Growing in mind and spirit thanks to some great Christians:
What do Augustine, Bonhoeffer, Edwards, Lewis, Packer, Schaeffer, and Wesley all have in common? These important theologians are all featured in a terrific set of books put out by Crossway called “Theologians on the Christian Life”. So far 19 volumes have appeared in the ongoing series.
As I wrote in my first piece, here are the authors and their subjects covered:
Augustine – Gerald Bray, 2015
Herman Bavinck – John Bolt, 2015
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Stephen Nichols, 2013
John Calvin – Michael Horton, 2014
Jonathan Edwards – Dane Ortlund, 2014
Francis Grimké – Drew Martin, 2025
C. S. Lewis – Joe Rigney, 2018
Martyn Lloyd-Jones – Jason Meyer, 2018
Martin Luther – Carl Trueman, 2015
John Newton – Tony Reinke, 2015
John Owen – Matthew Barrett & Michael Haykin, 2015
J. I. Packer – Sam Storms, 2015
J. C. Ryle – Andrew Atherstone, 2025
Francis Schaeffer – William Edgar, 2013
Charles Spurgeon – Michael Reeves, 2018
John Stott – Tim Chester, 2020
B. B. Warfield – Fred Zaspel, 2012
John Wesley – Fred Sanders, 2013
George Whitefield – Tom Schwanda and Ian Maddock, 2025
In that previous article I quoted from six of the works to help tempt you to check out the series for yourself. Here I want to quote from six more of them. (Another article in the near future might quote from the remaining seven books.) Here then are six great men of God and quotes from the very helpful authors who discuss their views on the Christian life:
Lloyd-Jones by Meyer
Martyn Lloyd-Jones believed that the Spirit is often neglected, quenched, or minimized in both preaching and Christian living. One of the Doctor’s lasting legacies is his insistence on the blessed union of Word and Spirit. He spoke often against reductionism in the Christian life that would stress mind, heart, or will in a segmented or segregated way. He would counsel us to pursue the “balanced finality” of doctrine on fire in the mind, heart, and will. A Christian life is doctrine on fire, in which the glorious Gospel takes up the whole person.
Owen by Barrett & Haykin
One of the ways in which the believer grows in biblical piety is through spiritual-mindedness. Indeed, Owen almost regards the striving to grow in spiritual-mindedness as a mark of conversion. At the core of genuine spiritual-mindedness is meditation, reflection, both cognitive and affective. As Owen writes, “Spiritual affections, whereby the soul adheres unto spiritual things, taking in such a savour and relish of them as wherein it finds rest and satisfaction, is the peculiar spring and substance of our being spiritually minded.” True biblical meditation aims at “the affecting of our own hearts and minds with love, delight, and humiliation.”
As to the subject of meditation, Owen stresses that especially the person and work of Christ must occupy first place….
Packer by Storms
Packer does not allow the excesses of some to undermine the importance of a robust belief in the supernatural and biblically circumscribed expectations of what God both can and may well do in our midst. Indeed, he contends that our expectations of seeing God’s power in the transformation of people’s lives are generally not as high as they should be….
Packer believes it is right for Christians to aspire to use those gifts in powerful and useful ministry. At the same time, he is wise to remind us that gifts are secondary and that sanctity is primary. Or again, character must always take precedence over charisma. We need to realize that “there can be gifts without graces; that is, one may be capable of performances that benefit others spiritually and yet be a stranger oneself to the Spirit-wrought inner transformation that true knowledge of God brings.” Throughout the New Testament, when God’s redemptive and sanctifying work in human lives is center stage, the ethical or moral always has priority over the charismatic. That is to say, the New Testament authors are far more concerned with the degree to which our lives reflect the image of Jesus Christ (as seen in love for one’s enemies, humility, kindness, submission to the will of God, etc.) than they are with what spiritual gifts we possess.
Packer’s point is that “any mind-set which treats the Spirit’s gifts (ability and willingness to run around and do things) as more important than his fruit (Christlike character in personal life) is spiritually wrongheaded and needs correcting.”
Ryle on the Christian Life: Growing in Grace (Theologians on the Christian Life)by Atherstone, Andrew (Author), Taylor, Justin (Series Editor), Kidd, Thomas (Series Editor)
Ryle by Atherstone
One of the keynotes of Victorian evangelical piety was “heart religion.” It aimed to be experiential, personal, and emotionally engaged, set in contrast to Christian legalism, nominalism, formalism, and barren orthodoxy. The movement drew deeply from the language of the “heart” that pervades The Book of Common Prayer, and from Puritan devotional literature, as well as from famous Evangelical Revival texts, such as Jonathan Edwards’ A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746) and John Newton’s Cardiphonia: or the Utterance of the Heart (1781), which were republished in multiple editions during the nineteenth century. These ideas blossomed in evangelical hymnody, poetry, preaching, devotional aids, evangelistic tracts, and conversion narratives. Ryle stood within this affective tradition and frequently brought a heart-centered emphasis to his writings.
Schaeffer by Edgar
Francis Schaeffer was indeed passionate about people in an unusual way. He cared very deeply about human beings. He particularly reached out to the suffering and confused people of his day. When he preached that there were “no little people,” he really meant it. I remember a dinner-table conversation where a very shy young woman wanted to ask a question. She was sure it was not intelligent enough and barely managed to sputter it out. Fran responded, with great sincerity, that he would have to think about it, for it was the most profound question he had heard in years. How she was honored by this response! The incident somehow reminded me of Jesus’s defense of the woman who anointed his feet with perfume, declaring before the stuck-up religious leaders at table that she had done a “beautiful thing” (Mark 14:1-11).
Warfield by Zaspel
Warfield was a Christian and a theologian, but for him these two categories are virtually one and the same. And we must recognize this if we are to understand him and profit from his instruction on the Christian life. For Warfield theology is not merely some added, optional dimension to the Christian life: it is the very stuff of Christian living. The Christian life is founded on and fostered by truth. Behavior, conduct, service, and personal expressions of godliness are of course essential also, and Warfield treats these subjects with a lively warmth that evidences their importance to him. But he understands these matters within a context that is distinctively Christian. For him, the practical expressions of our devotion and godliness are the outworking of redemptive truth divinely revealed to us in the pages of Scripture and rightly understood. We will see how this is so in later chapters, but we should note this understanding in Warfield up front. We live unto Christ, to the glory of God, not out of a vacuum but out of a mind and heart captivated and inflamed by an understanding of God’s greatness and goodness and his saving activity in Christ. This is what fuels Christian living from beginning to end. Truth leads to life, and it is truth rightly understood that shapes Christian experience.
As I said in my earlier piece: “If you do not already have some of these excellent books, why not grab a few now? You will not just learn a lot, but you will likely develop and deepen your own Christian life substantially.”
