Author: Bo Parker
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Spiritual Disciplines Problem
I find that people who have had a personal experience with an emphasis on the value of spiritual disciplines in their past often emerge with an ambivalence or even an aversion. Rather than appreciating the value of spiritual disciplines, their experience has made them wary of embracing them again. If that is your experience, I…
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Spiritual Disciplines
Dallas Willard is an author who laments the lack of a Christlike witness amongst Christians. In the preface of his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, he writes the following. “Faith today is treated as something that only should make us different, not that actually does or can make us different…..Today, we think of Christ’s…
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He who began a good work…
The strong sense that the world is not how it should be if there is a good and powerful God is a stumbling block to faith for many. The Biblical answer is that the world is not how it is supposed to be, but that it will be when Christ returns in glory. Particularly in…
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Experiencing God VI
Continuing with Elijah and his cave experience, we tend to think that if God is involved in something, His dramatic power will be on display. God would be in the strong wind or earthquake or fire, not in the sound of a low whisper. And this can be a stumbling block for experiencing God at…
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Experiencing God V
” I will be as real as you make me.” There is something about the idea that this is a part of God being real for us that is not satisfying. This could easily be viewed that God is in fact not real and that our faith is just make believe. We are inventing a…
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Experiencing God IV
Probably my favorite scripture passage is Mt 14:22-33 where Peter, for a time, is able to walk on water. This story is a fascinating combination of faith and experience. Peter is able to walk on the water, but then he starts to sink and Jesus has to rescue him. Jesus’ question “O you of little…
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Experiencing God III
If we are to have an experiential relationship with God, why is it difficult to experience God and why do so many long for more than what they have? This goes back to Dallas Willard’s question, “Why isn’t God obvious?” Willard points to a passage in The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s book about a…
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Experiencing God II
Did the believers in New Testament churches have an experiential relationship with the Holy Spirit? And if they did, how is it that a whole segment of the church teaches that experiencing the Holy Spirit is not necessary and that the seeking of such experiences is more dangerous than beneficial? An answer to the second…
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Experiencing God
I think our desire for more of the voice of the Lord type guidance reflects our longing for a more experiential relationship with God. I recently thought that the essence of what I am trying to do with Leavened Lives is to have God be more real for people in their work lives. And God…
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Much Debate?
And after there had been much debate… Acts 15:7 What are we to make of this first activity of the Jerusalem Council? Does this show that they are still immature in their faith and are operating according to the “ways of man”? Or was this a valuable and valid part of their decision making process?…