Thursday, March 16, 2017

Kregel Publications: The Spirituality of Paul by Leslie Hardin

Every Sunday it is easy to be a Christian. We arrive at a building and we join with other Christians and we worship God. However, Leslie Hardin reminds us that our faith isn’t just a Sunday experience. In his book, The Spirituality of Paul, Hardin is showing us that we not only partner with the Holy Spirit on Sunday, but rather we must as effective Christians not only to minister to others, but even to ourselves, we must partner with God daily.
Hardin takes you through the practices of Paul and they include: Imitation of Jesus, being devoted to Scripture, prayer, discipleship, Proclamation of the Gospel, corporate worship, being holy, using our spiritual gifts, building each other up, and the fact that all Christians do suffer.
My favorite chapter was devotion to scripture. I find a lot of people who preach the other topics; but rarely do I hear ministers speak on being devoted to scripture. However, equally, the other chapters are very enlightening.
Finally Hardin wraps the entire book up with a chapter called The Shape of Pauline Spirituality. Today much of what Paul wrote has become the cornerstone of Christianity—and we often forget that Paul was merely a human.
"Paul had a reputation in the first century as someone who had a weighty and forceful media persona, but who was soft and unimpressive in reality…. Yet here was a man who, when he patterned his life after that of Christ Jesus, with the help of the Holy Spirit, turned the world on it head for the glory of Jesus. This gives hope to us who read him, who take him seriously, and who want to be spiritual like Paul was."

I received this book free from the publisher to review. It did not have to be a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255.

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