The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

by Dallas Willard

Sometimes we take a perfectly good word from the Bible (such as “chastisement,” “suffering,” “submission,” “healing,” “God’s justice”), dive immediately into our pool of “I thinks” and weave them subtly and securely around that word, leaving the impression that all of our “I thinks” about the word were included in the scriptural meaning of the word.”

Paul’s statements about how we are to deal with our body and the flesh in the course of spiritual development (Rom. 6:13, 19; 8:13; 1 Cor. 9:27; 2 Cor. 4:10; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; Phil. 1:20–22; Col. 3:5).

we have talked our way out of the very practices that alone would enable us to be citizens of another world.