Are Spiritual Disciplines Biblical? Where did they come from? (Part One) | Theocast

The Question of Spiritual Disciplines and What the Bible Actually Says

Spiritual disciplines, are they biblical and where did they come from? Don't go look in your Bible because you're not going to find them there. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church, and I just got fired because of that intro and host of Theocast.

This is Ask Theocast where we answer your questions from a biblical and Reformed perspective. Yes, what a controversy to even say such a thing. How can you say, especially when Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4, be training yourself for the sake of godliness?

Well, this is a three-part video because I'm not going to be able to answer everything in just one short video. So we're going to cover what are spiritual disciplines, where they come from. We're going to look at the major authors and what they're having to say in their books.

And then we're going to compare it to the Bible and the confessions and Reformed teaching. What has the church thought about spiritual disciplines throughout the centuries? So let's begin with what are spiritual disciplines?

Well, if you ask that question, you can get a list of things. And I love to do this because I've been asking this question for almost six years, name me the top five spiritual disciplines, and they'll name them to you.

And then I ask this question, what's the most important one? Like what can you bank your sanctification on? Your godliness, what are you going after? And nobody gives me a succinct answer. It varies. Prayer, Bible reading, evangelism, tithe, there's multiple different ones.

And the reason why nobody can agree is because the Bible doesn't work that way. As a matter of fact, Paul told the Galatians to be afraid of doing that. As a matter of fact, they called him foolish. Galatians chapter three, verses two and three, it says, did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? And that is what a lot of spiritual disciplines are. It's you doing fleshly things, which we're going to look here in a minute, things with your body, what would say externally moving them in to make yourself more godly.

And we learn from Ephesians chapter four, that Paul actually points us the opposite direction. He points us towards Christ in his body and away from any kind of asceticism or works of the flesh to sanctify ourselves, which we'll look at that in our third video.

Reformed Confessions and Sanctification by Faith in Christ

So real quick, just so we understand, we're going to compare the two in the beginning to the confessions and the reformed theology and to what we've heard from spiritual disciplines. Let me read to you real quick.

This is the London Baptist confession as it relates to our spiritual growth. It says this in chapter 16, verse three, that believers and their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the spirit of Christ.

And the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, for we are not sanctified except by faith uniting us to Christ. So you can see that the reformed confessions look at it this way. Your salvation and your sanctification or your godliness are both the results of your faith in Christ.

Let me put it to you in a biblical way. He who began a good work in you will complete it. So we are saved by faith, and we are not only saved, but sanctified and glorified by faith in Christ. That has always been the perspective, not only given to us from scripture, but of those who have been writing commentaries and the confession for us.

And I'm not the first to make this observation. Luther, Calvin, as we're going to see here in a minute, have made it. But there's also been some modern writers who are looking at this going, something's off, and why are we embracing a theology that's been rejected for many years?

This is what D .A. Carson writes. It is not helpful to list assorted Christian responsibilities and label them spiritual disciplines. That seems to be the reasoning behind the theology that smuggles in, say, creation care or almsgiving.

But by the same logic, if out of Christian kindness you give a back rub to an old lady with a stiff neck and a sore shoulder, then back rubbing becomes a spiritual discipline to which my wife would say, amen.

By the way, I'm not calling my wife an old lady. She just likes back rubs. But I see the logic of what he's saying. He goes on to conclude this. Some of these so-called spiritual disciplines are entirely divorced from any specific doctrine whatsoever.

They are merely a matter of technique. That is why sometimes people say for doctrine, by all means, commit yourself to evangelical confessionalism. But when it comes to spiritual disciplines, turn to Catholicism or perhaps Buddhism, which is a fascinating statement.

And some may say, well, hold on. How are you comparing spiritual disciplines to Catholicism and Buddhism? Because that's actually where they came from, believe it or not. So the major writers, if you're going to go in and look, if you just type in spiritual disciplines, the top three books that are going to show up on Amazon, and they're probably in your bookshelf or maybe in your pastor's bookshelf, are these men, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and Don Whitney.

Richard Foster and the Rise of Spiritual Formation

They have been writing for years about this. Richard Foster is probably the most famous and the original one who kind of sparked this unfortunate reformation of spiritual disciplines. He wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline in 1978, and this is what he said in the introduction.

The reason I read this to you is that it can sound so good. And I agree with what he says. Inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received. The needed change within us is God's work, not ours.

Amen. He who began to get work in us will complete it. I couldn't agree more, but then he kept writing. And he says this, God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace.

The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. Well, if he were to announce at that point, using different language than we're reformers, they would use something called the means of grace.

So word, publicly preached, taught, sacrament, and prayer. That's how we understand to receive God's grace and how he grows our faith and our sanctification. But that's not what he gives us. He gives us something completely other.

Here's this list, which is not exhaustive. Simplicity, solitude, submission, meditation, simple living, journalism, evangelism, service, stewardship, fasting, silence, and the list goes on. And the problem with this list is that you cannot argue these from scripture.

When we say word, sacrament, and prayer, we can absolutely point to the Bible and say, this is where God's word promises us that our faith will grow. And in our faith growing, the spirit then comes in and transforms us.

Dallas Willard, Spiritual Disciplines, and the Explosion After 1978

As I mentioned earlier, there's another writer, Dallas Willard, and we're going to look at all three of these books and we're going to examine them in our next video. But he wrote a book called The Spirit of Disciplines.

And I find this introduction fascinating. Listen to what he says. Today, for the first time in our history as a nation, we are being presented with a characteristic range of human behaviors, such as, human behaviors, so he admits to it, fasting, meditation, simple living, and submission to a spiritual overseer in an attractive light.

So he's saying for the first time, which is concerning to me, though still regarded by too few as essential of Christian living, such practices are widely studied as possibly one important aid to being an effective Christian.

So he widely admits that not enough people are admitting this, and it's a recent adaptation. And later on, he continues to write this, lectures, seminars, retreats, books, and articles on them, spiritual disciplines, enjoy a popularity that was utterly inconceivable 15 years ago.

They are increasingly looked to as reliable means of growth in spiritual substance towards maturity in Christ. So I wanted to research Willard's claim, which is a fascinating claim. So you can actually go to YouTube, I'm sorry, you can go to Google if you want, you can do this, and you can search books.

And I put in a search phrase for spiritual disciplines or spiritual formation from 1400s up to 1977, which I'll explain to you in a minute why I picked that date. And I had about five books that came up, most of them out of print, and you can't read anymore, and some of them even in different languages.

Then I changed the date range from 1978 forward, and I had 27 plus pages, hundreds of books that are available from all different kind of authors. And the question is, why? Of course, I knew this was going to happen because Willard said it was going to happen.

But the reason it happened is that Richard Foster's book is the book that really exploded, and it became so popular there were classes started on it in Christian universities all over the United States.

In an article about this explosion in 2004, Richard Foster wrote this, when I first began writing in the field in the late 70s and early 80s, the term spiritual formation was hardly known except for highly specialized references in relation to Catholic orders.

Remember what D .A. Carson said, if you want to know about spiritual disciplines, go to Catholicism. Well, he openly admits that when he began writing on it, no one else was writing on it except for the Catholics.

So, it's easy to see how there's this explosion because before it was being rejected. So, how did we get spiritual disciplines or even the concept of it? Well, we're going to back up to the Reformation in the 16th century, and the Roman Catholic Church responded to the Reformation.

They saw that there were many people leaving the Roman Catholic Church, and they were following this new movement called the Reformation, the Evangelical Reformation. And there was a soldier who then basically became a theologian, and his name was Ignatius of Loyola, and he founded a group called the Jesuits.

You probably have heard it, they're still around today. It's also known as Society of Jesus. And he wrote a really, really famous book that's still in print 500 years later, you can still buy this book, called The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

The Council of Trent, Justification, and the Reformers' Rejection of Works-Righteousness

And his fear was that these Catholics were not taking serious their responsibility for their spiritual growth. And it's in relation to the councils. And so, let me just read this to you. I think it's helpful you understand, one, where spiritual disciplines come from, and two, why the Reformers are fighting against it and rejecting it.

So, this is from the Council of Trent, Canon 24, and it reads this, if anyone says that the justice or justification received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of the increase, let him be anathemized.

So, to make it shorter, he's saying, your good works add to your justification and truly is what causes you to be saved. And to bring clarity to that, they also said in Canon 30, it says, if anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification, the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathemized, let him be cursed, kicked out of the church.

So, 450 years ago, we are dealing with this very issue. And the Roman Catholic Church is saying that they're rejecting the Reformation, and Martin Luther and John Calvin are both—this is why you see Luther, who begins to struggle with the Catholic Church, tried to change it from the inside, could not do that.

John Calvin ends up writing his institutes for new Christians, helping them understand this new idea, new to them, justification, as they reached back, ad fontes, going back to the original sources, that we have always been saved by faith alone, not by these works.

So, Martin Luther pointedly writes against Loyola, against these concepts that are being introduced into, we discipline ourselves to add to our justification. He says this, yet all these seemingly holy actions of devotion are nothing else but works of the flesh.

All manner of religions are where people serve God with His word and command. It's simply idolatry. And the more holy and spiritual such a religion seems, the more hurtful and venomous it is. For it leads people away from faith in Christ and makes them rely and depend upon their own strength, works, and righteousness.

In like manner, all kinds of orders of monks, fasting, prayers, hairy shirts, are mere works of the flesh. So, the reason I mention that is that you're going to learn in the next video that these authors, these three main authors who are being read today, their main sources and works are coming from Catholic sources.

And they use men like Ignatius of Loyola as their examples of why we should practice spiritual disciplines. And yet, we can see the reformers saying, we reject Rome, we reject their canons. They are openly saying, cursed are you if you think your justification is fully satisfied in Christ by faith alone.

Why Spiritual Disciplines Are Not the Promise of Scripture

So, I think it's important for us to have this conversation. Spiritual disciplines are not birthed out of God's word. Now, a lot of the arguments for spiritual disciplines can come from Scripture, and they're very close to it.

But the heart behind them and what they're promising, which is if you do this, it will produce godliness and it will sanctify you, is not the promise of Scripture. So, we're going to examine those three books in our next video, which is Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Don Whitney.

And we're going to look at a couple other modern writers as well. And so, if you would like to stay tuned for that, I would ask you to do so. But to do so, you're going to have to wait till next week.

So, if this video was helpful at all, please hit that like button, subscribe to our channel, and hit that notification bell so you know when the next video comes out. I have provided some extra resources and some classes that I've taught down below for free if you want to grab that, and a free ebook that helps explain what I'm trying to argue, which is faith versus faithfulness.

Faithfulness really is promoting spiritual disciplines. Faith alone is what we would say is what the Bible teaches, and you can get that book for free. It's download. Go ahead and grab that. We'll see you next time.