SIMON PHIPPS

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 ...

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...

We spend a lot of time on our phones. If ever we have a moment to spare we whip out our phones and check social media. A part of me wonders whether the advent of mobile phones is a force for good or for evil with regards to our walk with Christ. Before technology, when we had a spare moment would we have spent it in quiet prayer or reflection? We have these phones. And we have the exhortation to “seek first the kingdom of God”. So it makes sense to see how we can use these devices to seek the kingdom. They certainly won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Below is a list of 11 apps that have helped me in my faith and helped me make the most of this technology and seek first the kingdom of God. (please note that none of these apps are affiliates. I do not receive anything for promoting these, they're just things I have found helpful). 1. Bible by YouVersion - Free [ Android ] This is my go-to bible app. Lots of translations (including NIV, NRSV and NLT), most of them down...

Often when I am reading a book, I am thinking " who else was writing around the same time? ", "what other works would the author be aware of? ", " what ideas might they have been building on? ". It takes a lot of time and a lot of googling to find this information out. I started to think about how to make this kind of information more easily available and hit upon the idea of a timeline. Lots of google searching and experiments later I came across time.graphics . From here I have created an interactive timeline of the major works of western theology and philosophy over the last 2500 years - From Plato to N.T. Wright I decided not to include works of eastern theology / philosophy: a. due to my lack of knowledge and b. it would be more difficult to see the aforementioned links due to the inaccessibility to original authors of works from far away) With regards to the works, I have chosen only one work from each author (usually the work they are...

THEOLOGY | 8 Min Read Each month I share some of the things that I have been learning, and the resources that I am using. My hope is to inspire you in your own personal learning and point to some helpful resources. This month I learnt a lot – from lots of different places. Therefore, rather than going through the individual sources I used to learn, I have decided to draw together some common themes from those resources. Please note that any book links within this post are affiliate links. This means that if you purchase anything through these links then I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. Resources C.S. Lewis This month has been quite a C.S. Lewis month. From his works I read Mere Christianity , The Screwtape Letters , The Problem of Pain , The Great Divorce , and Miracles . I thoroughly enjoyed every single book. If you want to get into C. S. Lewis and don’t know where to start then I highly recommend checking out C. S. Lewis Doodle on Youtube....

If you have been looking for new resources to learn from – whether whole books or short articles or if you just fancy some bite-sized learning then this post is for you. Here are some things that I have learnt this month. I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) – Brene Brown - Book * I highly recommend this book * – if you haven’t read it, then buy it or borrow it. Brene Brown is a world-renowned researcher on shame. I was first exposed to her work through her amazing Ted Talks. In this book, Brene introduces us to her research on shame and defines what shame is. What is Shame She starts by differentiating between shame and similar emotions, such as guilt and embarrassment. One of the most powerful parts of this book for me was the difference between shame and guilt. Brene describes it like this: Imagine that you have just cheated on a test, you leave the exam feeling guilty. Your internal dialogue runs like this: “cheating is wrong, I should not have cheate...

At the beginning of each month, I write a post about what I have learnt in the moth just gone. It helps me consolidate the information. And I hope that it also helps you to learn and find new resources. 😊 Here is what I learnt this month. Book - Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Karl Barth * This book has been my long overdue arrival into the world of Karl Barth – Arguably one of the greatest theologians of the 20th Century. The work is based on a series of lectures that Barth gave at Princeton in 1962. It is worth noting that both the translation from German and the historicity of the book means that the term “ evangelical ” meant something rather different then that it does now . Now the term evangelical has come to mean a specific geographical/political Christian movement in America. Then it meant… well, let’s find out in the course of this post. The lectures are around the study of theology and the work of the theologian . I am not going to lie – thi...