power or range of powers that is embedded in a body of a specific type, able or likely to do only certain kinds of things. They [the scripture verses] do not presuppose that flesh must be something evil, even though it is a finite power with some degree of independence from direct support by God. Pg 87

9) This lower nature, when it occupies its proper place in the hierarchy of the universe, is not in itself evil, for it belongs to the divine world. It is only when it usurps the palce of something higher that it becomes untrue to itself and an evil. Animal nature certainly has its place on the scale of values and an eternal destiny; but when it takes possession of man, then it does indeed become an evil thing. For evil is a question of the direction pursued by the spirit, not of the constitution of nature itself. quote by Nicolas Berdyaev Pg 87

10) The points about the flesh to be emphasized for our discussion are its specific tendencies toward action and the limitations of its independent powers--what it can and cannot do. It can be a locus of ingrained evil or of ingrained righteousness (Ez 11:19-20 Eze 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh, Eze 11:20 so that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances, and do them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God.) Pg 87

11) The body cannot be the resource for the Christian life it was intended to be if we equate its flesh with "fallen human nature." Certainly it is true that in the unredeemed flesh, both as the material stuff of the body and as the natural powers that stuff exhibits, now serves as primary host to sin. Nevertheless, not it but its deformed condition is "fallen human nature." In this condition, the flesh opposes the spirit, does that which is evil, and must be crucified to restrain it. (Gal 5.16, 19f) Pg 90

12) Fallen human nature is a certain manner in which the good powers deposited at creation in our human flesh are twisted and organized against God. The true effect of the Fall was to lead us to trust in the flesh alone, to "not see fit to acknowledge God any longer" (Rom 1.28) because we now suppose (like mother Eve) that, since there is no God to be counted on in the living of our lives, we must take things into our own hands. This is what it is to be carnally minded. It is the carnal mind--not the flesh--that is at enmity with God and incapable of subjection to His law. By contrast, the promise of old was that spirit would be poured upon flesh (Joel 2.28; Acts 2.17). The flesh also can long for God (Ps 63.1), come to God (Ps 65.2), cry out for God (Ps 84.2), bless His holy name (Ps 145.21) and even, along the lines suggested above, "not see coruption" (Acts 2.31). Pg 91

13) Redemption as it is portrayed in the New Testament is comprehensible only when placed in careful relation with embodied human nature and God's purposes in our creation. Pg 91

14) God in creation placed in the fleshly human organism abilities to serve as the vehicle for our vocation--including the capacity for voluntary interaction with His spiritual Kingdom in ruling the zoological realm on the earth. People have a body for one reason--that we might have at our disposal the resources that would allow us to be persons in fellowship and cooperation with a personal God. Pg 91-92

15) Our bodies are shaped into a specific character and laden with specific skills and tendencies by our experiences, including those we voluntarily undertake. There is some latitude within which our character is formed by ourselves. Through the instrumentality of His life-giving Word, God in regeneration renews our original capacity for divine interaction. But our body's substance is only to be transformed totally by actions and events in which we choose to participate from day to day. In other words, grace alone does not ensure we'll undertake the proper actions toward that life. The body God has given to us is one that is "plastic," in the primary sense of being pliable and capable of being formed in various ways. Plasticity...means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Quote by William James. The very substance of our bodies is shaped by our actions, as well as by grace, into pathways of good and evil. Pg 92

16) What then is the role of the spiritual disciplines? Their role rests upon the nature of the embodied human self--they are to mold and shape it. And our part in our redemption is, through specific and appropriate actions, to "yield" the plastic substance of which we are made to the ways of that new life which is imparted to us by the "quickening spirit." Pg 92

CH. 7: ST. PAUL'S PSYCHOLOGY OF REDEMPTION--THE EXAMPLE

1) The heart of Paul and his message lies in one area--in the continuing appropriation of the "real presence" of Christ Himself within the experiental life of the believers. Pg 96

2) So we say, "What does the long period of fasting and solitude have to do with us? We aren't Jesus, are we? And Paul's forceful subjugation of his body may have been necessary for his work, but I am doing quite well without it, you see." What happens, then, is that all talk of following Jesus--or of Paul's example of following Him--is emptied of practical meaning. It does not express an actual strategy of living our day-to-day existence, but at most concerns only certain special moments or articles of faith. This in turn makes it impossible for us to share their experiences and consistently carry through with behavior like theirs. That behavior rested, after all, upon their experiences. And the experiences in turn resulted from how they arranged their lives. Since we do not share their behaviors, we are left with much talk about them and an occasional application of some of their language to our experience. The only way to overcome this alienation from their sort of life is by entering into the actual practices of Jesus and Paul as something essential to our life in Christ. Pg 97

3) [What is purpose of solitude?] In penal institutions, solitary confinement is used to break the strongest of wills. Pg 101

4) Throughout His life He sought the solitary place as an indirect submission of His own physical body to righteousness (Mark 1.35; 3.13; 6.31, 46). That is , He sought it not as activity done for its own sake, but one done to give Him power for good. Pg 102

5) The emphasis upon self-control, which is only attained by extensive disciplined experience, is a constant drumbeat in his life and writings. [ref Phil 3.16] Pg 102

6) Paul's effectiveness is simply inconceivable without its extensive use of fasting, solitude, and prayer. Pg 103

7) So it is in the light of Paul's practice, the way he lived, that we must interpret the statements he makes about his experience and behavior and about what we are to do. When he elsewhere directs us to "mortify" the deeds of the body through the spirit (Rom 6.13) or to mortify our members that are upon the earth (Col 3.5), we are to interpret his words in light of his acts. And when we do so there is no doubt that he is directing us to undertake the standard activities for training the natural desires toward godliness, ones that are readily recognized by anyone at all familiar with the history of religion.