Incredible. One of the best Christian books I’ve ever read. This was my second or third time trying to read it, it’s long and dense but very worth it. Dallas Willard was a brilliant thinker and philosopher and this book has deeply changed the way I think of life with Jesus.

Also, it was interesting how much “Practicing the Way” cites from this book which was helpful to read before this because it was much easier to track with.

one of those books that took me days to read but also everyday I faithfully came back to read it which is so so rare for me. these days, I either read something in one to two sittings or never finish.

really enjoyed it and I feel like my horizons have been widened, my mind expanded.

the divine conspiracy has absolutely haunted me for years, the number of times it's been mentioned in other books I've read, and FINALLY I actually got to some Willard. it's been years in the making xD

All books, but especially books that require a spiritual effort, take you on a journey. And the Divine Conspiracy has been a 6 month journey between my soul and my Creator in the best way. This is not a book to rush through, but to take a bit at a time; one that requires participation of your soul and mind in reflection and prayer. I could only read 10-15 pages at a time because Willard’s revelation and depth left me chewing on his words and journaling out thoughts.

If I had to try and summarize the book, I would say it’s a deep dive of what it means to apprentice under Jesus, to have his will and power influence every aspect of your life and what that can practically look like. It’s an empowering and convicting look at what “God with us” really means and that we have full access to his ways (or “kingdom” to use Jesus’ language) here and now. And that’s worth giving up everything for.

This is one I’ll be recommending to others throughout my life and rereading myself, a true modern classic for the Christian reader. I felt almost sad to finish, but I am looking forward to taking his words to heart and seeing what that leads to

This book should probably be required reading for the serious student of Jesus. It took me a good bit longer to get through this than I was expecting based on the length, due to how "full" each page was.

The general aim of the book is to first widen or clarify what the "kingdom of the heavens" is, and then to demonstrate that the Sermon on the Mount is indeed a sermon (and not just a collection of loosely-related moral laws), "a concise statement of Jesus’ teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God’s present kingdom available to us from the very space surrounding our bodies. It concludes with a statement that all who hear and do what he there says will have a life that can stand up to everything—that is, a life for eternity because it is already in the eternal." Willard then concludes the book with a section on how someone might realistically become the kind of person (a disciple) who can attain that "life that can stand up to everything"--someone who thinks Jesus's teachings are more than just "pretty words" but rather pour out of the wisest intellect and deepest spirit to in habit our world and are therefore worth taking seriously.

I found this to be an incredibly helpful guide to reading and understanding the Sermon on the Mount. The section on the Beatitudes was a real highlight for me. I'd recommend going back and forth between this book and scripture itself, as that produced a lot of new insights for me I may not have gotten had I just skimmed over the verse references in the book itself.

This is going to go on my "to read again" shelf for sure.

"In every concrete situation we have to ask ourselves, not "Did I do the specific things in Jesus' illustrations?" but "Am I being the kind of person Jesus' illustrations are illustrations of?""

Dallas Willard takes a super deep dive into the sermon on the mount. I don't know if I agree with all of his interpretations, but this book helped me to see those verses with fresh eyes and new depth. It is a great commentary on discipleship and living in light of God's present day Kingdom.

Willard continuously points to the need for heart transformation which would lead to natural, instinctive Christ-like outward attitude and actions, instead of the surface level attitude/action adjustments that Western Christianity has spent years focusing on. Willard makes following Jesus sound exciting, rewarding, and refreshing....as it truly is.

It took me a few months to get through The Divine Conspiracy, but it refreshed my perspective and reminded me that Jesus' teachings and commands are treasures not chores. It also challenged me to see Jesus as the intelligent, strategic, caring, exciting, humble, strong, and loving man he is. Jesus is someone that people would be excited to follow ..if they just got to know him.

Willard continues to challenge me: from ministry, to the importance of Christ's bodily (not just spiritual) resurrection. A difficult read though, and his "program for discipleship" was not among my favorite features. Overall, a thought-provoking, enlightening book.

First review: I just began reading Willard's book, but already it has me thinking. Within the first paragraph, he lays out his philosophy: "Presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." I hope this book continues to challenge what I think I already know about faith and life...

Don’t feel that I am smart enough to give an actual synopsis of this book so this review will be a mere explanation of my rating.

4.5


This book challenged me intellectually, which earns it a lot of credit to me. However, a book that aims to provide a rediscovery to our hidden life in God should be simple for the average mind to grasp. But, I also appreciate that a book that speaks about Jesus’ brilliance in earlier chapters will support its stance by intellectually describing a life with Him. Thus, the half star deduction.

It brought to mind my view of Christ as man and deity. Do I view Him as so much man that I struggle with His power and sovereignty? Or do I view Him so much as deity that I neglect His embodiment of mankind?

It challenged my view of the scriptures and how I approach its intent.

I would recommend every believer to read. I’ll reread in smaller chunks. Probably would want to read it alongside someone smarter than me!

This summer my fellow staff and I read this book together. Most of us have read it before. It is brilliant and definitely a modern classic. I was a bit more critical my second time through, as I’ve learned a lot since the first time and saw a few points where I thought Willard could be clearer or where he made assumptions perhaps he shouldn’t. But overall, this is a fantastic book. Further, though its been around a while now, the problems he diagnoses remain. We need to realize we can actually grow and mature, become more Christlike, and to do so we need to be intentional about spiritual discipline and practice.

This is a must read. Its a feast. Its brilliant.

4.5⭐️

A must read on spiritual formation

Excellent book. Notes/highlights/quotes below:

Problem: Contemporary christian has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to their life, and certainly not that in any way it is essential. There’s a nervous laugh, knowing look. Such obedience is regarded as impossible or out of the question.
Jesus was the prophet of the kingdom and was the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom was Christ in essence. He was the truth of his own greatest gospel. To have him is to ensure it.
God’s kingdom/rule: the range of his effective will, where want He wants done is done, everything that obeys by nature or choice is in his kingdom.
At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to change the molecular structure of water to change it into wine. That knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and fish and feeds thousands. He could create matter from the energy he knew how to access from the heavens right where he was. Thus, they tried to force him to be their king. He could do anything! He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health, from death to life. He knew how to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, eliminate unfruitful trees, he only needed a word.
The abundant life of the kingdom flowing through us makes us of greater natural beauty than the plants. God who makes the grass/flowers so beautiful will clothe you more beautifully.
God calls us to him to impart himself to us. He calls us not to do as he did, but to be as He was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.
When we do good deeds to be seen by human beings. God responds to our expectations accordingly, when we want human approval and esteem, and do what we do for the sake of it, God courteously stands aside because by our wish it does not concern him. God will not be present where He is not wanted. But if we live to God alone, he responds to our expectations. We live before an audience of one. The only one whose opinion matters is God.
We cannot surrender the valid practice of distinguishing and discerning how things are in order to avoid condemning others. However, we can train ourselves to hold people responsible and discuss their failures with them, and even assign penalties if we are over them, without attacking their worth as human beings. A spirit of agape will make this possible.
Don’t cast pearls before pigs. It’s not a question of worthiness, but helpfulness. The pigs cannot digest the pearls, and be nourished. But they will turn and eat you, because you are edible. What a picture this is of trying to correct and control others by pouring our good things often truly precious things upon them. They nevertheless cannot ingest and be nourished by. We don’t listen. We “know” without listening. The outcome is usually the same. Our good intentions make little difference. They will be angry and attack us. The point is not the waste, but that the person isn’t helped.
In the spiritual community there is never any real relationship between human beings. Among those who live as Jesus’ apprentices, there are no relationships that omit the action and presence of Jesus. We never go one on one. All relationship are mediated through Him. I never think what I’m going to do simply with you, to you, for you. I think of what we (Jesus and I) are going to do with you, to you, for you. Likewise, I never think of what you are going to do with me, to me, and for me, but of what will be done by you and Jesus with me, to me, and for me. (Bonhoeffer) Christian community is a reality created by God in which we must participate.
Definition of prayer: Talking to God about what we are doing together. It focuses the activity where we are, but drives the egotism out of it.
Disciple’s prayer: Dear Father always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us, may your will be done in just the way it is done in heaven, give us today the things we need today, forgive us our sins and impositions on you, as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us, please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad, because you are the one in charge, you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours, forever, which is just the way we want it. YES!
Whose disciple are you? Honestly. One thing is sure. you are somebody’s disciple. You learned how to live from somebody else.
As a disciple of Jesus I am with him, by choice and by grace, learning from him how to live in the kingdom of God. This is the crucial idea. That means, we recall, how to live within the range of God's effective will, his life flowing through mine. Another way of putting this is to say that I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I.
To wear of display a cross, it says: I am bought by the sufferings and death of Jesus and I belong to God. The divine conspiracy of which I am a part stands over human history in the form of a human cross. The cruel cross says, because of Jesus, I am part of the life of God.
We hear the cries: Give peace a chance. Can’t we all just get along? You cannot give peace a chance if that is all you give a chance. You have to do the things that make peace possible and actual. When you listen to people talk about peace, you soon realize in most cases that they are unwilling to deal with the conditions of society and soul that make strife inevitable. They want to keep them and still have peace. But it is peace on their terms, which is impossible. We can’t just all get along. We have to become the kinds of persons who can get along. Our responses have to be changed that the fire and fight doesn’t start immediately when we are rubbed the wrong way.
In discipleship: We should prayerfully observe to see those who have been ravished with the kingdom of God and is ready to become Jesus’ apprentice. These we help to consciously do so, and then we can devoted serious time leading them into a curriculum of Christlikeness. It may not be possible to carry on as a congregational project, though one should not be furtive about it. We can pour our lives into a few people without fanfare, and soon they can begin the work of forming other disciples. You can count on it to spread. For in truth there is nothing on earth to compare it to.
The call to discipleship is great. People generally will respond favorably if that call is presented with directness, generosity of spirit, intelligence, and love, trusting God alone for the outcome. We may not soon have bigger crowds around us, and for a while they may in fact get smaller, but we will have bigger Christians for sure. This is what Dallas Willard calls, Church growth for those who hate it. Bigger crowds are sure to follow for the simple reason that humans need what we bring: the word and reality of the kingdom among us.
New Creation: Perhaps it would be a good exercise to ask ourselves, really how many cities could I now govern under God. If e.g. Baltimore Liverpool were turned over to me, with power to do what I want with it, how would things turn out? Are we prepared to have everything about us known to everyone? There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed Jesus tells us. Are we ready to live with total transparency? Are we totally convinced that God’s way is the smart way and he will guide us in everything we do? Do we act as if this is so?

I was excited to read this book - five people I look up to as truly great people each named this as their favorite book, so it’s been on my list for years. I finally got around to reading it and was thoroughly disappointed. Not only is this book long, much of it seems random and thrown together without much reason. It almost seems like the author just wrote exactly what he was thinking and didn’t have an editor to clean it up very much. For example, in the last chapter, he’s talking about virtue ethics and being perfected, and then he injects a side tangent on how science does not rule out the existence of God. Okay…? While I don’t disagree, I don’t understand what point that served. I felt like this happened constantly.

Additionally, this book was full of what I’ll call old man attitude. A major message of this book seemed to me to be that culture is bad now and we need to get away from it to go back to the good ole days. At times, the author was just plain condescending. For example, at one point, while talking about Jesus as a genius teacher, he suggests that Jesus looks down from heaven and laughs at the silly humans who are impressed by simple-minded things like Nobel Prizes. I think this says much more about the author’s attitude than it does the God about which he claims to write.

There were other things I disliked about the book, too. Like when he suggests that God “always” spares people from suffering “unless he has something better in mind, which he rarely does.” Not only is this wrong but also hurtful to those who suffer. I personally did not find this book helpful and would not recommend it, but I recognize that a lot of people have found it to be a great resource. While I don’t see it, I can respect the difference in opinion.

If you like concepts and ideas, this book is for you! If you like concrete examples on how the kingdom of God here on earth is lived out, well there are very few in this book. Those of us who are kinetic learners, who need a feel for how things work before we understand the overall concept of what it is we are viewing, don't get a lot out of this book. If you love academics and love listening to professors all day long, then by all means read this book.

The concept of the Kingdom of God here on earth now, sounds very appealing to all of us. Unfortunately I have no idea what Mr. Willard really means by the words "Kingdom of God here on earth now." What he says rings true, but this practical down to earth person got very little from the book, even when we discussed it in a group. The group finally abandoned further discussion of the book about 1/2 way through.