200

I’ve been blogging for 2 1/2 years about Teresa of Avila’s book The Interior Castle. Last week I published blog post #200. Out of those 200 posts I selected six of my favorites. The first three are short posts that address practical issues of spirituality. The next three are longer posts and explore the background and details of The Interior Castle. I hope you will take the time to read or reread these posts. If you find them helpful, valuable, or even controversial I encourage you pass them along to others.

Practical Spirituality
Reptiles: This post describes the problem with pharisaical (or legalistic) approaches to our spiritual life.

Spiritual Addiction: Spiritual addiction is destructive. We try to “fix” our spiritual life through religious activity while our relationships with God and others deteriorate.

The Problem of Spiritual Maturity: This post addresses the problem found among many church leaders and “mature” Christians: They have all the answers and are no longer teachable.

The Interior Castle: Background and Details
A Tour of the Interior Castle: This post gives an overview of the Interior Castle from the beginning with hyperlinks to key subjects.

Prayer, Poetry, and Sex: The Interior Castle uses metaphors related to marriage and sexuality to help us understand the intimacy and ecstasy we can have with God. These metaphors, of course, have limits and are completely spiritual. This blog post explains some of the history behind these metaphors.

Dallas Willard and Teresa of Avila: This has been my most viewed post to date. The late Dallas Willard was a professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Philosophy. He also wrote a number of influential Christian books including The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Hearing God. Included in Willard’s contributions to the Christian community was refocusing our attention on the importance of God’s kingdom, spiritual disciplines, and being a disciple (or apprentice) of Jesus. Dallas Willard had great appreciation for Teresa of Avila and wrote about her in his book The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Teachings On Discipleship.

 

About Dave Small

Jesus Follower, Blogger, Public Speaker. Teresaofavilaturns500.wordpress.com

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