:: Ryan Thomas ::<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019ve read anything by Dallas Willard you\u2019ll know how he despises (in his own gentle way) the concept that the Christian life amounts to a mere verbal claim with no connection to actual discipleship. He identifies those who have truly met and loved Jesus as persons who progressively change and grow throughout their lives. This change is loosely delineated into five stages which are helpful to give us an understanding of what the eternal life looks like in this world still beleaguered with sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He gets the initial idea from Jesus\u2019 farewell discourse wherein he notes that Jesus distinguished two phases of his disciples\u2019 lives: slaves and friends. \u201cI no longer call you slaves\u2026 but you have become my friends because under my teaching you now have learned all that I heard from the Father.\u201d (John 15:15) Willard describes the difference between the two:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cOf course, that does not mean we no longer serve Jesus. He remains our Master, and a favorite term of New Testament writers for themselves is \u2018slave of Jesus Christ.\u2019 But it is now on a different basis, a basis of loving cooperation, of shared endeavor, in which his aims are our aims and our understanding and harmony with his kingdom are essential to what he does with and through us.\u201d (367)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
So, the path of our \u201ceternal kind of life in the Kingdom Among Us\u201d<\/em> looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
- Confidence in and reliance upon Jesus.<\/strong>\u00a0This confidence is in the saving position and power of the \u201cSon of Man.\u201d (John 3:15; Romans 10:9-10; 1 Corinthians 12:3) This is the beginning of faith – hoping in things not seen. It is the first \u201cyes\u201d to Gospel story that we are dead in our sin\u2026 but hope has been freely offered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- A desire to be Jesus\u2019 apprentice.<\/strong>\u00a0This is \u201cliving within his word\u201d and \u201cputting his teachings into practice.\u201d (John 8:31) This kind of living is what progressively brings us into the fullness of what the Kingdom of God has to offer us this side of Christ\u2019s return. It is tasting the difference between slavery to sin and freedom in Christ.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Obedience.<\/strong>\u00a0This is a crucial placement of the topic of obedience for Willard.\u00a0He says that demanding obedience of people who do not love Jesus nor hate their sin, will only produce legalists who are crushed by the weight of their insufficiency. Obedience must be the natural consequence of experiencing the fullness of eternal life in the Kingdom Among Us. Why? Because obedience must be born of love and God\u2019s Kingdom is where we come to know the love of God. (John 14:15, 21)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Pervasive inner transformation of the heart and soul.<\/strong>\u00a0A life of apprenticeship to Jesus produces abiding love for Jesus. Abiding love for Jesus maintains desire to live and move and act and speak like Jesus. And that – not forced religion – is what actually transforms the heart of sin into a heart of holiness. In this state, Willard calls the fruits of the Spirit\u00a0\u201cthe abiding condition of the disciple.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(368)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Power to work the works of the Kingdom.<\/strong>\u00a0John 14:12 is one of the most shocking statements that Jesus ever made – and it\u2019s one that probably very few Christians actually believe. How come most of us never taste the fruition of this promise to do greater things than the Messiah? Because very few of us actually live the life that Jesus lived. Yes, Jesus was God, but he limited his power to align with the human life because he was offering a real model for us to follow. True human life is meant to look like the life of Christ.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
:: Ryan Thomas :: The following comes from Divine Conspiracy, HarperCollins, 1998. If you\u2019ve read anything by Dallas Willard you\u2019ll know how he despises (in his own gentle way) the concept that the Christian life amounts to a mere verbal claim with no connection to actual discipleship. He identifies those who have truly met and loved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242604671,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1426],"tags":[1521,1545,1427,1532,1530,1534,1535,1473,1411,1548,1540,1546,1538,1550,1541,1551,1542,1383,1497,1526,1547,1533,1544,1552,1539,1543,1537,1386,1536,1549,1531],"class_list":["post-2282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ryan-thomas","tag-1-corinthians","tag-apprentice","tag-christian","tag-conspiracy","tag-dallas","tag-disciple","tag-discipleship","tag-discourse","tag-divine","tag-eternal","tag-faith","tag-freedom","tag-friend","tag-fruit","tag-gospel","tag-holiness","tag-hope","tag-jesus","tag-john","tag-kingdom","tag-legalism","tag-life","tag-obedience","tag-power","tag-romans","tag-salvation","tag-slave","tag-spirit","tag-stages","tag-transformation","tag-willard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfhtR4-AO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2213,"url":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?p=2213","url_meta":{"origin":2282,"position":0},"title":"Dialogical Literacy | 2","author":"matt106","date":"December 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":":: Ryan Thomas :: This content come from Mere Christian Hermeneutics. Vanhoozer, K. Zondervan. 2024. \u201cIf scripture is the lifeblood of the church, biblical interpretation is its circulation system: translating, preaching, commentary, lived tradition - all are forms of biblical interpretation.\u201d (2) In all reality, if Christians, as a people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ryan Thomas"","block_context":{"text":"Ryan Thomas","link":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?cat=1426"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2266,"url":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?p=2266","url_meta":{"origin":2282,"position":1},"title":"Dialogical Literacy | 5","author":"matt106","date":"December 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":":: Ryan Thomas :: This is part 5 in the series covering Kevin Vanhoozer's \"Mere Christian Hermeneutics\" (Zondervan, 2024). Dr. V. describes Philology as\u00a0\u201cthe love of words (philia + logos)\u2026 [it] refers to the entire enterprise of attending to and understanding a work of written discourse. What does it mean\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ryan Thomas"","block_context":{"text":"Ryan Thomas","link":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?cat=1426"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2195,"url":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?p=2195","url_meta":{"origin":2282,"position":2},"title":"The Invitation","author":"matt106","date":"November 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":":: Ryan Thomas :: By way of introduction I begin with confession. Dialogue has never been my strong suit. As I read the Gospels and see how much time Jesus spent dialoguing with others, I get exhausted. In turn, my favorite parts of the story are the moments he got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ryan Thomas"","block_context":{"text":"Ryan Thomas","link":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?cat=1426"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2278,"url":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?p=2278","url_meta":{"origin":2282,"position":3},"title":"Dialogical Literacy | 7","author":"matt106","date":"December 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":":: Ryan Thomas :: On we go with more of Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer\u2019s \u201cMere Christian Hermeneutics\u201d (Zondervan, 2024). So far in Dr. V.\u2019s book (and this blog series), he (and I) have been driving at an issue of highest importance: how to understand what God, through his word, is saying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ryan Thomas"","block_context":{"text":"Ryan Thomas","link":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?cat=1426"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2204,"url":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?p=2204","url_meta":{"origin":2282,"position":4},"title":"Dialogical Literacy | 1","author":"matt106","date":"November 29, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":":: Ryan Thomas :: I offer this ongoing series which stems from Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer's recent book, \"Mere Christian Hermeneutics\" (Zondervan, 2024). While part of my work is to help others understand biblical hermeneutics in general, I find that this aspect of understanding God's word is deeply dialogical. 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For our next installment of my review of Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer\u2019s latest book I\u2019m going to briefly touch on a point that he repeatedly makes throughout: biblical studies and biblical theology need to reconcile their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ryan Thomas"","block_context":{"text":"Ryan Thomas","link":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/?cat=1426"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/242604671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2284,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions\/2284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/here-i-am.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}