Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

Top post of the first half of 2018

/ J.K. / Leave a comment

I noticed many other bloggers do something like top post/most read of X year or the more prolific ones do a top of the month, or even week. I always kind of wondered how they knew, and that’s when I discovered the depth of the stats pages blogging platforms provide. I brought this up to Mrs. MMT and she thought it was stupid…that I didn’t know this was a thing. To be fair, she is an accredited PR professional, and my desire in life is to be a monk, but with sex, and fishing, and college football. Wait, where was I?

So I dug into my stats, and up until a few months ago, my most viewed overall (and winning by far and away for most views the day it was posted) was the time almost two years ago that I hosted the 2016 August Biblical Studies Carnival. That has since been passed by what is also my most read post of 2018 so far. My top five most read of 2018:

  1. Book Review: Sapiens
  2. Book Review: The Imperfect Disciple
  3. Book Review: Disciplines of a Godly Man
  4. Book Review: Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life
  5. Tie – 10 Year Anniversary; Book Review: Four Views on Hell; Book Review: Darkness is My Only Companion

Why these posts? I have a few ideas, we’ll start from the bottom. Interestingly, Darkness is the only book review to make the list that I actually posted this year, so it’s probably there just due to recency. Similarly, Anniversary was post two weeks ago, and probably brought more of my Twits than book reviews due to the pictures of me and the Monday Morning Wife. Not sure about Four Views, other than Hell is weird and people have questions about it. Feels pretty cool that people found me from that.

My guess is that Imperfect, and the two disciplines books were popular searches due to Lent. I’ve already stated, I don’t know how to do Lent, but I do have two thoughts to help. First, you are probably looking up Lent because of fasting. I’ve heard nothing better than this Theocast podcast on fasting. Their idea that it isn’t necessarily about giving up food (Protestant view), but more about reclaiming time is fascinating. Second, if you are deciding which book to read, I can help. Imperfect is not about spiritual disciplines, but is still awesome and you should read it, and I’ve already written a post about why you should read Godly Man over Christian Life (though, if you are a woman, it’s still a better book).

So, this brings us to Sapiens. Why? Well, my stats pages tell me the terms searched that led people here, and basically, it was people searching for a ‘Christian review’ of the book. I was shocked/proud to find out that if you google this, I’ll be one of the top 5 or so (it changes) links shown. That’s really cool, but people were probably disappointed in what they found. I didn’t write a ‘Christian’ review in the sense people were probably searching. I mean, I am a Christian and I did review the book, but I think what people were look for was a Christian response. So, as a man of the people, I plan to write a Christian response to this book based solely on my guess what people were actually questioning (off the top of my head, it’s evolution).

Two final thoughts – I do Advanced Review Copy book reviews for a few publishers, but of the six book reviews that have brought the most readers this year, only one (Imperfect, from Baker Books), was one of these. Second, the May 2018 Biblical Studies Carnival is up over at 5 Minute Bible.

That’s it, those are my top five as of June 1, 2018. I plan to do an end of the year post for the most read of 2018, so stay tuned I guess. Thanks everyone who reads or follows me and I apologize in advance to anyone who found my by accident. I’ll try to do better next time.

Read This, Not That – Disciplines

/ J.K. / 1 Comment

This is my first post in my new series, go read the intro.

Read This, Not That

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Disciplines of a Godly Man     VERSUS    Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

My Review – Godly Man                     |     Must Read                |     $9.52     |     232 pages +50

My Review – Spiritual Disciplines  |     Put it on the list     |     $9.65     |     304 pages

Ease of reading –
Well, I guess first off I should point out that the books aren’t exactly rivals. Godly Man is, like the title says, for men. Due to this focus, there are things men should do, whereas Spiritual Disciplines are for all, but all explicitly Biblical disciplines for Christian practice. This means that they do take different perspectives. However, there is a great deal of overlap (hence the comparison) such as – reading the Bible, stewardship/giving, learning, serving/ministry, prayer, worship, and evangelism.

Where they differ are in chapters like Fatherhood, Marriage, Friendship, and Work for Godly Man, and Fasting, Silence & Solitude, and Journaling for Spiritual Disciplines. These difference are one of the reasons I rate chose Godly Man as the better option. Though all disciplines in each book are both Biblical and practical, I find Godly Man to be more helpful in practice. It gives much more guidance for men and their day-to-day lives.

The other reason I recommend Godly Man is the way it is written. This includes its actual layout and divisions, but mostly his style of writing. Hughes’ writing is much more personal and pastoral in nature. An older man who was leading a Bible study I was a part of earlier this year commented that finishing the Spiritual Disciplines book is a discipline in and of itself. This reason alone is strong enough for me to say pick up this book first. People who don’t often read, or are completely disinclined to read, likely will not make it through Spiritual Disciplines. Alternatively, anyone can make it through Godly Man. It is written more clearly, while also being shorter, yet broken into more chapters (17 disciplines compared to 10).

For those inclined to read and that are just starting to get interested in disciplines, Spiritual Disciplines is still worth the read, especially with some of the disciplines lost in American Christianity but common of the ancient and global church. Spiritual Disciplines, in this sense, can been seen as something like a “Disciplines 201” book.

Book Review: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

/ J.K. / 6 Comments

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney

My Rating –Put it on the List

Level – Not very readable, seems longer than it is

Summary
The book is exactly what you think it is based on the title. He jumps straight in with the first chapter explaining what he thinks (based on scripture) the spiritual disciplines are and why they are important. There are 10 disciplines and he devotes two chapters to the first, and then one each to the others – Reading the Bible, Prayer, Worship, Evangelism, Serving, Stewardship, Fasting, Silence and Solitude, Journaling, and Learning. He wraps up the book with a chapter on ‘perseverance in the disciplines’ and the importance of making them habits.

I assume most are quite familiar with the first five, and likely stewardship as well, however he has a bit of a twist. When most people here that word in context of church, they think money (though, presently, some may start to associate it with the environment), but he talks about time as well. I think this is an interesting point, that I’ve never really heard discussed. Often in the American church it’s about what not to do, as in, avoiding sin, not instead, focused on what to do. Don’t spend your time getting hammered. Makes sense, that’d be a sin. However, what if you spent 12 hours on Saturday watching college football? Not a sin, but…is it really the best use of your time? Are you really being disciplined, are you gaining from that? Obviously, this hit home for me.

The others, many people are familiar with, but in the American Evangelical church, things like fasting and solitude sound a little too Catholicy, so I’ve never really heard them taught. I was especially intrigued with fasting. It is abundantly clear in scripture that this is something we ought to do. But, I’ve never in my life done it. I’ll admit, though he says you really aren’t supposed to ever tell, but I tried fasting based on this chapter and bits of Piper’s A Hunger for God, on Fridays during lent. I’ll write more on that later, but the book is probably worth the price just to read that chapter. Continue reading →