The History of Spiritual Disciplines and why they are not biblical | Theocast

So just a couple of ground rules, since this is a little bit different.

I definitely want your questions.

So as I'm teaching, there'll be periods in the lecture where I will stop and I will answer your

questions as it relates to what I'm teaching here.

So Ryan's gonna monitor the questions.

When I get to that point, if we have some questions, then he'll read them off to me and I can respond to them.

And if we don't, then we'll just keep going.

I have a lot of notes, so I'm gonna do my best to get through these in the next hour.

And then if there's a lot of questions in a particular section, I may just wait to answer those, especially

sometimes what happens is as I'm teaching, I'm gonna answer those questions later on.

So I may even just tell you that.

So we'll get through these.

And at the end, around 8 .30, I'll open it up then for questions and then we can close it

out that way.

So if someone wants to leave the feed, they can do that a little bit later.

All right, so let's start off with a survey.

This works better in a crowd, but you can throw these up in the comments if you want.

But first question is, can you name five spiritual disciplines?

So first five that come to your mind, what are the first five that come to your mind?

And you can either write them down, think about them in your mind.

Some of you that want to jump in the comments, you can.

Now, typically when you get those first ones that come to people's mind are things like Bible reading, prayer,

are we getting some?

Fasting, Bible reading, prayer, memorizing scripture and meditation, right.

So I would say in some order, that's what people's, the list that they come up with as far as

these other spiritual disciplines.

Now, let me ask you this following question.

What do you believe is the purpose of the spiritual disciplines?

Which you'd be surprised, you get different answers from that.

Now, when I give this particular question out to a crowd, let's even say 10

people or more, I have typically seen several different answers.

Though everyone's list is not the same, there will be some similarities to them.

So the question I have is who's right?

Who has the right list of spiritual disciplines?

When I was studying this about four years ago, I accumulated, I think I had a, one day I showed it on Ryan, I had the stack of

books across my desk.

It was enormous stack.

And every book that was on spiritual disciplines had a different number.

One lady had 150, 150 lists of things that disciplines that you could, I mean

that, I don't even know if you have that much time on a year to do all of those.

But here's the question.

What is the most important discipline for the Christian?

If you believe in spiritual disciplines, what is the most important discipline?

Now, the most common answers I've received, I don't know if anybody's throwing them in here.

Most common answers I've received is to help us grow in Christ.

I'm sorry, I know this is different.

Most important discipline, and I'm not gonna wait to look at the comments.

Most important discipline typically is either prayer or Bible reading.

Those are the two.

There might be something else in your mind.

But if I were to have to pick one, I would say it's faith.

And I have given this survey in the last five years, I don't know how many times, and I've never had someone pick faith

because they don't see faith as the primary focus of the Christian life.

If I'm gonna discipline myself in something, I'm gonna discipline in myself in making sure I'm resting in the

perfect work of Christ.

Now, what do we believe is the purpose?

This is the purpose I have behind spiritual disciplines, to help us grow in Christ, to help us be effective

Christians, right?

So we discipline ourselves so we can be effective, to help us meet requirements for sanctification.

So if you're gonna be sanctified before God, this is what you have to do, to earn God's favor or blessings on earth,

right?

But in my opinion, Christianity has been deeply affected by the teaching of spiritual

discipline.

So it's changed the way in which we understand the

purpose behind the one I think is most important, which is faith.

For instance, I've given the survey above to a number of people in this last year.

And as I've done that, when we finally go back through this list again, really the

only list, the only thing you can write down as far as spiritual disciplines from a biblical standpoint is faith.

And we'll get to that as we get to the very end.

So the whole point of this class is to talk about how did this perspective come about, where if you

ask any Christian right now, what are spiritual disciplines?

You'd be hard pressed unless they were just saved recently.

You'd be hard pressed to find someone that would not be able to give you some kind of a

list of, this is what Christians must discipline themselves in.

So where did this perspective come from?

Now, I don't know if you guys know that you can do this, but you can go to Google and you can do search for books.

And when you search them, you can actually put criterias of what the title is that you wanna search.

And then you can put what year you wanna search them in.

So what I did was I did a search from the 1400s all the way up to 1977.

And I'll explain why that date in a little bit.

And when I did that search, I searched for spiritual disciplines, spiritual formation and spiritual exercises.

Those are kind of the different words that are being used there.

And when you do that search from 1400s to 1977,

you come up with about, what was it?

Six books that are actually on the topic because it pulls all kinds of stuff.

Six books that are actually on the topic.

Most of them are not even in print anymore.

And they were kind of obscure around the 1960s is where some of them would have

addressed this.

And some of them were even in different languages.

Change the criteria.

So same search topics, 1978 to present day.

You hit enter and there's over 27 pages of results that

have to do with spiritual disciplines or spiritual formation or exercises.

So what happened between early Christianity between the 1400s up to 77 and from

78 forward is what we're going to talk about.

So clearly there was an explosion within the American Christianity or American culture and

what caused that.

So we're going to look at that specifically.

Richard Foster is probably known as the father of spiritual disciplines.

We're going to talk about him a lot tonight.

And he wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline in 1978 which is why I started my search this

way.

And Foster openly expressed in his article that when I first quote, when I first began writing in the

field in the late 70s and early 80s, the term spiritual formation or spiritual discipline was

hardly known except for highly specialized references in relation to Catholic orders.

Underline that, Catholic orders.

So the perspective around Christianity as it relates to spiritual disciplines, the man

who really is known for kickstarting it here in America says

that it didn't exist until after he started writing on it, right?

So in my first lecture, which will be available in the audio, I talk a lot about your

perspective will influence your purpose.

So how you perceive things to be reality will then determine what it is that you're going to do with your purpose in

life.

For instance, if you absolutely believed that the world ended tomorrow, like it was over with,

if that was your perspective, then your purpose for life would probably reflect that.

You wouldn't be live streaming with me right now.

You'd be spending your life or time doing something else.

So your perspective on the Christian life as it relates to spiritual disciplines or how you

relate to God as far as in your spiritual growth will determine your purpose.

And you will see this throughout the writings of men who promote a spiritual disciplines.

They believe that we grow before God through means

of different means by which we must discipline ourselves in and our actions in doing these means will

then transform us into the image of God.

That's their perspective.

And it does play out in their purpose.

We're not going to spend a lot of time this evening, but I do want to talk a little bit about where the

perspective that I'm coming from, and I would say a reformed perspective of sanctification.

And I think it'll help explain the contrast between the spiritual disciplines movement

and sanctification.

So I'm going to pause right there.

Do we have any questions that relate to this yet, Ryan?

No, okay.

All right, so we'll hold off on those until we get going.

So at this section of your notes, we're going to be talking about the reformed view of sanctification.

So the reformed view, and there is some debate in this, and we'll get into that into another time in a

podcast, but I would say in general, from the writings I'm going to show you here is that the reformed view is that our justification,

which is our standing before God and our growth, our sanctification are both by grace alone.

So we're not going to spend a lot of time tonight about is it monergistic or synergistic, but I think that it's very clear

that do we participate in our sanctification?

We obey.

But yet, where does the sanctification happen?

It's by faith.

It's the transforming of the Holy Spirit within us.

Some verses that help us with this, for instance, is Galatians chapter three, verses two and three here in your notes.

It says, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

So we're talking about regeneration, right?

Our justification.

Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit?

Are you now being perfected by the flesh, right?

So are you now, if you are saved by faith, but saved by

grace through faith, are you going to be sanctified by works of the law?

And the answer to that is no.

You are going to be saved by faith.

So it's pretty clear.

So Paul, in writing the Galatians, asks a very clarifying question in verse three.

Did you receive the works by the Spirit?

Oh, sorry, we already read that.

I apologize.

Okay, guys.

So just the reformers also in their catechisms and in the confessions pick up on

this as well.

So a couple of quotes here.

One from the Lenten Baptist Confession, it says that believers and their ability

to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.

So we are not saying there are not good works.

We're just saying that the ability to do such works come through the power of the Spirit.

And also the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, if we are not sanctified except by faith, uniting us to

Christ.

And later on it teaches that the Spirit of God making the reading, but especially the preaching of the word and

effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness, comfort through faith

unto salvation.

So I think it's helpful here.

It's saying not only is their salvation connected to their faith, but it says their holiness and the building up in their holiness

is connected to faith by means of the preaching of the word.

So someone asked me earlier before we started personal Bible

study versus the preaching of the word.

And I think there's a constant emphasis on the public preaching of God's word, which we will get into a

little bit later.

But this is why the study of historic theology, I think is important.

This is why when we don't pay attention to how theology has progressed, using the

confessions and helping us in our theology, we can slip back into theology that was rejected

many years ago.

But because we're ignorant of our history, we don't know that.

So modern Christianity has really embraced this concept of spiritual

disciplines within the last 50 years.

So you have this large gap, right?

So 1400s all the way up to 1977, really not mainstream.

It's slowly starting to seep in.

And then all of a sudden there's an explosion.

And why is it?

So this doesn't mean there isn't a place for good works.

I need to start this now so the questions don't come.

I do believe there's a place for good works that is gonna come in series three and four.

This is specifically about does our good works play in or does disciplining our good works play

into how we are transformed into the image of God?

And the emphasis must be on our faith, not our good work.

So to help clarify that, the Belgic Confession on the Reformed faith

says this, therefore, it is impossible that this holy faith can be unfruitful in man.

For we do not speak of a vain faith, but of such a faith, which is called in scripture, a faith

working through love, which excites man to the practice of those works which God has made in his

word.

And again, it states, therefore, we do good works, but not to merit by them, for that what

could we merit?

Nay, we are indebted to God for the good works we do and not he to us,

since it is he who worketh in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So to be clear, we don't think that the good works

or spiritual disciplines is, if you don't believe in spiritual disciplines, it means you're getting rid of good works.

We're not stating that.

So just be clear.

We'll get into that into the very end.

Any questions up at this point?

We're good?

Okay.

All right.

So we're gonna start from the

reformers and we're gonna work our way up through history.

So from the very beginning, spiritual disciplines were rejected by the reformers, such as Luther

and Calvin.

So here's a couple of quotes, as far as the concept of disciplining yourself for the sake

of sanctification, so that God would be pleased with you or accept you as righteous.

This is what Luther has to say about that.

Yet all these seemingly holy actions of devotion are nothing else but works of the flesh.

All manner of religion where people serve God without his word and command is 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 of Christ and makes them rely and depend

upon their own strength, works and righteousness.

In like manner, all kinds of orders of monks, fast, prayers, hairy shirts are

mere works of the flesh.

Okay, so it's pretty clear.

Luther did not equate our sanctification with what we do as far as in our discipline,

that the way in which we are sanctified is by faith.

Calvin in the same way in the Council of Trent, sorry, in the Acts of the Council of Trent wrote, in

short, I affirm that not by our own merit, but by faith alone, or are by

both person and works justified.

And that the justification of works, which is sanctification, depends on the justification which is forensic of the person

as the effect on the cause.

So Calvin's point is that we are both justified and sanctified by faith alone, which

sounds very similar to Galatians 3 as we read earlier.

And then I found this article, you'll find this in the note, helpful by D .A. Carson on the reform view

versus spiritual disciplines.

He says, 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 and

alms giving.

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,

which to be honest with you, probably my wife would prefer me to have that spiritual discipline.

But rubbing a lady's back, if it's doing it for the glory of God, you could then equate it with, if you're taking

the same logic they're giving here, you can then equate it saying, if I discipline myself in this action, then God will use it to

transform me into the image of Christ, right?

He goes on to say, some of these so -called spiritual disciplines are entirely divorced from any

specific doctrine whatsoever.

There are merely a matter of technique.

That is why people say, sometimes say for your doctrine, by all means commit yourselves to evangelical

confessionalism.

But when it comes to spiritual disciplines, turn to Catholicism or

perhaps Buddhism.

What an astounding statement.

So write doctrine, stay with confessionalism.

But if you want to know more about spiritual disciplines, you're not going to evangelical sources to

get those.

You aren't going to historic reformed confessional sources to get those.

You have to go to something that is other than that, which is Catholicism or of course he says Buddhism.

So Dr. Carson concludes that this type of teaching subtly cajoles us into thinking that growth

in spirituality is a function of nothing more than conformity to the demands of a lot of rules,

of a lot of obedience.

So to be transformed in the image of Christ is done by rules to make it simple, right?

Really helpful conclusion, comparing reformed perspective of sanctification

and spiritual disciplines.

R. Scott Clark on his blog said, Christians without conscious confessional commitments or

an intentional awareness of the reformation tend to be rootless.

Meaning, lacking a tradition of piety of their own, they drift from one new thing to

the next or borrow electrically from this tradition.

And that like a three -year -old's playing dress -up.

When those who identify with aspects of reformed theology, however, borrow spiritual disciplines that the

reformed church considered and rejected, they are unintentionally creating the precondition for

greater problems.

Now, this is definitely what has gone on historically and even in, we're gonna get into this, where you have people who

claim to be reformed, but yet they're coming over here and they're grabbing spiritual disciplines and they're connecting them together.

And that just is gonna create greater problems.

So, as I stated before, this is why the study of historic theology is important.

Much of what is taught today concerning spiritual discipline has been rejected for hundreds of years now and

considered not to be biblical for good reasons.

So, modern Christianity has only recently embraced this, like I said, in the last 50 years.

So, how did this come about?

We go from Luther and Calvin and the confessions rejecting this to it's normal

to be practicing spiritual disciplines in today.

So, over the last 400 years, Christianity has slowly slipped away from a reformed understanding of Sola Fide

or living a life by faith alone as it concerns sanctification and has embraced,

I would say, a hybrid of Catholicism with evangelicalism.

And this really began with what's called the Counter -Reformation.

So, during the Protestant Reformation, during the 16th century, Roman Catholic Church responded to

the reformers and they responded with what's called the Counter -Reformation.

And the main thrust behind this movement was a man by the name of Ignatius Liola.

So, before I get going, is there any questions?

Nothing.

Okay.

I guess really what the quote says is hairy shirts.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes, hairy shirts.

Ouch.

All right, so the main thrust behind this movement is by a man by the name of Ignatius Liola.

He founded a group called the Jesuits, also known as the Society of Jesus.

But most of Ignatius' writings were attacks against, and this is, please catch this because we're gonna talk

about Ignatius in a little bit.

Most of his writings were an attack against the Protestant teachings of Luther and Calvin.

So, he is the Counter -Reformation.

He's trying to stop what they're doing, turn everybody back to Rome.

Ignatius is most famous for his book, The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Liola, which is written around

1522.

Ignatius leads his readers through a series of mystical ascetic practices, believing they

will lead to greater spiritual awareness and growth, okay?

So, the whole premise of the book is this practice, which we'll go through some of what his practices are,

will make you more aware of your faith and cause you to grow.

So, Ignatius' theology was rejected by the Reformers because it openly attacked the doctrine of Sola Fide.

Of course, if he's part of the Counter -Reformation, it would be logical that he would not hold to justification by faith

alone.

As mentioned earlier, many of the confessions and writings of the Reformers charted a course, steering their readers far

away from this tradition of the Roman Catholic Church's view of spiritual growth.

So, how did Ignatius' theology and other Roman Catholic teachings on spiritual

growth find their way back into popular evangelicalism?

Well, it began in the 17th century.

So, just a hundred years before Protestantism began to

allow this to seep back in.

And it began to seep back in through some of the Puritans and in their writings, not all the Puritans, but there's definitely a

select group of some of the Puritans who began to grab some of the older writings and even some of that of

Ignatius and bring them into the practice of the church.

American church history historian, Charles Hanbrook Stowe observed, quote, Puritans knew and

used classic Catholic devotional works.

The most popular judging from the number of edits were the works of St. Augustine,

St. Bernard, Thomas Achimpus, and his perennial, The Invitations of Christ and

the Primers.

And then later on, historian Richard Loveless, talking about the Puritans and what they did with the

Catholic works, he quoted, or sorry, he wrote, it is not surprising that some Puritan

writings are saturated with references to Protestant authors.

There are more references to the fathers than to Luther and Calvin.

Puritanism as it relates to sanctification, just to be clear, Puritanism is thus a bridge

movement in modern evangelicalism and Roman Catholics may find spiritual common roots.

Cotton Mather's omnivorous spiritual appetite smuggled in many Catholic devices such as

short ejaculate prayers, vows and attentions of piety, and day and night long vigils, or

depriving yourself of sleep.

So it's not, I think it's noteworthy to mention that the early writings of the Proverbians never really mentioned spiritual

disciplines or spiritual formation as far as that word or that, actually using spiritual disciplines.

But they allude to the concept of it, Puritans of the 17th century

allude to the concept of it.

And there's another quote here by Richard Loveless, I'll let you read that just to save time.

But in this, he historically accounts that the concept of quiet time, where you're gonna sit

down by yourself and read as a requirement, like in other words, as a Christian,

you're required to have a quiet time in order to grow in Christ, that comes to us by men like Cotton

Mather and even required prayer for meals and things like that.

Now listen, I don't believe that any of these actions are unsimple or unbiblical.

So reading your Bible by yourself, praying by yourself, which is actually commanded in scripture to pray by yourself.

But in any of these other fasting, even spending time alone is not bad.

We have a question?

We got two questions.

All right, we'll take a pause here.

And who's the question by?

Which one?

Can you just give me their name, Ryan?

Luis and Bernie.

Okay.

Okay.

I have been taught that fasting is an intentional choice to deny the flesh, to focus on the spirit purposes,

is to grow faith.

Where does this cross the line?

And how do we define the line?

And then, so an all night church prayer meeting isn't reformed.

All right, well, I wouldn't say an all night church prayer meeting is not reformed because they did it in the book of Acts when they're praying for Peter to be

released.

So apparently the church in Acts wasn't reformed.

No, I'm not saying that.

All right, two things.

And this, I'll jump a little ahead in the notes.

Your faith, if we're to define faith in prayer, both of them are acts of dependence, right?

So if you say, I have faith in Jesus, you aren't just saying I have faith in his existence.

Salvation is dependence upon Jesus for his death, burial, resurrection, and his life, right?

To have faith in the gospel is to fully depend upon Jesus.

And prayer is also a dependence upon him.

You are coming to God and you are depending upon him for if it's even it's just in his praise, you are

depending that giving him praise that that is true of him.

But then there's also requests.

When it comes to fasting, I think fasting absolutely can be beneficial.

And in scripture, it was done as a means to focus one's dependence.

Where there's a side of it where you're gonna stop and focus your attention and prayer into depending upon God

for either if it's wisdom or clarity or if there was a

moment of maybe even confession.

So it's dangerous to think that fasting equates more spirituality.

Like if I do this, then I will be a more spiritual person.

I think we have to also be careful that fasting is always connected to eating.

I think that there are times even within my week, there are times where I'll fast

and it has nothing to do with because I'm trying to be more of a spiritual person, but there are things I'm trying to think through and I'm trying

to gain wisdom from God.

So it's just like for today, I'm gonna set aside this meal.

I'm gonna use that time to depend upon God for something.

I'm not doing that because I'm trying to become a more spiritual person.

I'm doing it out of necessity.

I feel the need to do this because I'm weak and frail and sinful.

I have sin that clouds my mind and my heart at all times.

But I don't feel like it's, if you don't do that, then you're less of a Christian.

Because it's not very clear on fasting.

I mean, there's nowhere in the Bible that says, this is how much you must fast.

This is when you should fast.

It's left open and I think it's left open for a reason and we tend to

turn it into a law.

So great question.

All night prayer meetings.

No, I think it's, again, if you understand what prayer meetings are for, for the dependence of God and a church decides

that they wanna do that, if they understand that the more time they spend in

prayer doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna change God's heart and mind, but it may end up helping them

depend and change their own heart and mind as far as in trusting in God.

There's a whole nother discussion.

Pilgrims Guide to Rest, chapter five, I write on prayer.

You might find some helpful information there.

Okay, any other questions?

Doesn't look like it.

I completely lost.

Oh, here we go.

Now, I will admit that it can be difficult at times to see how the Puritan's teaching is

harmful or wrong because how can you say reading your Bible is wrong or praying is wrong?

And I'm not, like I said before, I'm not saying that that's the case, but most Puritan theology,

if they're picking up this language, is leading us towards a dependence upon self and self -performance.

So it's faithfulness, as we say with the theocasts, it's faithfulness instead of faith, right?

So we're putting the do before the done, which is dangerous.

So as we continue to move through history, the concept of external efforts leading to spiritual growth

gains traction, but Roman Catholic theology is never really overtly embraced.

So you're not gonna see it, you're not gonna see people overtly push you towards Rome,

but it does seep in.

And it seeps in with authors like Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, which we're gonna see here shortly.

All right, so let's keep moving forward.

So you have Ignatius, who really starts really popular.

His book is still being published today after 500 years.

Then you have, or 400 years, then you have the Puritans who begin to dabble in it.

And then it begins to influence big time influencers like Jonathan Edwards.

So everybody has heard of Jonathan Edwards.

And during the 18th century, Americans were deeply influenced by Jonathan Edwards, especially, for instance, his

70 resolutions.

If you've not read through the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards, you probably should.

And just ask yourself this question, where in the resolutions is he

resolving himself to rest in Christ?

I'm resolving to set aside all earthly desires.

I'm setting any temptation to put trust in my flesh or any temptation to put trust in faithfulness.

Then I'd be all about those resolutions.

Like give me 70 resolutions where every day I'm trying to resolve to only rest in Christ.

But it's not, he's resolving towards performance.

And some of those, I would say Jonathan Edwards, his intentions are not evil.

It's not like he's trying to teach some bad theology.

I think his resolve was to glorify God.

So kudos to that.

But it's coming from a distortion of justification and sanctification.

So in this, you're resolving to do something because you think

the end result will present you more righteous before God.

And we're gonna see here and it's not the case.

Moving quickly through this so we can get through all these notes.

You guys got, we go from Jonathan Edwards to men like John and Charles Wesley.

So these two brothers really have kind of a big evangelical shift from a faith

-driven sanctification to a works sanctification.

These men emphasize personal wholeness by means of methods.

Of course, they started the Methodist movement.

Methodist professor and writer, Randy Maddox wrote this in Christianity Today, which I found fascinating

about John Wesley.

He said he championed pursuit of holiness through spiritual disciplines.

Typically describing the Christian's goal as perfect love, seamlessly he issued denials of any

perfect holiness in his life.

So you have Jonathan, John and Charles Wesley, very popular, very famous.

A lot of their, a lot of influence, especially in the Methodist movement.

But they are really the one who kind of on the heels of Jonathan Edwards popularized, begin to popularize

this concept of disciplining yourself or making sure that you're doing certain things that make you holy before

God.

Now I would not describe Wesley's view of spiritual formation as the same as Foster and Willard.

I don't think Foster and Willard go as far as Wesley did, but he did start a trend

confusing the emphasis of personal holiness and which kind of ended up leading people

to think that they could live perfect lives or get into perfectionism.

And then this leads to the 19th century.

You have big influencer like Charles Finney, and you see the rise of

revivalism in America.

If you haven't heard Byron series on from here to there, spends a lot of time in revivalism, encourage you to go

and listen to that series.

It's free for those of you that are Total Access members.

But Charles Finney has been described as the father of modern revivalism.

And I mentioned Finney here because of his strong influence away from

historic biblical theology and his systematic theology.

Finney asks this question.

Does a Christian cease to be a Christian whenever he commits a sin, right?

It's a great question in his systematic theology.

Here's his answer.

Whenever he sins, he must for the time being cease to be holy.

The Christian therefore is justified no longer than he obeys and must be condemned when he

disobeys or antinomianism is true.

In these respects, then the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon

precisely the same ground.

That's an ouch to theology.

He's saying the moment you sin, you are no longer justified.

And this man has a heavy influence on a lot of American theology.

A lot of the revivalistic movement is fear tactic driven.

And so you have people questioning their salvation and it's very heavy performance based.

So you must perform well.

And of course, a lot of people would deny this theology but the influence of Finney can very much be seen

in today's teaching.

Two of the most well -known other men that kind of followed on the heels of Finney which is a D .L. Moody

and Billy Sunday.

And they too would attempt to change America's what there was his lack of godliness through moralistic preaching.

By this time in American history, the reformed theology was really on a decline and moral driven sermons was

very much on an incline.

Excuse me.

So this was kind of like, I would say I was really brief kind of quick through.

Ryan, do we have any questions yet?

Yeah.

John Decker asks, so the Puritans added prayer before meals.

I have a question.

Is that where that came from?

Yeah.

They required it.

They made it as a requirement.

So there's nothing in scripture.

Look, I think it's good to pray before meals.

It's good to stop at any moment and thank God for anything.

But to require it would mean if you didn't do it, you're in sin, right?

So some people, when they don't eat, like when they don't pray before they eat, they feel guilty like they did something wrong.

That was the dangerous.

It was, they made it a part of kind of like within the church culture, it was a requirement to do that.

So to answer that question.

And then Lynchin asks, did the Puritans not hold to the confessions?

Also, was it private devotion, devotion was a Moravian concept even before the

Puritans?

Yeah, it was definitely a Moravian concept.

I think that within the reformed crowd, it did begin to, the Puritans, it

began to influence them.

What was that?

What was the other question?

Did the Puritans hold to the confession?

Yeah, yes, they did.

But you would, like I said, you would see it seep in.

And it wasn't very prevalent during the, you can see it, like when I was doing my research, there was,

you can see where it began to seep in.

And even with, to be clear, every confessional church doesn't mean that their

theology is sound and perfect and they're not going to struggle with legalism.

As a matter of fact, there are confessional churches that hold to spiritual disciplines, which is kind of confusing to me.

So just to be clear, just because you're confessional doesn't mean your theology is going to be absolutely sound because it depends on how well do you

hold to the confessions so hopefully that answered those questions.

So the further we move away from the Reformation, the closer we are returning to the Roman Catholic theology

concerning spiritual growth and piety.

That's kind of the train of thought I wanted you to see.

And that gets us to the 1970s.

So we do not see spiritual disciplines truly gain traction in American culture until

this point.

So it's here and there, it's in pockets, it's beginning to gain traction through guys like Charles

Finney and Deal Moody through revivalism, but the explosion where it becomes

common knowledge, everywhere, everyone's accepting the concept really doesn't take traction until

the 1970s.

So who modern influence of spiritual disciplines?

The modern influencers are, the three we're going to look at is Richard Foster, Dallas Willard and

Don Whitney.

So let's start with Richard Foster.

Foster is a Quaker writer and theologian who wrote a book in 1978 entitled Celebration

of Discipline, which really is what caused the explosion.

And probably by far the most influential individual to give rise to this.

And many have titled Richard Foster to be kind of the father of the

modern spiritual disciplines movement.

So Foster himself writes, today it is a rare person who has not

heard the term spiritual disciplines.

Seminary courses in spiritual formation can proliferate like baby rabbits.

And it is absolutely true.

Even in so -called reform schools, there are classes

on spiritual disciplines.

A good example of this would be Southern Seminary.

So what is complicated about many of these men's works is that they will sound so

close to what scripture says.

So that's what can be complicated, is that, wow, what they sound, it sounds true.

For instance, in his book, Foster states, inner righteousness is a gift from God to be

graciously received.

The needed change within us is God's work, not ours.

I couldn't agree more.

I mean, that is an absolute brilliant statement, but he goes on to abandon that very statement

in his work later on.

For instance, he confuses the two.

In the quote, he says, God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace,

as a means of receiving his grace.

So we have to discipline in order to do that.

The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.

So again, it's not faith that transforms us, it's discipline that transforms us.

So he's beginning to deny the very statement he had quoted before.

So in this book, Foster provides an extensive list of various disciplines that help us

assist us in our transformation.

So some of the ones that he gives us, simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, to name a few.

The problem with this list is that scripture never states that any of these

actions actually produce spiritual transformation.

So simplicity, solitude, and submission, unless you're submitting yourself to the Lord Jesus

Christ in faith, they don't produce in us transformation.

Scripture never equates that.

But according to Foster, he's going to argue for that.

Do we have any other new questions?

What is the role of spiritual disciplines?

All right, we'll get to that at the end.

So that's a great question.

So hold on to that.

Yeah, John Dunbar asks us, what do you think the reason for the rise of pietism is due to the

perceived lack of values in society during the time of Moody and Sunday?

All right, so I'm gonna read this for those, for the recording later.

Do you think that, so this is from John Dunbar.

Do you think that the reason for the rise of pietism is due to the perceived lack of

morals, values in society during the time of Moody?

Yes.

So the moral laxity is, we would say, is that they were afraid that

Christianity was in decline.

Abuse of alcohol was a big issue.

Men out of work, getting drunk, laying in the street.

So you have this high move against alcoholism.

And what they're gonna do is transform the culture, and they do it through pietism, where they do it through fear and through guilt.

So absolutely.

So instead of trusting in the power of the spirit and preaching the gospel, they then bring moralism.

And this is why even Finney goes as far to say that if you're in sin, you're just like the unbeliever.

So if you die in sin without repenting, you're just like the unbeliever.

So it's a great question.

All right, so Foster's example.

So understanding that he would say, yes, transformation happens by the work of the spirit, but yet these

are the list of things that we must do, is a good example of a hybrid of mixing biblical teaching

with mystic and Jesuit practices.

And of course he's a Quaker writer, so Quakerism is affecting him as well.

As you read Foster's writing, you will observe that he clearly is versed in the writings of

Catholic and Jesuit orders and makes references to them often in his book.

So I don't wanna make this claim without actually showing it to you.

Here are several people, several Roman Catholic writers who've influenced Foster.

And again, remember Foster, father of modern view of spiritual disciplines, his book causes the explosion.

These are the men that he's recommending and also the men that are influencing them.

So first, which we mentioned the counter -reformation, remember Ignatius of Loyola.

In his book, there's a section that covers forms of meditation.

So Foster's book, there's a section that says forms of meditation.

And Foster writes, seek to live the experience, remembering the encounter of Ignatius of Loyola

to apply all our senses to our task.

Okay, so Foster introducing two believers, a man who was fighting

against the counter -reformation, sorry, against the reformation, trying to reinstate justification by works and

sanctification by works, right?

So if you have no idea who Ignatius is and you're reading Foster's book, you have no concept of

church history and you're reading Foster's book, you're like, wow, yeah, we're gonna, this man's old and he's been a

part of the church for a long time.

So the statement seems harmless.

And for years, Christians has kind of just embraced Foster's writing because they don't know who Ignatius is.

But again, remind you, Ignatius is writing against Luther and Calvin.

Another example of this is Thomas Merton.

In the middle of the 20th century, Thomas Merton was a man

famously known as a Trappist monk who lived in Gethsemane, Kentucky, which isn't too far from here.

And he wrote a lot.

He wrote over 70 books on the subject of spirituality.

And one of Merton's best loved books was actually his autobiography, which is called The Seven Story Mountain,

which was written about 1948.

And Foster, in an attempt to encourage the Roman Catholic concept of meditation, so in his section on meditation,

points his readers to Merton's writings.

And this is what he says.

Thomas Merton writes that the person who has meditated on the passion of Christ,

but has not meditated on the extermination camps of Dachau and Auschwitz has

not fully entered into the experience of Christianity in our time.

Which is, so again, Foster is saying, if you want to be transformed

in the image of Christ, you want to be sanctified, he is encouraging the writings of Roman

Catholic theology, specifically in the areas of meditating.

And in our meditation, you can't just meditate on scripture.

It has to be things like extermination camps.

So again, just confusion as it relates to our understanding of scripture.

Someone asked me earlier in, before we got started on Henry Nouwen.

And I think this, Foster uses Nouwen quite a bit.

And in quoting Nouwen, he says, God, the God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is the same

as the one who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being.

So you have here, Foster encouraging his readers to partake in Nouwen's theology of meditation.

And in opening this book, as he's doing so, there's almost this universalism, like everybody has

God.

Everybody has God that resides in them.

He's using Nouwen's theology as a form of meditation.

And in the book, he says, without solitude, it is virtually

impossible to lead a spiritual life.

Why is this so?

Because in solitude, we are freed from our bondage to people and our inner compulsion, and we are

free to love God and know compassion for others.

Well, that is an interesting statement.

He's saying it's impossible to lead a spiritual life unless we find ourselves in solitude.

What does this sound like?

Monasteries, right, Catholic monasteries.

So he's saying that spiritual progression, spiritual growth, absolutely cannot happen unless we're in

solitude.

So Foster's positively introduced three popular Catholic teachers, mystic

writers, two of them from the 20th century, as experts in the area of spiritual growth.

So the explosion of spiritual disciplines, which is attributed to Richard Foster,

he's using openly Catholic theologians who are not leading us to

understanding our sanctification by faith alone, even our justifications by faith alone, but is putting it

next to really mysticism and asceticism, which of course, Colossians says, asceticism is not how we

deal with the flesh.

So I got to skip some time here.

We're running out of time.

So let me move this forward.

I do want to point out that he never really, Foster really never points out in a footnote that these men

have Roman Catholic backgrounds.

He kind of just places them on the level of authority.

So if you can take all those quotes and check them in the book.

Now, I think there's an interesting quote here by J .I. Packer and it's

in relation to Foster's book.

J .I. Packer writes, conservatives, conservative evangelicals have noticed Foster's influence on Christian

thinking, unfortunately have embraced it.

I'm sorry.

Now here's the quote, I apologize.

Ever since Richard Foster rang the bell with his celebration of discipline in 1978,

discussing the various spiritual disciplines has become a staple element of conservative Christian in

talk in Northern America.

This is a happy thing.

So here we begin to see, you have people who consider themselves to be reformed writers

promoting Foster's work.

So confusion all around.

And the confusion is going to get even greater with guys like Dallas Willard.

So let's go with Dallas Willard and Don Whitney.

Now, this is where we're going to spend the rest of our time.

We have any questions I need to answer?

Okay.

All right.

Dallas Willard is the second author teacher who has had a large influence in popularizing the spiritual disciplines

movement.

And he was also a strong influence both in Foster and Witten.

So Willard was actually riding on spiritual disciplines before Foster was, but he wasn't really

gaining any traction.

Willard influenced Foster and Foster exploded.

But this is some of the theology behind Richard Foster.

Sorry, Dallas Willard.

Dallas Willard writes, here's the quote.

I want to explain with some precision and detail fullness how activities such as solitude, silence, fasting, prayer,

service, celebration, discipline 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.

By focusing on the whole of Christ's life, note, not as finished work, and the

lives of many who have best succeeded in following him, I will outline psychologically and

theologically sound testable way to meet grace and fully conform to him.

So Willard's list of activities, solitude, silence, among others are never, as I mentioned, described in scripture,

but he is saying that these are the best ways to succeed in following

Christ or being transformed into the image of Christ.

So Willard has placed the reader's faith in their faithfulness is what he's saying.

Their ability to complete these actions, which ultimately points away from Christ.

He goes on to say on his website, so clarifying this, he's gotten some questions on, well, what do you mean by this?

Can you please clarify?

And this is what he says.

Sometimes we think of spiritual formation as formation by the Holy Spirit.

Once again, this is essential, but now I have to say something that may be challenging for you to think about.

Spiritual formation is not at all by the Holy Spirit.

We have to recognize that spiritual formation in us is something that is

done to us by those around us, by ourselves and by activities, which we will

voluntarily untake.

This has to be the method.

Again, this can be confusing.

I think a lot of what he's saying is true, but he's combining them.

For instance, I think that when I go and participate in the means of grace, I am with my

fellow believers.

We are receiving Christ together.

The fellowship that we're building in another one and are up into love and love into good works, right?

So I believe in all of that.

That's good.

But when he's talking about, there's aspects of what we must do that actually

transform us into the image of Christ.

And unless you do this, this has to be done this way.

He's now taking what I would say the means of racing.

He's adding more to it.

Real quickly, and this is probably the one that most of you have probably heard of, which is Don Whitney.

And sadly, in recent history, the Reformed and what is known as Calvinistic crowd, I would say,

have embraced this concept of spiritual disciplines within the Reformed theology.

The most well -known and accepted book by many conservative and Reformed Christians today is Don's Whitney's

book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.

I'd be curious how many people have that book.

Maybe leave a comment.

The influence of both Foster and Willard's writing are very evident in Whitney's theology.

In his first book, he has some quotes in there, which are references to the Roman Catholic writings.

He received strong criticisms of that.

So when he did the updated version, he took a lot of those references out and left mostly just Christian writings.

But early in his book, around page 16 or 17, he writes, "'I will maintain the only road to Christian maturity "'and

godliness passes through the practice "'of spiritual disciplines.'".

Okay?

What does he mean by that?

Okay, let's not criticize him too quickly.

If he's saying we must discipline ourselves as far as focusing on our faith and our faithfulness, I agree with him.

But Whitney begins to explain what does he mean by this.

So again, "'I maintain that our only road "'to Christian maturity and godliness "'passes through the practice of spiritual disciplines.

"'This book examines the spiritual disciplines "'of Bible intake, prayer, worship, evangelism, "'service,

stewardship, fasting, silence, and solitude, "'journaling, and learning.

"'This is by no means, however, "'an exhausted list of spiritual disciplines "'of Christian living.

"'A survey of other literature on the subject "'would reveal that confession, accountability, "'simplicity, submission,

spiritual direction, "'celebration, affirmation, sacrifice, watching.'".

Watching what?

Wouldn't it be great if watching Netflix was a spiritual discipline?

And more, "'also qualify as spiritual disciplines.'".

Right?

I thought it was.

Yeah, for some, for some.

So it's like anything could be, this is going back to D .A. Carstens' point.

Anything at this point can be a spiritual discipline and you can turn it into a means by which we are more godly.

So again, confusing.

So it would be easy to find many of the disciplines Whitney provided in the Bible.

You can find some, right?

I don't disagree with some of these, which is praying, right?

There's nothing wrong, or fasting.

These are not necessarily wrong things to participate in a Christian.

What he's saying is I maintain the only road to Christian maturity is through these means.

So if you're not doing this, you cannot become a mature Christian.

In other words, you cannot be sanctified.

That's important to observe about Whitney's list is that he explains there are more than just the list he

provides.

And again, he begins to add in some of the writings from I would say Foster and even Ignatius

as far as solitude and quiet.

But she goes, you know, so just to point out some of the connections there, you can see the influence there.

But in his book later on, he urges Christians towards spiritual disciplines.

This is what he writes.

You can read the quote that's in here.

And so the urgent question every Christian should ask is, how then shall I pursue holiness?

The holiness without which I will see the Lord.

How can I become more like Jesus Christ?

We find a clear answer in 1 Timothy 4, 7.

Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

In other words, if your purpose is godliness and godliness is your purpose, if you have are the indweller by the Holy

Spirit, for he makes godliness your purpose, then how do you pursue that purpose?

According to this verse, you discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

Now, I believe that Whitney Rubedreck, any notion of good works

are the basis for our salvation.

There's no way that he would hold that.

If you press him, he would say, no, it's only if you do it by faith and love.

But in this quote, what he's doing is he is taking spiritual disciplines to its logical conclusion.

Without holiness, you will not see God.

And then he quotes 1 Timothy.

Discipline yourself for the sake of godliness.

So he's saying, if you do not discipline yourself and become godly, you won't see

God.

You see the circle there?

That's the danger.

That's exactly what Ignatius was saying.

And it's even what Charles Finney is saying, that if you're not willing to become almost perfect and discipline yourself

toward this direction, then you're playing with your justification.

Again, I am not accusing Whitney of being a heretic.

I'm just saying, when you combine Roman Catholic teaching in with the Bible, when it comes

to spiritual disciplines, you're gonna end up making conclusions that contradict each other.

And I think this is a good example of that.

One I added in recently, this is a book by David Mathis.

And I will get through this real quick, and then I will take your guys' questions.

And I think, yeah, we got enough time.

We are doing great on time.

So David Mathis would be the most recent, I think, popular book.

It really kind of hit the market pretty well.

I think it was sent out to a lot of churches.

And for those of you that don't know, he's the Executive Director for Desiring God Ministries.

And his book is entitled, Habits of Grace, Enjoying Jesus Through Spiritual Disciplines.

And what's hard about this book is that it's been endorsed by some pretty big names, right?

John Piper, Don Whitney, Tim Challies, Jerry Bridges, which I came up earlier, and even D .A. Carson.

And I believe that some of these men that have endorsed this book, because

it's kind of portraying what I would say a reformed view, because some of the language that it's

using.

So for instance, Mathis, in his book, he uses the word means of grace as the baseline reasoning for the

spiritual disciplines.

And here's the confusion.

So he says means of grace, but he actually never talks about the means of grace from a reformed

confessional perspective.

He actually promotes spiritual disciplines.

So I think he's trying to create a hybrid of like, let's bring the reformed guys in and the spiritual disciplines together.

But the reason I struggle with the book is that he kind of just tells you he's taking Whitney's

work and he's just kind of condensing it down.

So there's a paragraph in the opening of the book.

In the purpose of his book, he says, in particular, I'm eager to help Christians, young and old, simplify their approach to their

various personal habits of grace or spiritual disciplines by highlighting the three key principles of

ongoing grace, hearing God's voice, his word, having his ear prayer, and belonging to his

body fellowship.

And then he later on admits that whatever the terms, the key is that God has revealed certain channels

through which he regularly pours out his favor, and we are foolish not to take his word on

them and build habits of spiritual life around them.

All right, so I don't agree with, I don't disagree with everything that he's saying except for the concept behind

it.

And this is, the major issue I'm having with all of these guys,

so Willard Foster, Whitney, and even Mathis, is that they believe

the way in which we are transforming the image of God is through faithfulness to these

particular lists.

Mathis gives the smallest, he gives three.

Foster gives the most.

But again, the question is, who's right?

So this is where I think clarifying, are we saved and sanctified by faith

alone, or are we saved by faith and then we are sanctified by spiritual disciplines?

That particular question to be answered.

I would say the easiest way to clarify this is, if an emphasis on the personal interior of the Christian life

is the way in which you believe that you are becoming more holy, so how you are performing different acts,

then you have confused what means of grace is, what the means of grace,

how we are to participate in the means of grace.

I'm not gonna get into this, unless it comes up in a question.

This is my next lecture, which is in lecture three.

We will spend a lot of time in this, but I'll set it up for you.

If you look at the Christian life and how it is that we are transformed from one image into another,

that life, I'm sorry, if we're transformed into the image of Christ,

that happens in a corporate global level.

Not entirely, but the economy of Christianity is seen in that way.

For instance, when Paul or any of the New Testament writers are writing to the church, they're writing to individuals,

but that individual application is applied always in a corporate context.

So when you have the preaching of God's word as one of the means, that's a corporate setting.

You have men who are training God's word, who have been approved by the congregation and the elders, who are to stand up and

exhort people to put their faith in Christ, and that is one of the means that God has instituted as the

way in which you will be transformed into his image.

You are putting faith in Christ in the means of a corporate preaching, and then even in the receding of the element,

so the Lord's table.

Again, it's something that's being done to you in a corporate reality, and then even baptism, which

is seen as a corporate reality.

The only part that you have that's individualized in a private moment is really prayer,

and if you think about prayer, if prayer is dependence, then you are depending upon God for

everything that's there.

You are not doing it as a dependent upon self.

In other words, you will be less godly if you don't spend a certain amount of time in prayer.

You are now putting your faith in your faithfulness, right?

So even your prayer is now, you're misplacing your prayer.

Prayer is designed to make sure that you stay in dependence upon God for his righteousness.

Okay, I'm gonna end there, because we are exactly at 8 .30, and then we'll go ahead and grab your guys' questions.

Okay, you want me to start from the top?

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Well, just tell me what the first one is.

Lynn, Lynn, again.

Lynn.

Right under the movie, the John Donne book.

John Dunbar, Lynn has two.

Oh, wow, there's a...

On live chat.

I guess, well, there's a...

Read to me the first question, and I'll see if I can find it.

What, Ben, is the role of spiritual disciplines?

Okay, here we go, there we go.

Yes, role of spiritual disciplines.

I don't really think there is a role for them, because I think the theology behind them is obscured.

It's wrong.

The Bible, to be clear, this is where the confusion happens.

What people hear me say then is, oh, then I guess Christians don't need to be disciplined.

I'm not saying that.

As a matter of fact, Paul says the exact opposite.

What does he say?

I beat my body, right?

I beat down.

Because what does our flesh wants to do?

Our flesh wants to flourish.

We want to go do things that are sinful.

But Paul also says in Colossians that if you use means of the flesh to fight sin, it doesn't work, right?

So this is the end of Colossians chapter three.

Two and three.

So I think that if you're going to discipline yourself, I think you need to discipline yourself

in trusting in the finished work of Christ or focusing your attention on Christ and

from your faith in Christ, you then obey.

You then move out.

The danger of spiritual disciplines, as I said before, is that you're always focusing in on you

and you personally.

So you don't see your need to depend upon the body and

upon the preaching of God's word and the fellowship of the people.

You depend upon, I have to do, accomplish these things myself.

So solitude, meditation, journaling, which journaling, multiple people kept journaling

as a spiritual discipline.

I'm just like, I don't see that as scripture.

As a command from God to do this and therefore you shall become more like Christ.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with journaling.

If you want to write out your prayers or even just document what God is doing or your heart and

life, there's nothing wrong with it.

But if you think that doing that somehow is gonna make you further along in your

sanctification, you've just mistaken that that's not how it works.

So I have a struggle with the list of things that are given.

If you think doing that equates spiritual growth, then here's your list.

Preaching of God's word, the Lord's table and baptism are the means by which God has given us to grow.

So great question.

I'm gonna keep moving through these.

Great thoughts on A .W. Pink's holiness.

What are my thoughts on A .W. Pink's holiness?

I haven't read that in years, so I really can't answer that.

So maybe on a podcast or another time, I'll take a look at that.

I'll make sure John answers these.

Okay, Thomas Merton sounds like a modern day, yeah.

So are these examples of moralizing the gospel, Jesus went off by himself to pray?

I think so.

Now, Jesus does say, when you go alone to pray, right?

So he is assuming we're gonna pray alone, but there's never a, we like to say, well,

Jesus went and prayed early in the morning and Jesus went and prayed late at night.

So we, if Jesus, who is sinless, needs to do that, then we need to do that as well.

You have to be careful in that.

That's not necessarily the truth.

There is the, like fasting, there is the concept that we do fast and we do pray, but putting

a requirement on it, I just think you're going outside of scripture at that moment and you're forgetting what the point of prayer is.

Point of prayer is dependence.

So it's our need to rely on God for everything in life, so.

So how do you interpret scriptures?

Like 1 John, whoever says that he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which

he walked.

I get tripped up on this.

I love how he says, I get tripped up on this when he's talking about walking.

Well done.

Yes, I don't, yeah, nice pun.

I do not, we always like to separate.

It's either spiritual disciplines always is obedience.

And if you live by faith, there is no obedience.

Please understand when James says, if you have faith and not work, your faith is dead.

I agree with James.

There's no, in the reformed faith, we are not saying that it is faith alone.

We are saved by faith alone and we are sanctified by faith alone.

Therefore there is no works.

You just have to understand what the purpose of works are and where they come.

In pietism and in even in Catholic theology, the emphasis is on works, right?

My works either save me or my works are confirming my salvation or in some ways

my works are holding up my salvation, right?

So what we love, I would say the most popular version of it is my works hold up my salvation.

So I put a lot of hope in my works and that makes spiritual disciplines make sense, right?

So if I'm disciplining myself in my Bible reading and I'm disciplining myself in my prayer life and whatever else is gonna put in there, then I'm

proving that I'm actually a believer.

Well, what's heartening then is in 1 John, John actually is not talking about individualizing obedience.

He's talking about people who are unwilling to love the body.

John flat out says, if you say you love me and have not love for your brother, you're a liar.

Because those who have been transformed by the Holy Spirit and brought into the family of God, they are now

see themselves as part of this family and dependent upon this family.

And if you reject that and say, no, I hate those people and you are unwilling to see them and love them, he's saying, then you

don't understand the gospel.

So he's not saying your love is required as far as it is the natural next step.

He's saying, that's just what happens.

You have been transformed by the Spirit.

This is what ends up happening.

Good example of this is in John 10.

I just got done teaching John 10.

And in John 10, they say to Jesus, will you please just make it plain?

Will you just please make it plain?

Do you, or are you the Christ?

And Jesus says, look, for the last 10 chapters, of course he doesn't say this, but for the last 10 chapters, I've illustrated through what I've said and what I've

done that I am him.

Because you don't believe because you are not my sheep.

But then you have people in the very next verse who say, man, we believe.

Well, what's the difference?

You have people who believe, put their faith in Jesus and then follow him because of the powers, the Spirit of the power

that's in them.

Sometimes we are trying to beat people into salvation.

If they don't see the need for obedience, it's not that they need to obey, it's that they don't understand the gospel.

So that's the difference.

It's just kind of clarifying that.

So we're going to go and move on to the next one.

Okay, on that's three.

What is outward?

The question, WLC's question is what is the outward means?

The answer is the outward and ordinary, especially the word sacraments and prayer.

This question is, third one down.

Would this not mean reading the word in prayer or spiritual disciplines that are effective for the elect for sanctification by

the Spirit using these as means?

So would the Spirit use the word in prayer that's for sanctifying the

saints?

Yeah, so to clarify, I guess to sum it up, does the Spirit use prayer and Bible reading

as means to grow spiritually?

Yes, I believe that the Spirit can do that.

But here's the danger.

When you place requirements on Christians and saying a one -to -one

correlation, right?

Your Bible reading is connected to your spiritual growth.

Here's the danger in that.

I know people who know their Bible way more than I do, and they're not believers.

I mean, they know it in Greek and Hebrew.

They can exegete a passage far better than I can, but they don't have faith in Christ alone.

So you have to be careful in making the one -to -one correlations because it doesn't necessarily work that way.

There are other people who know their Bible really well, and they live in complete sin.

So they might be a believer, but man, they have been well -trained, but they're living in sin.

And are they a believer?

I don't know.

We have been so programmed to think that what I do personally is what transforms me

personally.

Okay, again, it's interior of the Christian life.

What the means of grace point to us is that everything is outside of us, and it's designed

by God.

What's interesting is if you try and find in scripture where there's a one -to -one correlation to

the personal time in the Word, okay, where you are reading on a daily basis, and

that reading is telling you that it is gonna result in a transformation of the Spirit.

Is you're gonna hard -press to find that because the Bibles didn't exist during

Jesus' time.

During the Old Testament, a lot of what was brought and put down was verbal, and then it was the reading of God's

Word.

So they would go, and they would hear, and they would hear God's Word read, and they would try and put it into their hearts so they could remember it.

But there was not this daily moment where they would sit down, and they would say, okay, I'm gonna read God's Word, and as I read His

Word, that reading, the act of reading, will then transform my heart, or transform me, or

sanctify me into the image of Christ.

That's a dangerous concept to have, because here's why.

You're putting your faith in the action of reading instead of in the person of Christ.

Now, you have to be careful in that because you might, I understand, if you're reading scripture,

and the result of your scripture reading is leading you to faith in Christ, that's fine.

I will say, though, in scripture, you have the exhortation to the preaching of God's Word and the table and baptism,

and in that corporate reality, you are considering how to build one another up into love and good works, right?

So those are the clear commands in scripture.

If, do I read my Bible?

Yes, I love to read the Word of God.

It's very encouraging.

I do not equate the amount of time I read in the Word of God to my spiritual growth.

That is the danger, okay?

That's all I'm trying to say is that you cannot make a one -to -one correlation.

The more time I spend in God's Word, does it reveal more truth to me?

Absolutely, but it's not the guarantee that that action is gonna cause greater faith in Christ.

I know the preaching of the Word, I know the table will, and so that's what I trust in.

Okay.

Phil Carpenter, what's up, Phil?

Asks about 1 Timothy 4, 7.

Okay.

What time, I just wanna make sure we got, oh, we got plenty of time.

1 Timothy 4, 7.

We got about 15 minutes.

Okay, so 1 Timothy.

Yeah, so it says,.

Having nothing to do with irrelevant silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness.

That's a great question.

Okay, so, man, I'd have to look that within this context, but I think

what he's talking about here, you put these things, my brothers, you will be good servants of

Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and a good doctrine.

Yeah, having nothing to do with irrelevant silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is godliness, is of true value and holds promise.

Yeah, okay.

I don't have a problem with this, first of all, because it's scripture, right?

It's Paul writing.

Again, we think that that training is equating to

your standing.

So that's the confusion here.

So if you think the godliness, that the training for yourself for godliness is equating towards

your standing before God, that's the confusion.

There are people within my congregation that I have to help form and shape what does it look like

to pursue and love one another and to love good work.

So we've been highly individualized.

So what Timothy is saying is that, look, it's gonna take work in order to learn how to love your neighbor, right?

A lot of this doesn't necessarily come naturally.

So I said this in the beginning of the lecture, Christian, I don't believe that

Christians are lazy and they shouldn't have discipline.

So when it says discipline yourself for the sake of godliness, I don't have a problem with that because our bodies naturally want

to sin.

The danger of it is, if you think that the disciplining is a result of, right?

This is why I'm theocaster this all the time, done before due.

So in 1st Timothy, you have Paul who is laying gospel truth down on the believer.

And from that gospel truth now comes the what we call boots on the ground, the application of that.

So saying, if it's true, if Christ is your redeemer, if Christ has bought and paid for you and

you've been transformed into his image, you now have a mission, right?

That mission now is to take what's vertical and make it horizontal.

Because most of the commands, almost all the commands besides glorifying God are vertical.

I'm sorry, they're horizontal.

Meaning that it's for the benefit of the believer.

So yeah, I don't have a problem at all for someone who dedicates their time, disciplines their body, making sure that they are

loving the body in that way.

I don't think that negates living a life by faith, right?

So those who live by faith are not lazy.

No one ever could call Paul lazy, but it's where you rest.

And I have an illustration.

I'll close the evening with that illustration.

Let me just grab some of these other questions.

Is there any pushback against Puritan pietism, God and matter, for example,

in their time?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

I didn't get that far in my research, but that is actually a great question.

It'd be interesting to research that.

Okay, Metro Word.

You mentioned prayer as individual dependence.

How do you think of taking in God's word regularly alone, either by reading or meditation,

sanctified by truth, trusting in the gospel to sanctify?

I don't think it's wrong or sinful.

Okay, so I think I've said this before.

So the receiving of God's word personally, there's nothing wrong with it.

The danger is thinking that it's a priority above the actual means that are given to us,

okay?

Going on long walks alone can be beneficial.

Refraining from certain things can be beneficial.

But again, remember your faith is in Christ to sanctify us and by the

means that's been given to us.

So we're washed with the word.

I think that's why it's important that when we go here preaching, that we wanna be washed with the word as

far as in curing of Christ.

So again, once have our faith renewed in Christ, not have our motivation renewed for

faithfulness.

Most of the time you go in here preaching, it's motivational speaking.

Here are five ways to be more faithful this week and now you've been re -energized to do that.

Instead of being washed by the word of, here is how we can rest in the finished work of Christ.

And from this resting position, we now will go out and love our brothers, right?

So there's a difference in that.

When it comes to Bible reading, if someone wants to discipline themselves to read the Bible, that's fine.

But if you make a one -to -one correlation, my discipline in my Bible reading equals my

righteousness, that's the danger.

But if you say, listen, I enjoy the truth of Christ and I enjoy reveling in the truth of Christ on

a daily basis because I can, I don't have a problem with that.

But the danger again is the more I discipline myself in my Bible reading, the more I'll be like Christ.

It is by faith that we're that way.

So it's just, don't put your faith in the actions of Bible reading.

Like I'll make a wild, crazy statement here.

There are people who live a life of faith, enjoying the wonders of Christ,

are very effective within the community and the body for hundreds of years and could not read.

And could not read.

That's like history.

There were cultures for, this is what caused a lot of the dark ages, even with the Roman Catholic theology, they

had the center on education.

Are you telling me that unless someone can read every single day, that they won't truly have a

full experience within Christ?

I think it's why it's important when Paul instructs Timothy and the elders to make sure that the teachers are not novice.

You want men up there who can lead people into faith in Christ and lead them well.

So again, there's this heavy emphasis on individualizing.

And what I'm saying is the Bible leads us into a corporate reality.

Our sanctification is connected corporately.

I'm gonna just read you this real quick.

This is getting into my next lecture, but I'll just encourage you to read Ephesians 3 and 4.

And in Ephesians 3 and 4, Paul lays out this whole instruction to the body.

And he says, if the body functions properly, it builds itself up in love.

What's interesting about that is he's taking individual people and he's saying the corporate reality is

how you grow.

Nowhere in scripture do you have someone who correlates one -to -one growth as far as growing up in Christ

as it relates to personal action in quietness or in their Bibles alone.

So search scripture and find that.

There is definitely internalizing of it, but the application of it is always corporate.

Okay, let me grab some of these other questions.

Okay, Michael Murray asks, why would you agree that our relationship with these activities, Bible

reading, prayer, et cetera, has changed from a requirement to grow to more of

an opportunity to do these things because of faith in Christ?

Yeah, so if you've been kind of walking down this road with

theocast or just in a reformed theology, you go from a requirement to something we get to do, I would say

absolutely.

I think it terrifies people that I don't stress Bible reading.

And there's a side in every single person's like, no, no, no, John, you really need to encourage people to be in

their Bibles every single day.

And just to be frank, if I do that, if I make that pressure on people

that they are not a good Christian and they don't grow unless they have this,

I am setting myself kind of outside of one, I think scripture, but also outside of history.

It's just not, a hundred years ago, you had family Bibles maybe,

but 200 years ago, no one had Bibles that was that easy to have.

So you couldn't practice in this way.

It was harder to do this kind of a practice.

So how do you love and encourage someone?

Well, you have to be together and you would encourage each other through the words surrounding it through the times

of teaching with prayer.

Again, I encourage you to, I keep saying this, read chapter five and I'm gonna do some more teaching on prayer.

But if you understand prayer to be a dependence, I pray because I must depend upon God.

I don't pray because somehow the more I pray, it equals to my transformation in the spirit.

I always am transformed by faith.

That's the danger.

So, but to actually answer Michael's question, I would say, for those of us

who live by faith done before due, the time of the word is a sweet time.

It's a time to be reflective and refreshed, but we don't feel like it's a necessary in order.

If I don't do this, then I'm a bad Christian.

If I don't do this, I'm gonna fall, pray to sin.

I don't think that if there's a man who's traveling and he's got all these sales things and he

can't get 30 minutes in the word that he's now in danger of falling into sin.

I don't see that because then that means there have been men and women who have been in danger to fall into sin for thousands of years because they

haven't had their own personal Bible.

It's faith in Christ and the finished work of Christ, resting in Christ and in these truths that keep us.

So what do we, if we walk by the spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Walking by the spirit is not daily time of the word.

Walking by the spirit is living in a reality that Christ's righteousness is what clothes me and God

sees me as holy and righteous and I trust in that.

And when temptation comes and says, but you can trust in this, I can push against that and say, no, I'm trusting in Christ's

righteousness.

I don't need that flesh to come and get me.

And then when I do fall into it, what does he say?

Go back and read your Bibles.

Go back and do more.

He says, no, repent of that sin.

And this is part of that disciplining yourself for the sake of godliness.

You need, to repent of sin takes discipline, right?

But why am I disciplining myself?

It's out of love.

I am not trying to reposition myself righteous before God because I need that required righteousness.

I'm doing it out of love for what he's done for me.

So good question.

All right, let me grab a couple more of these and we'll be done.

Len has the last four.

Okay.

But reading the word of prayer doesn't mean it's a sanctification.

I don't think of a one -to -one correlation, but that it's a,

what that, you know, it's a means.

Through which God sanctifies according to the confessions.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Well, again, I'm going to say reading personal Bible reading and preaching is not the same.

It's just not.

We just have to be careful with that.

So I know it makes, there's a side of it that makes people very uncomfortable,

but the act of reading is not what saves you.

The act of reading is not what sanctifies you.

It's not.

Faith is what saves you.

Faith in Christ is what saves you.

And faith is what sanctifies you.

And if that's hearing God's word and believing, okay, salvation and hearing God's

word and being sanctified, it's faith.

All right, I've been trying to hold this off.

So I'm going to give one illustration and then we're going to, I'm going to say, you got to go listen to session two

and, sorry, session three and four, because I really get into this.

What's that?

Which will be out soon.

Which will be out soon.

In session three, I really explain kind of the role.

Of the church here.

And in section four, I really explain means of grace.

It's hard for me to get into all of that right now.

We have to create an entire worldview change.

Remember when I said in the beginning, your perspective will drive your purpose.

So if your perspective is that my entire world rests in trusting in Christ.

So my obedience is important, but my obedience comes from a position of resting.

So I've been saying this a lot lately, that I obey from a resting position.

I am resting in the fact that God is good with me.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

There's no required righteousness left of me.

And by nature, by the power of the spirit, I am going to obey and I desire to obey, but I am obeying from a

resting position.

A lot of people obey out of fear.

A lot of people obey out of guilt.

And a lot of people obey out of duty.

In other words, it's required for me, I'm going to do it.

We, as if we understand rightly our position in Jesus Christ, we obey because of what is done.

So here's the illustration I have for you.

If I came to you and I said, okay, I'll use Lynn as an example.

Lynn, we're going to go down to the LA and Los Angeles.

We're going to find people that need help, like legitimately need help.

And we're going to take money from your bank account.

And we're going to go and help those people.

Well, first of all, you're like, yes, I want to help people.

But secondly, that's my money.

I earned it.

I worked hard for it and I need that.

So no, you can't have my money, but maybe here's a little bit to go do that.

So there's a side of you that's like, I'm not giving, I'm not departing from that because it belongs to me.

Here's the second scenario.

I then write you a check for a million dollars.

And I say, Lynn, now I want you to go and I want you to give this money away and find people who need it.

Well, it's so much easier to give away what doesn't belong to you, especially if

it's going to do someone good.

No one thing that's going to require of you is your time.

Unfortunately in Christianity, we see our righteousness as something we're accumulating

and we are unwilling to allow anybody to touch that because it's something we've worked for and

it's ours.

And in some ways, our personal Bible reading and our prayer time is that moment of,

hey, listen, I've really accumulated this and it's important to me and it's valuable to me because it's

part of my self -righteousness.

It's part of my righteousness.

It's what that is.

Not in every case, but that's how it feels.

So every time you hear that verse from Paul, when he says, you've been bought with a price,

now glorify God in your bodies, we feel guilty in that, like, oh my, oh, okay.

Yeah, I've been, you bought me, so I guess I'll have to do this.

But if you change it and you realize I've been purchased, which means I was in debt, I was in

definite guilty for condemnation forever in needing the perfect righteousness.

And all of a sudden you wake up and debt gone and you own all the

righteousness that you could ever possibly own.

Like it's all yours.

And then God says, now go give my righteousness away.

Go give it away.

Or we'll rephrase it, glorify God with this.

It's no longer guilt, shame, duty.

Well, it's not mine.

And so from this moment of resting, like I have nothing left to earn.

I have nothing left to do.

It's all been done.

Now I get to go give God glory and give away his righteousness to other people for the sake of the

kingdom.

That's the design of it.

So what is it that you need to constantly be reminded of?

That it's done.

You need to be reminded that there's nothing left for you to do.

And everything has been done for you.

So you are constantly receiving to remind yourself of where the flow comes out of.

It's faith before faithfulness, right?

Done before due.

So that's my encouragement to you there.

I totally got into preaching.

I apologize.

And right there, it's nine o 'clock.

For those of you that want to stick around, I'd be more than happy to answer a couple of questions, but then Ryan and I have to go because we

have an early work tomorrow.

So I'll answer a couple more.

Oh, I guess that's it.

John Decker says, same time next week.

Ryan is up next.

I'll be on a cruise next week.

So no.

Yes, I will be moving into a new location, but we do plan on doing more of these.

I'm glad that you've enjoyed them and hopefully this is helpful for you.

I would also say if you're wrestling with this, it's good.

It's good to wrestle.

I would equate it to, for those of you that transitioned into a Calvinistic perspective, that

first moment you encountered depravity or election, I'm pretty sure you didn't wake up the next morning and just

embrace it.

It takes time to wrap your head around it.

And so my encouragement to you is just continue to work through this.

Don't give up on your Bible reading.

Go find Christ in that, but don't equate your personal standing before God.

All righteousness required is already been met.

Now, rest in it.

And from that, discipline yourself so that the godliness that's been granted to

you can be flowed out to those around you.

And you have to participate that in your church.

So if you're not a part of a local church, loving the body and receiving Christ, then this is not church.

The Theocast is not church.

So don't confuse it with that.

All right, well, unless we have any other questions, I think we're gonna shut it down.