SIMON PHIPPS

Welcome to part 5 of my blog series on Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy". Please look at the chapter list to move between the other parts of this series. What I learnt From This Chapter The main thing that I learnt from this chapter is that there is an order to the sermon on the mount. It is not just a random collection of saying by Jesus but should be seen as a full sermon where the points lead into one another and build upon what has gone before. This has been an extremely profound and life changing insight. Chapter List Introduction Chapter 1 - Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now Chapter 2 - Gospels of Sin Management Chapter 3 - What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World Chapter 4 - Who is Really Well Off? - The Beatitudes Chapter 5 - The Righteousness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees Chapter 6 - Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions of Reputations and Wealth Chapter 7 - The Community of Prayerful Love Chapter 8 - ...

Welcome to part 4 of my blog series on Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy". Please look at the chapter list to move between the other parts of this series. What I Learnt From This Chapter The beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) of Jesus are often very misunderstood. Dallas does an amazing job of clearing up many misconceptions, and perhaps the greatest one for me was his statement about how we often take Jesus out of our treatment of the list. The beatitudes only work when we understand who Jesus is and his role in the availability of the kingdom of God. Chapter List Introduction Chapter 1 - Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now Chapter 2 - Gospels of Sin Management Chapter 3 - What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World Chapter 4 - Who is Really Well Off? - The Beatitudes Chapter 5 - The Righteousness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees Chapter 6 - Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions of Reputations and Wealth Chapter 7 - The Commu...

Welcome to part 3 of my book notes on the book "The Divine Conspiracy". I will be releasing a new part each week, with each part looking at a different chapter. The contents section below has links to all of the different parts of the series (as I release them it will be updated). What I Learnt From This Chapter This chapter was extremely powerful for me. A lot of my theological reading had been in the vein of the "crucufied God" perspective; centring on that idea of a suffering God, and a deeply aggrieved God at the tragic situations of human affairs. The idea of God as the most joyous being ever took me by surprise. To be completely honest it took a lot of time to sink in, with me working towards some kind of synthesis between the idea of God as a suffering God, and God as truly joyous. Once I had come to that place of acceptance it makes perfect sense to me. There is indeed suffering, but there is also great joy in life, and if God is the one who feels suffering ...

Last week I started a series sharing my book notes from Dallas Willard's 'The Divine Conspiracy'. If you want to look at my introduction click here. Each week I will be covering a chapter; below is the chapter contents, click on a chapter to go to that specific blog post (I will update the chapter list with the links as I go). My Story of Dallas Willard I first learned of Dallas whilst reading Richard Foster . I was intrigued and bought a copy of 'The Divine Conspiracy'. Frankly the book was so daunting that it sat on my shelf for several years. Later I started a subscription with Audible and used one of my credits to get an audio version of The Divine Conspiracy. Again it was so daunting (at over 14 hours of listening time) that it just sat in my library for a long time. One day I lost internet access and wanted to listen to a book; the only book I had downloaded was The Divine Conspiracy, so I begrudgingly started listening to it, and about half an hour ...

I am a huge fan of Dallas Willard . He has helped me immensely in my faith journey. Recently I decided to read through his book ' The Divine Conspiracy ' again; but this time taking quite comprehensive notes (a lot more notes than I initially realised!) I thought I would publish these notes for anyone who has already read the book and wants a refresher, or for anyone who wants to read Dallas Willard but wants to get a feel for it first. Why Read Dallas Willard If you are unsure of who Dallas Willard is or why you should read him then here is a quick primer. Dallas was an American philosopher who taught at USC and passed away in 2012. For our purposes we are interested not necessarily in his philosophical work but his work on Christian Spiritual Formation (although those two cannot be separated as his theology was greatly influenced by his philosophy). Christian Spiritual Formation is understood as the process that we go through in order to become more like Christ, and m...