EVANGELICAL SPIRITUALITY – # 01
INTRODUCTION:
The overall term describing what we will be looking at in the weeks
ahead is “Evangelical Spirituality.”
QUESTION: What would be your definition of “Evangelical Spirituality?” What do you think this term might mean?
The key to “Evangelical Spirituality” is maintaining what Christians have called “Quiet Time” or “Personal Devotions.”
QUESTION: Describe what you feel “Personal Devotions” looks like? If someone said that they had a “Quiet Time” or “Personal Devotions” what did they do?
“Personal Devotions” is the key to “Spiritual Formation.”
QUESTION: If someone asked you to explain “Spiritual Formation,” what would you say?
Answer: Could be described as “Christian Growth,” “Growing in Christ,” or “Becoming a Godly Person.”
Evangelical Spirituality sought via Personal Devotions will not produce
Biblical Spiritual Formation apart from “Christian mysticism.”
QUESTION: What do you think the term “Christian mysticism” or “Christian mystic” means?
Answer: “A [Christian] mystic is one who experiences God in trans-rational and non-empirical ways. This kind of transcendent intimacy with God is what is involved in being ‘born again” and in ‘getting to know Jesus’” (The God of Intimacy and Action, Tony Campolo and Mary Albert Darling).
“Trans-rational” – Going beyond or surpassing human reason or what is rational.
“Empirical” – Truth based on observations or experience, capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. Based on testing or experience. (Her theory had not yet been tested empirically. A rock will sink in water. You take a rock, put it in water, and if you see it sink you have empirical proof.)
“Transcendent” – Beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.
“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know . . . . “ (Blaise
Pascal).
QUESTION: What do you see in this verse that indicates that Paul and the early Christians were “mystics”?
We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (I Cor. 2:12-14).
QUESTION: What truths might we mine from this text that would prove that Paul and the early Christians were “Christian mystics?”
1. Apart from the Holy Spirit teaching us a Christian cannot understand spiritual truth.
2. What God the Spirit teaches us is beyond human wisdom.
3. The Holy Spirit gives some, not all, people understanding of spiritual truth.
ILLUSTRATION: Without Spirit teaching us it is as if we were deaf. If 99 of 100 people in a room were deaf, only one would hear the intercom. So apart from God’s Spirit teaching us, we will not hear from God.
QUESTION: Can you think of other Biblical texts that reinforce the truth that the Holy Spirit teaches the believer in non-empirical and trans-rational ways?
“. . . The Holy Spirit . . . will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (I John 14:26).
“. . . the Spirit of truth … will guide you into all truth . . .” (John 16:13).
“When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say” (Luke 12:11-12).
Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3).
We will be talking about a kind of spirituality through which we will hear the voice of God in our lives, where He will work in us conforming us to the likeness of Christ and empowering us to do His work in the world.
SO WHAT???
1. Spiritual formation must be a major goal of every true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . .” (Romans 8:29).
2. God wants to teach us in non-empirical, trans-rational ways, that is, by His Spirit. So we need to learn how to hear the Spirits voice. “My sheep listen [hear] to my voice . . .” (John 10:27).
3. We need to train ourselves to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit day by day.
Oh, send Thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me,
That He may touch my eyes, and make me see:
Show me the truth concealed within Thy Word,
‘Til in Thy Book revealed I see Thee Lord.