Willard's World 8 - The Joy of Discipleship

In an earlier chapter when discussing the Gospel on the right and left, Willard lamented the fact that very few people take Jesus seriously as teacher. He expands on Jesus role as teacher and ours as apprentices now. "Aristotle remarked that that we owe more to our teachers than to our parents, for though our parents gave us life, our teachers taught us the good life." As we spend time under Jesus tutorage, "our inner life will be transformed, and we will become teh kind of people for whom his course of action is the, natural (and supernatural) course of action.

What is a Disciple?
Willard notes, "First of all, being a disciple, or apprentice, of Jesus is quite a definite and obvious kind of thing.... There is no good reason why people should ever doubt as to whether they themselves are students or not." He likens it to any course of study. As of July I will be a disciple of the orthopedic surgeons in Calgary. Likewise others have apprenticed themselves to artists, trades people, scientists or any host of other courses of study. There is question whether one is a disciple and the next question, whether one is a good disciple or not does not really matter. "To be a disciple in any area or relationship is not to be perfect. One can be a very raw and imperfect beginner and still be a disciple." A disciple quite simply then is, "someone who has decided to with another person, under appropriate conditions in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is." Jesus is expert in, "[living] in the kingdom of God, and [applying] that kingdom for the good of others and even [making] it possible for them to enter it themselves." If anyone would like to do likewise they should apprentice themselves to Jesus. Willard puts it this way, "I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would life my life if he were I." Emphasis is made on it being ones own life. Willard quotes Brother Lawrence, "Our situation does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake what we would commonly do for our own." This applies to our entire life but Willard especially stresses our job. He suggests that our stance at work should not be the "office prude" but rather how Christ would behave if he were there. "A gentle but firm non-cooperation with things that everyone knows to be wrong, together with a sensitive, non officious, non intrusive, non obsequious service to others, should be our usual overt manner."

How Do We Become Disciples?
If we look at the church today, "there is, apparently, no real connection between being a Christian and being a disciple of Jesus." To become a disciple one must become convinced that Jesus is big, powerful and glorious enough to be apprenticed to. Willard cites Jesus parable of teh pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46) and the field with buried treasure (Matthew 13:44) to illustrate how one will enter into discipleship under Jesus. "The sense of the goodness to be achieves by that choice, of the opportunity that may be missed, the love for the value discovered, the excitement and joy over it all...."

The idea of counting the cost that Jesus also talkes about is not bemoaning the choice of discipleship but rather helps bring us to clarity and decisiveness. I think that few people stumble on the pearl with out first looking for it so Willard lays out some suggestions which will help us find the pearl that is discipleship in the kingdom. First Ask- "Emphatically and repeatedly express to Jesus our desire to see him more fully as he really is." Second Dwell- "If you dwell in my word you are really my apprentices. And you will know the truth, and the truth will liberate you."(John 8:31-32) Willard suggests, "if over a period of several days or weeks we were to read the Gospels through as many times as we can, consistent with sensible rest and relaxation, that alone would enable us to see Jesus with a clarity that can make the full transition into discipleship possible." Third Decide- "We must actually intend and choose to become apprentices to Jesus. We don't fall into it by default.".

How Do We Make Disciples?
The directive to do this is obviously among Jesus instructions to the people of God. Willard calls non-discipleship the "elephant in the church" and lists as the causes, among others, "the amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians." He continues, "It is now understood to be part of the 'good news' that one does not have to be a life student of Jesus in order to be a Christian and receive forgiveness of sins. This [is]...'cheap grace,' though it would be better described as 'costly faithlessness,'" Churches do use the word discipleship with varying regularity but in my experience it most often describes a knowledge transfer rather than the apprenticeship that Willard had described.

In order to remedy this Willard describes what he calls, "discipleship evangelism," in which, "our understanding of what it is really to trust Jesus Christ, the whole person, with our whole life, would make the call to become his whole-life apprentice the natural next step." This will not be done, "by nagging them with pearls, (as before pigs)," but rather, "by ravishing them with a vision of life in the kingdom of the heavens in the fellowship of Jesus." This is done by "proclaiming , manifesting, and teaching the kingdom to them in the manner learned from Jesus himself." This of course is always through to pasture of asking as described in chapter 7.

Willard concludes his thoughts on discipleship with this. "If we cannot break through to a new vision of faith and discipleship, the real significance and power of the gospel of the kingdom of God can never come into its own. It will be constantly defeated by the idea that it is somehow not a real part of faith in Jesus Christ, and the church will remain in the dead embrace of consumer Christianity." May we see the attractiveness of the "pearl" and the "treasure".

Willard's World 7- Towards Godly Community

We talk alot about community; What it is, how to build it and the lack of it. In Matthew 7 Jesus gives us instruction on how we are to live in Godly community.

Judge Not
Willard states, "If we would really help those close to us and dear, and if we would learn together with our family and 'neighbours' in the power of the kingdom , we must abandon the deeply rooted human practice of condemning and blaming." Rather than condemning and blaming Willard suggests that restoring one another is the biblical instruction from Jesus. "It is a matter of restoration. The aim of dealing with one caught is to bring them back on the path of Jesus and to establish them there so their progress in kingdom character and living can continue. Nothing is to be done that is not useful to this specific end." Willard also specifies that this restoration should only be undertaken when the sin is really a sin and when the one approaching this person is living in the kingdom and has the attitude that , "they could very well do the same thing."

Willard then wisely explains that not judging is very different from discerning which we are to undertake constantly. "We do not have to--we cannot--surrender the valid practice of discerning how things are in order to avoid condemning others. We can, however, train ourselves to hold people responsible and discuss their failures with them--and even assign them penalties, if we are for example in some position over them--without attacking their worth as human beings or making them as rejects. A practices spirit of agape will make this possible."

Don't Throw Pearls at Pigs
Matthew 7:6 reads, "Do not give dogs sacred things to eat, nor try to get pigs to dine on pearls. For they will simply walk all over them and turn and take a bite out of you." Most read this and are either confused or think it is maybe an excuse to not help feed or cloth those "not deserving". Willard reminds us, "We are to be like the Father in the heavens, 'who is kind to the unthankful and the evil.'" Instead Willard suggests that the problem with pearls, as pigs see it, is not that the pearls are wasted but rather that they are useless. A pig needs food and water but not pearls. We offer pearls (a metaphor for teaching, higher education or theology perhaps) thinking that we have much to offer. Rather we deprive those people of the simple things that they do need.

Instead of forcing Willard suggests that community should be formed around asking. Asking first of all encourages people to share where they are at. "As I listen , they do not have to protect themselves from me and they begin to open up." Secondly we become their ally because we can joining them in their journey and don't have an agenda of our own. Thirdly, asking drives us to pray for one another. "Prayer is nothing but a proper way for persons to interact." Willard quotes Bonhoffer who goes so far as to say, "Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce or dominate him with my love.... Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ." (Its evident I'm sure, that I don't entirely understand this idea of asking of and loving one another with Christ as the intermediate. So read it for yourself (Pg.231-239) or go straight to Bonhoffer's Life Together from which Willard quotes.) Fourthly and last, asking will lead to Joy by causing laughter. Laughter comes from seeing incongruity in the world and this no doubt will be plentiful as we share a life of questions together.

Don't Forget to Pray
Prayer according to Willard is the act of asking God. He explains, "We human beings have two different kinds of causation. One is entirely under our control. The other which work through request is not." C.S. Lewis gives us this example. "It is not unreasonable for a headmaster to say, 'Such and such things you may do according to the fixed rules of the school. But such and such other things are too dangerous to be left to general rules. If you want to do them you must make a request and talk over the whole matter with me in my study. And then--we'll see.'

Willard uses the Old Testament stories of Moses reasoning with God (Exodus 32:10-14) and Hezekiah asking God to extend his life (2Kings 19:8-20:6) to argue that God does indeed change his mind in response to our prayers. He says that having a God who does not respond to our prayer, "makes prayer psychologicaly impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best." He reminds us though that, "God is great enough that he can conduct his affairs in this way. His nature identity, and overarching purposes are no doubt unchanging. But his intensions with regard to many particular matters taht concern individual human beings are not."

How do we pray then? This again is an illustrartion not a formula.
1)Address God- "It is one of the things that distinguishes prayer from worrying out loud or silently, which many unfortunately , have confused with prayer."
2)Ask that his name be uniquly respected- Willard suggests that sanctified or uniquly respected is a better translation than hallowed.
3)Ask for the fullness of the kingdom to come to earth- We ask, "for those [earthly] kingdoms to be displaced, wherever they are, or brought under God's rule."
4)Ask for todays physical sustinence- Not that, according to Willrd, having more than todays is wrong but we need only ask for todays and trust that each days will be provided as needed.
5)Ask for pity- "I need pity because of who I am. if my pride is untouched when I pray for forgivness, I have not prayed for forgivness. I don't even understand it.
6)Ask for escape from trials- "[This request] expresses the understanding that we can't stand up under very much pressure.... It is a vote of 'no confidence' in our own abilities."

Dear Father always with us,
may your name be treasured and loved,
may your rule be completed in us--
may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.
Give us today the things we need for today,
and forgive us 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're the one in charge, and you have all the power,
and the glory is all your--forever--
which is just the way we want it!
-Matthew 6:9-13 (Translated by Dallas Willard)

Encouragement for Awaken

As we set out to be the people of God check out this thought from Banker to the Poor regarding the Grameen Bank's plan to establish new branches to help the poor in Bangladesh.

Our goal was to liberate the potential of the poor to create better lives for themselves, not to force individuals to do anything they do not want to do. Why hurry? Grameen's objective was to develop a system that worked, not rush out a serveice taht would fail its borrowers. Therefore we started small. The manager who will eventually take over responsibility for setting up his or her own new branch, arrives in an area where Grameen has decided to establish a branch. They arrive without any formal introduction. They have no office, no place to stay, and no one to get in touch with. Their first assignment is to document everything about the area.
-Mohammad Yunus

As we move to Bowness may we follow some of Yunus' wisdom to move slowly--I'll add prayerfully--and find out everything God is already doing in the neighbourhood. Here we go!

(For those who moay stumble on this blog and not know what "Awaken" is.... I am part of a community of faith who strive to follow teh teachings of Jesus. We are a rather small comunity and will be setting out from a lasrge traditional church to plant ourselves in the neighbourhood of Bowness, Calgary. These are exciting times as well as times of transition for our community.)

Willard's World 6 - Why we don't Seek First the Kingdom

The third section of the sermon on the mount deals with the common traps that often hinder our kingdom life. These are, according to Willard, stiving for the acceptance of others and striving for security through material wealth.

Respectability
Think back to day one of the seventh grade. What was the worst thing you could imagine? Now think back to yersterday. What was teh worst thing you couold imagine? For me the answer to both is what other people will think of me and I imagine I'm amoung th emajority. Instead Jesus asks us to seek only the favor of God. Willard says, "Of course by now we surley know that we are not to be in bondage to external forms or to there absence. The form could be wrongand the heart right or the form right and the heart wrong. What matters are the intensions of our heart before God." Jesus says in Matthew 6:1, "Be sure not to do your rightness before human beings with the intent of being seen by them. Otherwise your Father, teh one in the heavens, will have nothing to do with it." We are to act righteously, but the intent is key. We are to be righteous (dikaiosune) to please onlyour father in heaven. This doesn't mean we have to hide as we do so but it does mean that pleasing God is the one and only goal.


There are then three illustrations of how this might look. As before these illustrartions are not rules. a)When we give money to the poor we shouldn't know what our hands are doing. Willard explains, "The kind of people who have been so transformed by their daily walk with God that good deed naturally flow from their character are precisly the kind of people whose left hand would not notice what their right hand is doing." b)When we pray we are to do so simply becasue, "prayer, it is rightly said, is teh method of genuine theological research, teh method of understanding what and who God is." c)When we fast we are to not make a show of it as if we are miserable. In fact we should not be miserable as we willbe sustained by a different kind of nourishment. Like manna for the Isrealites or Jesus teaching in John chapter 4 about spiritual water. We will be sustained physically by a spiritual reality when we fast.

Willard concludes, "If we honestly compared the amount of time in church spent thinking what others think or might think with th eamount of time spent thinking about what God is thinking, we would probably be shocked. Thoes of us in congregational leadership need to think deeply about this."

Everyone is talking about you all the time. They say, "Come and lets hear what the word is from teh Lord." And they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them. For their mouths talk devotion but their hearts seek wicked gains. Why, you are just like one who sings about love with a beautiful voice and a well-played instument. They hear what you are saying, but do not do it.
-Eziekiel 33:31-32

Wealth
If the favor of people is what I most then more stuff is second on the list. Again I seem to be amoung the majority in this. Treasure as Willard discusses it seems to be more of a choice than actual stuff. THings only have value when we ascribe it to them. I think an economist might disagree but nothing is worth more than "I" think it is worth. This is displayed in the infinite value of a child's beloved blanket or the worthlessness of a Canadian $100 bill in rural china. The question of treasure then has much to do with how we assign value to things.

When Jesus comands, "Lay up for yourselves treasues in heaven," Willard paraphrases it as, "direct your actions toward making a difference in the realm of spiritual substance sustained and governed by God. Invest your life in what God is doing, which cannot be lost. Of course this means that we will invest in our relationship to Jesus himself, and through him to God. But beyond that, and in close union with it, we will devote ourselves to the good of other people--those around us within our range of power to affect. These are amoung God's treasures."

These "treasures in heaven" may sound like divine life insurance but, "the treasure we have in heaven is also something very much available to us now. We can and should draw upon it as needed, for it is nothing less than God himself and the wonderful society of his kingdom even now interwoven in my life."

So what does the life of someone with heavenly treasure look like? There are four ways Willard discusses. a)It looks different or even crazy becasue we value supremely that which we cannot see. b)It looks childlike. "The little child has no capacity to command a store of goods on its own that would alow it to live independant of others. It simply must assume that provisions are made for it by others." c)It looks simple. "Having our treasure in heaven frees us to live simply in the present so far as our vital needs are concerned. We work hard of course and care for our loved ones. But we do not worry--not even about them." d)It looks content. "The natural beauty of the human being is given from the kingdom to every person who will recieve it." This means we don't seek more and more but will be happy with what we have.

You have no need to beanxious about what will happen tomorrow. You can do your worrying about tomorrow tomorrow. Each day contains just enough problems to last to the end of that day.
-Matthew 6:34

Willard's World 5- The Dikaiosune

The rest of Matthew 5 according to Willard lays out what the fulfillment of the law looks like in real life. Willard first points to the Greek word, “Dikaiosune”. Willard defines this word as, “the character of the inner life when it is as it should be.” The closest English word might be righteousness. This is what Jesus is explaining when he lays out how we are to live in the kingdom.

I’ve struggled with whether or not to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. There are a lot of rules to get right. Jesus addresses this though and says, “Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom. Jesus acknowledges here that a list of rules is impossible to adhere to. Therefore the dikaiosune is, “at the much deeper level of the source of the actions, good and bad. He is taking us deeper into the kind of beings we are, the kind of love God has for us, and the kind of love that as we show it, brings us into harmony with his life. No one can be ‘right’ in the kingdom sense who is not transformed at this level. And then of course, the issue of not [acting wrongly] is automatically taken care of.” So then the many situations laid out in the next verses of Matthew 5 are illustrations of what it might look like for a person whose heart is dikaiosune to live real life.

When we’re irritated with someone
The old law had said don’t murder but Jesus teaches that the dikaiosune is to not indulge in anger. It’s a new thought for me that anger is something we indulge in as opposed to a felling that happens. Willard explains that, “Anger indulged, instead of simply waved off, always has in it an element of self righteousness and vanity. Find a person who had embraced anger and you find a person with a wounded ego.”

Now the illustrations that follow show how one might act rightly when they become irritated. When our heart is about reconciliation we will automatically not call one another “fools” (or insert the current derogatory term of your choice). We will leave important events to reconcile relationships and we will not fear awkward meeting in public but will humbly seek to right each relationship even at a social cost. These are not laws Willard reminds us but illustrations of the normal course of a kingdom life.

When we’re attracted to a person on the street
The old law had said don’t have sex with anyone but your spouse but the dikaiosune says act like Job in chapter 31. “’I made a covenant with my eyes,’ he says. He had as it were, an understanding with them that they would not engage in lusting. ‘How,’ he asks, ‘could I ogle a young woman,’ a ‘virgin’? The salacious gaze would be seen by God. And it would certainly lead to deceitful actions…. ‘If my feet have carried me to wrong places,’ he says, ‘or if my hand is defiled because it has touched what it ought not to touch, then let my children belong to others. And if my heart has been captured by the wife of another, and I have sought for and opportunity with her, then may my wife be possessed by other men.’” This is a change in heart as opposed to a change in actions.

Jesus then goes on to talk of mutilating your body to avoid lust. What does all this greusom talk of gouging eyes and cutting off hands mean? Willard suggest that, “Jesus is saying that if you think that laws can eliminate being wrong you would, to be consistent, cut off your hand or gouge out your eye so that you could not possibly do the acts the law forbids.” By means of hyperbole, Jesus makes the life of rules seem pretty absurd.

When you’re unhappy with your spouse
The old law as practiced had said that as long as you a man gave his wife legal divorce papers (which could defend her from stoning for adultery) you were right before God. Willard points out that Jesus does not rule out divorce entirely and says that indeed on rare occasions may be done as an act of love. More important though he reminds us that, “the resources of the kingdom of the heavens are sufficient to resolve difficulties between husband and wife and to make their union rich and good before God and man—provided, of course, that both are prepared to seek and find these resources.” The dikaiosune then is acting to find and then use these kingdom resources to reconcile marital conflicts.

When you want to make someone believe you
The old law had said keep your oaths and vows while the dikaiosune person does not participate in verbal manipulation. Willard says, “Many people make a good living doing nothing but uttering in attractive or coercive ways ‘yeses’ that are not really yeses at all, and ‘noes’ that are not noes. In social or political contexts, we now call then ‘spin doctors.’

When you are injured by someone
The old law said that equal redress of injury is right while the dikaiosune says help the one that damaged you. Jesus then gives four illustrations of what a person with a dikaiosune heart might do. One will often: a)Remain vulnerable (Mat.5:39), b)Help those taking things from them (5:40), c)Offer to others more than required by law (5:41), d)Give generously to those undeserving (5:42). If these were laws one would have to give up in frustration but when they are understood as illustrations we realize that the dikaiosune heart will act this way by nature much of the time. In a way it would be easier to just follow the law because that would abdicate us of considering the decision and prayerfully discerning how to act. The law would be just like a recipe. The dikaiosune on the other hand is like art where every brush stroke needs to be thought trough and no absolute blueprint exists. We will always have to ask, “if the gift of my vulnerability, goods, time and strength is precisely, appropriate. That is my responsibility before God.”

One extra thought about making oneself vulnerable by “turning the other cheek.” Willard points out that, “Jesus never suggests that we turn someone else’s cheek or make someone else vulnerable.” This acknowledgement makes subsequent defenses of pacifism as commonly understood more complex although I suspect not impossible.

When you have an enemy
The old law had said treat them exactly as they treat you—no more, no less--, while the dikaiosune says love them. Willard says, “With this contrast Jesus brings to completion his exposition of the kind of ‘goodness beyond’ that goes hand in hand with the blessedness of the eternal kind of life. When he thus comes to completion in the agape love that characterizes the Father, he moved beyond specific acts and illustrations of kingdom goodness. Love does not illustrate, it simply is the goodness beyond the goodness of the Pharisees. All the illustrations he has given in the various situations discussed [previously] are illustrations of it.”

If all this were a call to “do the law” we’d be in big trouble, but “he does not call us to do what 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.” The fulfillment of the law in the dikaiosune ultimately looks like the person of Jesus.

A Well Not a Pedestal

I had the privilege this past weekend to visit the Jacob’s Well community in Vancouver. I have known of Jacob’s Well for a number of years and have learned much from hearing Joyce Rees speak on a number of occasions. It was a pleasure to add color to the sketch of ideas I had about what exactly the community looked like. More importantly though it was an honor to meet the people who follow the call of Christ on there lives to live together and love their friends in their neighborhood.

The people of Jacob’s Well have been on a pedestal for me in that I’ve looked up to them as great examples of what it means to follow Christ. After having met many of them and having spent the weekend with them, the pedestal is gone. Let me explain… Someone who is on a pedestal has a life that is unattainable due to the different perceived spiritual plane that they are on. Once the ground is level though, their example becomes that of a fellow follower of Christ whose life I can learn from and model my own after in specific ways.

Their life of neighbor love costs time and comfort. Their life in community is accountable to one another. There live together is full of joy, and tears. Is ours? Is mine?

Anyway check out the website or read their most recent newsletter to learn more about this exemplary community of real fairly normal people with much to teach us.

Blessed are the physically repulsive,
Blessed are those who smell bad,
The twisted, misshapen, deformed,
The too big, too little, too loud,
The bald, the fat, and the old—
For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus.

-Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Willard's World 4 - You Are Blessed (Period!)

The next four chapters of The Divine Conspiracy deal with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Go read those chapters now to get the idea of what Jesus is saying, from the horse’s mouth as it were, before getting Willard’s take on it all.

In the medical world I am a part of, much of life revolves around the idea of a talk. One of the aspects of a doctor’s career as every med school applicant knows is life long learning and the talk is the most common way this occurs. Talks vary in many ways from the quality of food offered to lure in an audience to the color of the power point slides. What is common to them all though is that the person delivering the talk is an expert.

During the obstetrics rotation we as medical student were required to give a talk which broke this vital criterion of an expert presenter. A friend of mine came up with the solution though. He realized that he lacked the normal letters that followed the presenters name on the title slide of the power point. These usually are MD, FRCSC, PhD etc. Instead he put the letters we had never seen before, AHSD, after his name to assert himself as an expert. His talk went far better than mine which I attribute entirely to the letters after his name. Being jealous I asked where he had gotten his AHSD from. He replied that it stood for Alberta High School Diploma.

All this to say that Willard presents Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as a talk from an expert (although I doubt there was power point back in the day). Willard calls us to remember that Jesus was an expert. “If you play a game of word association today, in almost any setting, you will collect some familiar names around words such as smart, knowledgeable, intelligent, and so forth…. But one person who pretty certainly will not come up in this connection is Jesus.” If we are to learn anything from Jesus talk we need to grasp the reality that he really was and is an expert in the topics he is addressing. “Someone who as John says was, ‘with God in the beginning’, should be a world leader in every topic but especially moral law and the practical execution thereof.

What exactly was Jesus topic? Willard clarifies, “The aim of the sermon--forcefully illustrated by its concluding verses—is to help people come to hopeful and realistic terms with there lives here on earth by clarifying in concrete terms, the make up of the kingdom into which they are now invited by Jesus call: ‘Repent for life in the kingdom of the heavens is now one of your options.” This is the thesis which all parts of Jesus talk are to support.

Lets then look to the first section of the talk on the hill which we know as the Beatitudes. Willard argues that this section of the talk answers the question, “Who is blessed?” This is a radical departure from the traditional reading in which we ask, what do I do in order to achieve the blessed state?

The scene just prior to the Beatitudes shows Jesus healing all sorts of people in the enormous crowd. The kingdom of heaven had just broken into peoples lives in a full and real way. Another way of putting this would be that those in the crowd were blessed. “[Jesus] could point out in the crowd now this individual who was blessed because the kingdom among us had just reached out and touched them with Jesus heart and voice and hands.” Willard then supposes that with this context in mind the original audience would hear blessed are the poor in spirit as a declaration that the kingdom of heaven is available to even the poor in spirit rather than we should become poor in spirit because it is an admirable quality and we might come into the kingdom if we lose enough spirit.

Willard states that in a traditional reading where one is blessed because of poverty of spirit, “we have full-blown, if not salvation by works, then possibly salvation by attitude. Or even by situation and chance, in case you happen to be persecuted, for example—meritorious attitude or circumstance guarantees acceptance with God!” So then, “The Beatitudes, in particular, are not teachings on how to be blessed. They are not instructions to do anything. They do not indicate conditions that are particularly pleasing to God or man…. They single out cases that provide proof that, in him, the rule of God from the heavens truly is available in life circumstances that are beyond all hope.”

As we read through the list of, “those who, from the human point of view, are regarded as most hopeless, most beyond all possibility of God’s blessing or even interest…” we find that the mourners, the shy ones, the ones who want to be right, the merciful, the perfectionists, the peacemakers, and the persecuted all have access to the kingdom.

Now allow me to add a little of my two cents here at the end. This part is for free! This is a very novel way of reading the Beatitudes and I’ve tried to lay out the important bits of Willard’s argument for reading them this way. I think though that elsewhere in the bible some of the qualities spoken of in the beatitudes: mercy, desire for righteousness, and peacemaking specifically, are commended as things we as people trying to align our kingdom with God’s should strive for. I suppose it doesn’t negate Willard’s ideas to think that God would call us to join some of the groups that are blessed. I just haven’t entirely understood the implications of this new reading yet. Read it again for yourself and see what you think.