Heart Aflame for God (Matthew Bingham)

"This book is about living the Christian life. And a basic biblical assumption about the Christian life is that it ought to be a growing life." We are to grow "in grace and knowledge" (2 Peter 3:18), "into maturity" (Colossians 1:28), "up into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2), and "in conformity to the image of Christ" (Romans 8:29). "Such growth in Christ is, first and foremost, the work of the Holy Spirit" . . . but "the Bible also makes clear that growth in the Christian life involves our active, intentional effort and energy." How are we to do this? And do we do it today, or is there a 'sanctification gap' in the church, where we do not pursue growth as we ought? 

In A Heart Aflame for God, Matthew Bingham walks through core concepts related to growth (or spiritual formation), using the Puritans as our guide (arguing that "good, biblical solutions" are found there). Highlights follow.

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Part 1: Foundations

The Bible commands us to keep our heart with all vigilance (Proverbs 4:23), which is a holistic charge (encompassing all we say/think do) and involves not only battling sin but also "a positive cultivation, an activate maintenance, and a daily 'fight for joy.'" This book examines the "means or tools" God gives us to do so—to pursue spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is the conscious process by whiche we week to heighten and satisfy our Spirit-given thirt for God (Psalms 42:1-2) through divinely appointed means and with a view toward "work[ing] out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) and becoming "mature in Christ " (Colossians 1:28).

Bingham starts by looking at how the Reformation's Five Solas (see here) shifted our understanding of how we approach our spiritual formation, "distinguishing between God's work for us in justification . . . and God's work in us through sanctification." We pursue growth not to earn salvation but out of love for God and what He has already done in giving it. We both "rest in justification" and "work in sanctification." From that basis, we have a Reformed approach to spiritual formation, which Bingham argues has "three interrelated emphases". It is:

- Word Centered ("God's people are most profoundly shaped and formed by God's Word.")

- Marked by a Biblical Simplicity ("shorn of all extrabiblical accretions")

- Committed to Engaging the Heart via the Mind ("the ordinary God-ordained means for keeping the heart and cultivating God-honoring affections involved setting one's mind on God's truth.")

Part 2: The Reformation Triangle

The Reformers identified three areas from Scripture that are foundational to spiritual formation. They are "three sides of the same basic thing: communion with God" which "reinforce each other and merge into one another. They are Scripture, Meditation, and Prayer.

Scripture (Hearing from God)

• "Scripture is God's appointed means for communing with his people. And it is through communion with the living God that the people of God are conformed more and more to his likeness." In short: read your Bible.
• We must read Scripture "frequently, actively, and expectantly."
• Frequently: "By pursuing daily devotion in the morning and often again at night, early modern Protestanst bookended the day with God, acknowledging themselves to be made in his image, fallen in Adam, redeemed in Christ,a nd renewed daily by the Spirit."
• Actively: we should have "an approach to Bible reading that is strategic, intentional, and thoughtfully designed to maximize . . . one's time in God's word." This could include reading "with pen in hand," ready to take notes on texts that hit home (comfort, convict, confuse, or direct toward Godly living).
• Expectantly: We need to come to the Bible with "a sense of expectation that herein I am meeting with the one who made me and sustains my every breath." That reading is communion with God (which mean we may wrestle with it!).

Meditation (Reflecting on God)

• Meditation can be a loaded term. What the author means by the term is not deliberate "physiological manipulations" but "directing one's attention toward God and his promises as revealed in Scripture with the aim of stirring up God-honoring affections." In short: deliberately dwelling on God to move his truth from our heads into our hearts.
• This "involves taking God's word to heart, chewing it over, pondering it, and working through its implications for every facet of life."
• Meditation transforms "mere thoughts about God and the things of God into heartflet, soul-stirring, life-transforming convictions about the same." "Who we are is revealed by what we give our sustained attention to."
• Meditation forces us to slow down in an increasingly busy world and helps us avoid a dry intellectualism that knows about God but doesn't really know God.
• Five tips on doing this:
• Hold meditation and Scripture closely together
• Distinguish between 'settled' and 'occasional' meditation
• Grab hold of a thought and don't let it go
• Apply God's truth to yourself
• Don't overthink it

Prayer (Responding to God)

• "Prayer is real communication with a God who is actually there and really does listen." It can be done during set and focused times or be short and spontaneous.
• Prayer is essential: "it is the vehicle through which we express praise and thanksgiving to God" and "it is largely in response to our prayers that God has promised to bless us." In it "we express and cultivate our childlike dependence on our 'Father who is in heaven'."
• Prayer must be:
• Thoughtful: consisting of carefully chosen and "coherent, intelligible petitions and praises" 
• Heartfelt: it "must actually reflect one's desire for and interest in God and the things of God"
• Tightly tethered to scripture: "fidelity to God's revealed will was [and is] a key mark of a true and effectual prayer." "God has addressed us through his word, and we respond to him through our prayers." 

Part 3: Widening Our Scope

In this section, Bingham looks at self-examination, the natural world, and Christian relationships, and how each aids in spiritual formation.

Self-Examination (Looking Inward)

"Life contains deep wells of memory, emotion, and meaning, wells that are often unexplored, or are least underexplored," and "part of our spiritual formation is to try and unearth a little bit more of [truth] each day." The Bible calls us to be a "remembering people," which includes both our fallenness and God's goodness. 

We examine ourselves to identify and battle against indwelling sin; through this we "come to better understand [our] characteristic weaknesses and vulnerabilities to [we] can more effectively guard against them." As we look inside, we find "unacknowledged sin" and "a storm of scarcely perceived attitudes, assumptions, and motivations [that] swirls underneath our outward actions."

We also examine ourselves to "think deliberately about one's life as a story that God is writing." We are called to be "a people who never forget and actively call to mind God's redemptive dealings with them," as remembering God's past faithfulness to us is "fuel for present-day strength and hope."

The Natural World (Looking Outward)

Pondering creation "draws our thoughts and affections toward the one who called it into being by the power of his word." "If creation is a theater, or mirror, of God's glory one could do no better than study diligently the splendors God has placed there" (William Dyrness). 

The natural world reflects God's glory, teaches God's truth, and aids in spiritual formation. "God is both invisible to us and yet continuously seen through his creation," and so long as we look at creation in a way that "accords with and flows from God's word," we can use these reflections on the world to "call to mind what I've learned from Scripture, illustrating it, amplifying it, and helping me apply it in fresh and invigorating ways."

Christian Relationships (Looking to One Another)

We all have an "intrinsic need for social connection," and so "Christianity is an inherently corporate endeavor." In community, we use the God-given gifts to build each other up and learn from each other, as "we humans are more quickened and stimulated by example than by instructions and warnings" (Campegius Vitringa).

Friends "coordinate their energies to accomplish common goals," "hold each other accountable," "encourage each other to pursue godliness and run the Christian race with joy," and "pray for one another."

Part 4: Challenges

Bingham concludes by considering the role our physical bodies (and senses) play in spirtual formation, and then looks at "when things go wrong," focusing on the reality of spiritual struggling (it won't always be easy, for a number of reasons).

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I really liked this book. Bingham focuses on how the Reformation and Puritans considered spiritual formation, not because they are to be idolized but because they 1) were thoroughly biblical in their approach, and 2) they represented a shift in the Christian religion's approach to the topic—they offer a "helpful corrective" to our present age.

Rating: A