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  6 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 This chapter was so challenging to me. I care a lot about what others think of me. I found the most relevant part to be starting from a place trusting God in this area. Trusting God with regards to what others think of me. Equally the call to fast is something that constantly challenges me. I try to fast twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays but I often fall short of this goal (food tastes so good!!!) and so reading this draws me back into that desire to fast. Reading this changed my view on fasting from a  discipline of deprivation to a discipline of strength and upholding. 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? - Th...

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...

This book is a classic on the life of community. I have read it several times and this time I decided to make fairly extensive notes to try and capture more of what Bonhoeffer is saying. I have published these notes for anyone who is thinking about reading this and would like to get an idea of what it says, or for someone who has read it and wants to quickly refresh themselves on it's basic content. For a small book it has a lot to say, so if you enjoy these notes I highly recommend reading the whole book if you haven't. You can get a copy of the book from here (please note this this is an affiliate link which means that I get a small amount from the sale of the book). 20 Things I Learnt From This Book There is so much that this book has to say but here are 20 key things that really stuck out to me: 1 – To dwell in fellowship with other believers is a great blessing . We often take this for granted because we experience it daily, but we should thank God for it ...