Dallas Willard

• Overview
• Books
• Articles
• Podcast Episodes

Articles & Essays by Dallas Willard

Article

Who is Our Teacher?

Published March, 1998 • Featured September 1, 2023

“You learned how to live from somebody else.” Dallas Willard looks at the teachers that shape us, and encourages us to open the door to different and better teachers — and to ​“one above all.”

Book Excerpt from Life without Lack

Truly Believing the Twenty-Third Psalm

Featured April 26, 2023

Dallas Willard writes that ​“far too few have experienced in their own lives the vivid reality” of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Here he explains how we can step into the abundance it describes.

Book Excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy

The Grandest Prayer of All

Published March, 1998 • Featured April 14, 2023

Dallas Willard explains how we can move from mere repetition to meaningful communion by using the Lord’s Prayer ​“to speak intelligently and lovingly to our heavenly Father.”

Book Excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy

What is the Curriculum for Christlikeness?

Published March, 1998 • Featured March 24, 2023

We are not told precisely how to become like Jesus. Yet if we observe the life and teaching of Jesus, we can see that there is a way. In this excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas unpacks some of what that training in Christlikeness involves.

Book Excerpt from The Spirit of the Disciplines

Authority in the Context of Mutual Submission

Published May, 1999 • Featured January 20, 2023

In the kingdom of God, submission is ​“a call for help” and authority is offering ​“depth of experience and Christlikeness” as an act of submission and servanthood.

Essay

Being Christian in a Pluralistic Society

Published January, 1992 • Featured November 10, 2022

In this vintage yet timely piece, Dallas Willard reflects upon the challenges and benefits of pluralism, and how Christians are positioned ​“to show the true excellence of the Way of Christ.”

Book Excerpt from Hearing God

Empowered by God to Do What We Want

Published October, 1999 • Featured August 31, 2022

Dallas Willard explains how we come to share God’s desires and join in God’s work.

Book Excerpt from Renovation of the Heart

Goodness from the Depths of Our Beings

Published December, 2021 • Featured April 6, 2022

Some selections from the first two chapters of Renovation of the Heart describe the various dimensions of the human self and explain how God’s loving influence can form and transform us from the inside out.

Interview

Following Jesus and Living in the Kingdom

Published April, 2002 • Featured May 21, 2021

In an insightful interview, Dallas Willard addresses imbalances sometimes present in evangelical and charismatic contexts and points us toward life in the Kingdom of God.

Article

Blessed to Bless

Published December, 2013 • Featured May 21, 2021

Ruminating on the theme of blessing, Linda Christians shares some helpful passages from Dallas Willard’s book, Living in Christ’s Presence.

Book Excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy

Passing Through the Stage Normally Called "Death"

Published January, 1998 • Featured March 5, 2021

Dallas Willard offers an in-depth look at the biblical vision of human experience before and beyond physical death.

Article

Acknowledging God in All We Do

Published July, 1998 • Featured October 14, 2020

“Discipleship means learning to acknowledge God in all we do,” writes Dallas Willard, ​“and it takes a lot of learning.”

Book Excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy

Entering the Ultimate Reality

Featured May 7, 2020

The life for which you were made — a life intertwined with the Trinity and growing in closeness, communication, and surrender to God — is open to you. The offer is ​“not something to be ​‘accepted’ now and enjoyed later, but something to be entered now.”

Book Excerpt from Life without Lack

The Most Important Thing About You

Featured March 2, 2020

From Life Without Lack, Dallas Willard invites us to think correctly about two fundamental things: minds and people.

Book Excerpt

The Heart Knows Its Place

Published December, 2003 • Featured January 26, 2020

Renovaré Board Chair James Catford shares with us some meditations from Dallas Willard’s Hearing God Through the Year that have touched him.

Essay

Dallas Willard on Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle

Published December, 2003 • Featured January 19, 2020

“This book and this author,” Dallas Willard says in regard to Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, ​“immediately announced themselves as a unique presence of God in my life.”

Book Foreword

The Simplest and Most Effective Way of Mind Renewal in Christ

Published January, 2010 • Featured November 6, 2019

Dallas Willard brings us back to the basics, asserting that ​“the simplest and most effective way of mind renewal in Christ is memorization of Scripture: large passages of it as well as individual verses.”

Book Excerpt from The Great Omission

In-Depth Answers to Ten Big Questions About Spiritual Formation

Published October, 1999 • Featured October 4, 2019

In the fall of 1999, a small group of Christian teachers — including Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Eugene Peterson, and Gayle Beebe — retreated in Colorado together to prayerfully reflect on the meaning and prospects of Christian spiritual formation today.

Article

Live Life to the Full

Published April, 2001 • Featured August 8, 2019

Dallas Willard helps us understand the synergy between God’s transforming grace and our active cooperation: ​“You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire by the grace of God.”

Book Excerpt

Following Christ in Our Work

Published December, 2007 • Featured June 25, 2019

As disciples of Jesus, all our efforts become a form of Kingdom work ​“for and under God.”