Dear friends

Today we belatedly answer a question that regular reader/listener Richard sent in some time ago, but which got lost in the bilge of my inbox—which is a shame, because it is an excellent question!

Richard asks about those voices today that are calling for a recovery of the ‘spiritual disciplines’—things such as contemplative prayer, solitude, fasting, sabbath-keeping, and so on. He writes:

What is the history of ‘spiritual discipline’ and, we could add, ascetic practices, within Christianity and evangelicalism? How do we integrate the different strands of biblical teaching and biblical examples on this topic (e.g. Mat  5:16-18; Luke 6:12; Col 2:15-23; Acts 14:23)?

Phillip and I had (as usual) a wide-ranging talk about this question, an edited summary of which appears below.

Your brother

Tony

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