Ok, I couldn’t resist one last little clip from Jonathan Thomas, pastor of Cornerstone Church, Abergavenny. Click here for the clip.
To see the full interview, which is well worth it, please sign up to the Cor Deo Online mailing list and we will give you access when it is released later this week. Click here to sign up.
Apparently, we live in an age of increasing spirituality. Magazines and websites are full of articles explaining how to increase the spirituality that is latent within each of us. The advice is often connected to the diet we eat, the attitude we have toward others, or the practice of daily habits like meditation and prayer. If only we could practice patience, tell the truth more, find something to believe in and join a spiritual community, then we would be more spiritual, or so we are told.
We live in a generation that seems to be obsessed with this kind of spirituality – one that is fashionably new, and yet at the same time, rooted in ancient practice.
Everything I have written so far could be written about your natural-food-eating, yoga-practicing colleague. But it could also be describing someone totally different. In John 3, Nicodemus came to speak with Jesus. He was in many ways much more like the impressive moralist of two or three generations ago – that is, someone who looks impressive because of the standards they keep and the things they don’t do. But still, in today’s terms, he is not unlike a 21st century spiritual leader.
Nicodemus believed there is a latent spiritual life within that can be cultivated and developed if you live well. He ate a strict diet, had a certain attitude toward others, and was diligent with daily habits not unlike meditation and prayer. He may have practiced patience, taken pride in his honesty, definitely believed something and been at the heart of a spiritual community.
He really was not a 21st century spiritual man, nor a 19th century moral man, but he was an impressive 1st century spiritual leader and example to others. Nicodemus was morally impressive, highly educated, significantly influential and personally powerful. In almost every respect he was at the top of the pile, and I suspect all of us would have been intimidated if we met him.
Jesus wasn’t intimidated, nor impressed. Nicodemus wanted to talk spirituality with Jesus, but Jesus couldn’t talk spirituality with him. Why? Because, despite everything he had learned, achieved, cultivated and developed, he was yet to even begin being spiritual. Jesus knows what is inside every man, and as he looked inside Nicodemus he saw absolutely no evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God.
This is a massively important point for us to remember – the spirituality of the New Testament is always absolutely defined by the presence of the Spirit of God. It is not a quality latent in humans. It is not something our meditating and travelling neighbor can develop outside of faith in Christ. As Jonathan Edwards writes in his Treatise on Grace, spirituality is not given its name because it is connected to the soul or the spiritual part of humanity, but because it comes from the Spirit of God. In fact, Edwards makes it clear that people who are not saved are not just lacking enough of the Spirit of God, they actually don’t have Him at all.
Why is it important for us to be clear that true biblical spirituality is completely wrapped up in the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit?
1. Spirituality outside of Christ? We must not be fooled into thinking that spirituality is a quality that some humans can develop more than others, and that they are doing so outside of Christ. Hopefully you are clear that outside of Christ there is no access to true spirituality. However, there may well be people in your church who are not clear about that. We live in an age where a certain kind of tolerance is celebrated, and so there will be young and biblically untaught believers in your church who assume all spirituality is genuine – after all, they have been trained by our age to not question the experience of others. If our churches are going to be effectively evangelizing this generation with its version of spirituality, then we need to help people understand the radical and eternity-changing difference between human spirituality and true Christian spirituality.
2. Confused spirituality within the church? It is not just how we view the world around us that matters. We also need to be clear within the walls of our churches, too. The church reflects its surrounding culture more than we realise. I wonder how many people in our churches assume that spirituality is a quality that is latent within each person, which can be developed and grown by Christianised versions of non-Christian practices and ideas? It could be the case that we have lots of Christians investing lots of energy into approaches to spirituality that are inherently missing the point. For all their apparent Christian devotion, it could be that their healthy living, daily meditation and prayerful practices are more oriented to what they assume lies within them naturally, instead of fixing the gaze of their hearts on the person of Christ by the Spirit of God.
3. The profoundly personal nature of true Christian spirituality. Self-focused spirituality is not a 21stcentury invention. It is not even an ancient idea originating with Eastern religions. Self-focused spirituality goes right back to the Fall of humanity into sin. We have a deep inner pull towards our own independence that goes back to Genesis 3. We think we are alive when actually we are spiritually dead. That was Nicodemus’ problem. And apart from Christ, that is my problem. In fact, even as Christians, because of our flesh, it is still our problem.
We need to ask God to grow in us a discernment concerning any spirituality that poits our hearts to self, rather than to Christ. Let us thank God for His Spirit living within us, who always wants to pour out God’s love into our hearts and nudge our hearts to fix their gaze on Jesus. True Christian spirituality is not primarily about a quality within us, but about a person we love. It is profoundly personal, and Christ will always be the focus when the Spirit of God is at work.
And if the Spirit of God is not at work, then call it what you like, but it isn’t spirituality.
Yesterday I offered three implications of the doctrine of Biblical clarity for us as preachers. Since the Bible is written by a master communicator who made sure it could be understood, therefore we need to work hard at understanding, we should help others know it can be understood, and we should strive to be clear in our own preaching.
There’s one more issue that I wanted to add to the list. This might be the one we need to ponder more than the others. Clarity is not really about intellectual capacity. The brightest scholars can make the biggest mess with interpreting Biblical texts. The simplest Christian can profoundly understand God’s Word.
Intellect is a blessing, but it is not a requirement. Formal training is a privilege, but it is not the definitive necessity. Reference resources are helps, but they are not preconditions for understanding. We have to grasp the fact that understanding communication is not an exclusively brain-defined exercise – our brain, or anyone else’s.
Dr B may be a very intelligent individual. Mr S may never have finished school and struggle to read. But which of these two is most likely to understand the nuances of Mrs S’s communication? Probably the husband who loves her.
4. Preachers have to both recognize and model that understanding is not primarily a matter of intellectual capacity or formal training, but alignment of heart by the Spirit. We can so easily purvey the notion that scholarship and intellect are pre-eminent distinctives of effective biblical study. The Word of God makes wise the simple. But there is a profound spiritual and relational aspect to understanding the Bible.
Notice how Jesus speaks of the role of the soil in the parable of the good soils (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8). In his explanation the repeated issue is their hearing. He continues on in Mark and Luke to speak of a lamp under a jar, then returning immediately to the issue of hearing. He warns them, “Take care then how you hear, for the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”
So how is the good soil defined? In Matthew it is the one who hears and understands. In Mark, it is those who hear and accept. In Luke, it is those who hear the word, holding it fast in an honest and good heart.
As preachers we can easily give the impression that the issue is intellect. It isn’t. The real issue is the alignment of the heart, its responsiveness to the God whose word is being spoken. It is more about Spirit enlivened relational capacity than genetically transferred intellectual capacity. As preachers of God’s Word, we must both recognize and model that.
When I post on the Cor Deo blog, I link to it on this site. Today’s post is relevant for us all as believers, and as we consider the effect of our preaching on others. Please take a look, and if you wouldn’t mind, please leave a comment too – that would be really helpful!
Spiritual formation is the heart of who we are and what we do. We spend our time helping people allow God into their lives to form their spirits. We encourage others to make space for God. Yet we so often fail to heed our own advice.
These are the words of Chuck Sackett, reflecting on re-entering pastoral ministry after a quarter of a century teaching in a seminary. Allow me to quote further from his article on preaching and pastoral ministry, the lines leading up to the above quote:
For approximately fifteen years I met with a small group of professors for spiritual formation. We studied together, prayer together, laughed and cried together, celebrated and commiserated. To this band of brothers I owe my spiritual sanity.
Spiritual formation takes time and discipline. Spending time with God requires. . . spending time.
Ministry concerns; sermon preparation and marriage counseling; vision development and staff relatonships all command your time and attention. A segment of your day given to Scripture, prayer, meditation, journaling, solitude, silence (you name the discipline) is a luxury you feel you can ill afford . . . so you move on from the important to the urgent. And in the meantime your soul withers and dies.
So we come back to the initial quote – spiritual formation is the heart of who we are and what we do. But do we take our own advice?
Biblical Preaching 