Augustine wrote The Trinity over twenty years, ending with a text so enormous that it was published in parts, in rough form, and later revised by Augustine (Harmless, 2010, p. 286). At a high level, the book may be viewed as having two halves –...
One of the weaknesses of modern Christianity is a lack of disciplines for self-observation, knowledge and mastery. This is partly due to Christianity’s outward focus on a God who saves and heals rather than on self-care, an aversion to even its own mystical tradition, a...
In Evangelical circles, self-love is an idea and practice often viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, most often being equated with selfishness. Little distinction is made between an unhealthy self-focus and a possibly healthy, biblical self-love. In Christian circles, the biblical and evidential need...
Learning to hear the voice of God in our hearts and minds is a practice that we get better at as we mature. We can not always be sure if we are merely talking to our higher selves or some other part of ourselves, or...
Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1-2...
Christianity, both contemporary and historical, has focused primarily on self-denial, and so has often mishandled and abused not only the concept of self, but the people it was meant to rescue and nurture. Biblically, there are actually five different selves, one of which is to...
The Triadic (a.k.a. “tripartite”) model of Biblical anthropology declares that humans are composed of three distinct parts – spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). The New Testament uses the Greek words psyche (soul) and pneuma (spirit) to describe discreet parts of the human with...
The current majority view in evangelical Christendom regarding the makeup of man is dualism, that is, two components, the physical (body) and the immaterial (soul or spirit). This view, however, is currently finding challenge from an anthropological monist, or physicalist view, as well as the...
