readings

Recently finished reading The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, by Canadian writer Tim Challies. Good enough in many ways that I wanted to reread it immediately after finishing. I initially picked it up and wanted to read it because I liked the idea of talking about spiritual discernment as a discipline and not as a randomly imparted and somewhat nebulous (read: spooky) "gift". Shortly into it I realized I was one of the people with wrong thinking on the subject, which Challies points out early on. (To clarify, as I read, my naive reasons for picking up the book in the first place were both justified and exposed as ignorant.)

An excellent and straightforward book that challenged me in numerous areas, and laid out thoughts on some very foundational matters in which I had wrong thinking. (In some ways this was a surprise to me, that I was errant and immature in some of the matters he discusses. In some ways not.) As he describes the way many Christians think and act within our culture, I see how much a product I am of my generation. And not very often "thinking Christianly".

"We live in an age where too many who profess to be Christian rarely consider their spiritual maturity -- an age when many consider spiritual immaturity a mark of authenticity, and when people associate doubt with humility and assurance with pride. Far too many people consider sound theology the mark of a person who is argumentative and proud."

I definitely relate to this 'generation' of Christians who, although I say at the outset that I believe in teaching and growing Christians from the Word, that I generally emotionally separate myself from those who would go on about "sound theology" and emotionally attach myself to those who would associate doubt and unbelief with humility.

But I wasn't intending to write long on the matter -- suffice to say I would recommend the book. You can read more from Tim Challies (he's a prolific blogger) at www.challies.com.