Dallas Willard’s insight into the scriptures and our life with Christ is something every Christian needs.
This book was incredibly good - in my top 5 of most influential for my walk. Highly recommend.

If you are uncomfortable with the theology of the Fundamentalists and their emphasis on "getting into heaven is the most important thing, and the only way to get there is to believe what we believe"...

and if you find that there is something lacking in the Liberal's theological conclusion that it is all about social justice...

then here is a book which digs into the heart of Jesus's message and challenge to us living in the world today.

We can never pass enough laws to force people to be good people--we cannot legislate morality. Our actions (both good and evil) come from what lies in our heart. How do we change our heart? That what's Jesus message was about--changing people heart's to come into harmony with the will of God (the kingdom of God).

Willard flirts with numerous heresies in order to make some outdated muddled point about sanctification. He may seem profound to an older generation but any missional-minded gen x or y person will have already understood his central point. Between his fuzzy understanding of justification and atonement it's hard to give it a good review especially since he is not the least bit interesting to read.

This just might be the most important book that I’ve ever read. Willard expertly articulates how deeply problematic a faith and confidence in Jesus is that doesn’t accompany a life lived as His student. “Consumer” or “client” Christianity is the elephant in the pews, Willard argues, as churches focus on making converts and passively hoping “discipleship” will happen. But he also clearly unfolds a path forward to a better way — the way of Jesus, walking with Him as His apprentice.

It was very hard for me to get into in the beginning because of Willard’s academic style (he’s a philosopher, go figure), but once it got into the Sermon on the Mount stuff, it became much more clear where he was going with the book. But even with a slow start, the content and thoughtfulness of this book are worth the persistence required to stick with reading it! I’m sure I’m going to be rereading, studying, and applying the stuff in here for the rest of my life.

As I write this review, I'm wearing a shirt that says, "doctrine leads to devotion." I bought it from The "Every Woman a Theologian" pop-up shop*, and my family thinks it's weird.

A flawed masterpiece. One of the most important books on discipleship that has (or probably ever will be) written for a Western audience.

The best-and-worst aspects of this book can be attributed to the same thing: Dallas writes as a philosopher. On the good side, his wisdom comes from deep (and I mean DEEP) thinking about metaphysical questions. This lends a certain gravitas to his conclusions. I found the early chapters on the reality and immanence of God's Kingdom to be incredibly refreshing, coming from this bold, philosophical perspective. His theological arguments draw from this same deep well, and this philosophical basis is probably what makes the more Calvinistic readers uncomfortable. The philosophy, it should be noted, never trumps the Biblical exegesis. I was impressed with Willard's knowledge of both the Greek language and the cultural background of the New Testament.

On the critical side, his writing can be dense (and I mean DENSE). This isn't a problem in itself, but one gets the feeling that the editor/publisher really wanted this to be an accessible read, and at times it feels as if the writing style is at war with itself - drawing from deep philosophical arguments, but trying to stay in a popular-reading-level. There were many pages in which I wanted Willard to do a much deeper dive into the topics he was alluding to, or the work referenced in footnotes. The end result is some uneven sections, and parts that either should have been much longer or much shorter.

That said, this is THE best overall exposition and application of the Sermon on the Mount I have ever studied. Particularly for a North American audience, this is THE book on that subject, as far as I'm concerned. Willard writes with a bold and prophetic cultural critique, armed with the previously-mentioned deep philosophical thinking. There are stirring sections on the "righteousness of the Pharisees," on prayer, on the participatory nature of discipleship and transformation (read: what makes the hard Calvinists uncomfortable!), as well as his take-down of "bar code Christians." It's a masterful (if flawed) work that I will be returning to again and again. I wish I hadn't waited until now to read it for the first time.

Too much to say about this one, so a few key quotes I stuck on will have to do:

"Draw any cultural or social line you wish, and God will find his way beyond it."

"When we see Jesus as he is, we must turn away or else shamelessly adore him. "

"The acid test for any theology is this: is the God presented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and strength? If the thoughtful answer is; "not really," then we need to look elsewhere or deeper."

"Kingdom obedience is kingdom abundance."

"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."

"We project upon God the sadistic tendencies that really are present in human beings. Given the anger, hatred, and contempt that pervades human society, it is not uncommon that individual human beings actually enjoy the suffering of others. One of our worst thoughts about God is that he, too, enjoys human suffering. This gives rise to the image of the Marquis de God, a divine counterpart to the Marquis de Sade, after whom sadism his named."

"To handle the things of God without worship is always to falsify them."

Challenging read, a ton of thought to digest, but I now get why a lot of folks whose spiritual journeys I greatly respect recommend this one.

I would steer clear of this one due to the fact that Willard's theology is rather screwed up. The more I read, the more I disagreed with, which became a frustrating attempt to finish the book. Needless to say, I didn't.

I don’t think I’ve ever read someone who takes Jesus and his words as seriously as Dallas Willard. This is mostly a treatise on the Sermon on the Mount, and instead of towing a denominational interpretive line, many of which in my limited experience skirt this very difficult text, he dives in and finds a Jesus who is both the most brilliant philosopher of all time, while also being the most effective human practitioner of life. He gives the sermon the credit of actually having an intentional structure, which forms the basis for a progression of the human person into full life in the Kingdom. I have needed Jesus’s words so badly in 2019, and I’ve needed them to MEAN something. Not a single word of the sermon is wasted in Willard’s interpretation.

This is technically a 4.5 star review, because I think the reader would be better served if it were two companion volumes, one on the Sermon and another on spiritual formation and Christian discipleship. It’s dense and took me forever to read, which has made me hesitant to recommend it to anyone, even though I think any Christian of any stripe would benefit from some time with Dallas Willard.

I love when an evangelical:
- Approaches the text honestly and faithfully and comes out with a somewhat bold yet faithful take on scripture
- Can use language that differs from the norms of Christian culture (which suffers from a lack of vocabulary)

Willard did both, and although he didn’t substantiate all of his takes to the degree I felt he should have, this book will stick with me for a long time, and I think I’ll always remember the summer I read this book and Jesus introduced more of himself to me.

Voor de tweede keer gelezen. Indrukwekkend boek over het gemis aan en de noodzaak van daadwerkelijk discipelschap in de westerse kerk. "Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church". Willard doorloopt de Bergrede om te begrijpen wat echt discipelschap is. Dit mondt uit in een curriculum voor discipelschap. Wat mij betreft, leg ik dat graag naast A Certain Kind van Edmund Chan uit Singapore. Twee zielen, een gedachte.

Remember the (maybe) Gandhi quote, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians."?

This book is a great deep dive into why hundreds of years of popular Christianity does not accurately represent Christ. And I'm just as guilty as anyone.

I finished this book and immediately wanted to reread it. I loved how thought-provoking this was.

Just....wow.