SIMON PHIPPS

Welcome to the final part 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 final chapter is an attempt to create a vision of what the divine conspiracy is working towards. It is an incredibly powerful vision and speaks of a life that begins now and carries on into eternity. For me personally the conversation around materialism and the kingdom of heaven were very helpful (I particularly enjoyed the "God doesn't have a brain, and he has never missed it" line). I love Dallas's description of ourself becoming more christlike towards death and the end quote from Augustine's City of God is truly wonderful. 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 Chap...

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 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...

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga called the problem of suffering “the only good objection to God”. The often quoted argument goes:  “if God is all good (all benevolent) then God has the desire to end suffering, and if God is all-powerful (omnipotent) then God has the ability to end suffering. Therefore if God does not end suffering, then God is either not all good, or is not all-powerful, and is therefore not God”. As Christians, we need to be able to answer this objection to God, to enable us to “give a reason for the faith that we have in Christ Jesus” (1 Peter 3:15). To this end, I want to try and answer this question to help anybody who finds the problem of suffering to be a sticking point or an obstacle in their faith (an argument to explain the problem of suffering is called a “theodicy”). To begin with, I want to go back to the beginning of it all and look at God. Who is God and what is God like? It is worth noting here that this argument takes as given the f...

DISCIPLESHIP | 3 1/2 Minute Read Several years ago my friend ended up in hospital. His wife was worried so we asked if there was anything that we could do. She asked, as she does not drive and has young children, if I would pick up his phone charger and drive it over to the hospital as he had no phone battery and she was unaware how he was doing. It was 9 o’clock on a work night. I had never been to that particular hospital, nor had I ever driven in the city where the hospital was. The charger in our car didn’t work and I had a low battery, so I would have no satellite navigation or maps to get there and would have to rely on signposts and directions. Did I mention that I hate driving? It makes me very anxious. Every time I get in a car I wonder if I will be another statistic. All of these excuses swirled in my mind at the thought of making this journey and ultimately I decided to decline. I did not have the courage to go. I think ...