Spiritual Formation Articles

Spiritual Disciplines Index: Study

The Spiritual Disciplines Index is a selective, topical index designed to help readers get a picture of the with-God life presented in the Bible.

Renovaré Team

June 15, 2018

Seeing the Bible Afresh

Is it time to see Scripture with new eyes? For anyone “starving at the spiritual feast,” Richard Foster offers a paradigm for Bible study called the Immanuel Principle—God with us.

Richard J. Foster & Kathryn Helmers

June 13, 2018

“Studying the Scripture can equip, guide and reveal how to live in life-giving ways that deepen our friendship with God and others.” From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Calhoun gives us several ways to study the Bible.

Adele Calhoun

June 12, 2018

How to Balance the Intellectual Life with the Spiritual Life

Sometimes the intellectual life and spiritual life are needlessly pitted against one another. In this classic commencement speech, Dallas Willard commends us to love God with all our mind.

Dallas Willard

June 8, 2018

Understanding Study

“Study is the process whereby our minds take on an order conforming to the order of whatever we concentrate upon.” Richard Foster succinctly introduces this month’s discipline of study.

Richard J. Foster

June 6, 2018

Fasting Unto God

When we fast, Arthur Wallis asks us to reflect upon for whom we fast—is it done unto God or unto ourselves? When our gaze is singly fixed upon God in this discipline, Wallis encourages us that, “we [will be] preserved from ever permitting the blessings to mean more to us than the Blesser.”

Arthur Wallis

May 30, 2018

Fasting: A Practical Guide

From her helpful Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Calhoun provides a succinct and practical overview of fasting.

Adele Calhoun

May 25, 2018

The Purpose of Fasting

In this excerpt from Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster helps us see that “[f]asting must forever center on God. It must be God-initiated and God-ordained.”

Richard J. Foster

May 23, 2018

Holy Hunger

Chris Hall encourages us to unplug in the most literal sense and fast in small ways from media. How might your mind and spirit be transformed by abstaining from the distractions of the digital age?