A Personal Examen and Rule of Life

What happens when you copy/paste a paper from one of your doctoral classes into a Squarespace blog post? We’re about to find out! (I discovered that each page’s footnotes are all dropped at the very end, for instance).

What follows is 1) a level of self-examination and 2) resulting philosophy of ministry (a “rule of life”) that is deeper than you’ll get in any job application process.

Why share it here?

Because in a purely human sense, you’re taking a chance on me, and I’m taking a chance on you. 

Obviously we’re both going to petition the Holy Spirit to speak into the situation as well.

But like most people, I want to know and be known. It’s what we desire most deeply going back to the Garden of Eden, and it’s what we fear most deeply, too (Genesis 3)

But here’s to ‘putting it out there’ — a bit of Roger reflecting in spiritual formation class (albeit reformatted to be web-friendly and look less like the old typewriter formatting that academic papers get pressed into).

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A Personal Examen and Rule of Life

An Assignment Presented to

Dr. Brad Strait

Denver Seminary

Littleton, Colorado

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

SF1103 Interior Work Necessary for External Influence

DMin Track: Spiritual Formation

by

Roger Courville

10 August 2023

INTRODUCTION

If a “rule of faith” outlines what is confessed as doctrinally authoritative and “functions as hermeneutical key for the interpretation of Scripture,”[1] this paper will illustrate that a “rule of life” speaks to how.

The context of such practices and disciplines is this writer’s life and ministry, presented in four movements: brief overviews of spiritual maturity and personal spiritual development, an extended examen in the form of describing a spiritual journey to date, an extended look combining a ministerial approach with biblical and theological investigation, and a concluding Rule of Life.

Though my ministry context is to be determined,[2] I entered Denver Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program with a topical interest shaped by years of significant (if not strained) self-reflection: “conversation as spiritual formation.” Two presuppositions are smuggled in:

One, communication is inherently relational and involves content. Moreover, it is triune: assuming the Spirit is invited, it’s an opportunity for formation.

Two, this is true regardless of the roles of the interlocutors or medium of exchange. As will be explicated, “teacher” will be used with a broad semantic range, not least of which because it’s what I naturally do, regardless of role or medium.

SPIRITUAL MATURITY

            Spiritual maturity is a process, and “the litmus test of spiritual reality is transformed – one that manifests the fruit and graces of the Spirit in a way that radiates Christ’s reality to others.”[3] This, as Dr. Brad Strait puts it, is the “widget,” the output.[4] How one gets there, however, is likely to resemble something more like an upward spiral,[5] perhaps experiencing periods of delay, detour, or even temporary regression.

            Further, spiritual maturity is ultimately a team sport with each player growing similarly to physical growth, at different rates as God works in each person’s life.[6] Each person’s intimacy with God is akin to their intimacy with others – the essential elements of which are being known and accepted.[7] This is not only core to our identity in Christ, but to be lived out much like Paul’s instruction to the Romans to “accept, welcome, and love one another without judging or condemning—no matter how weak, immature, or unlearned someone’s faith may seem. Acceptance creates room for growth to continue; rejection stunts growth.”[8]

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW – PERSONAL

            My own spiritual development is marked particularly by two events – justification 24 years ago, and a special filling of the Holy Spirit nine years ago. Some disciplines came easy (e.g., Bible reading and study, journaling, unceasing prayer), while some came with difficulty and are still sometimes elusive (e.g., life at 3mph, discerning God’s good, perfect, pleasing will a la Romans 12:1-2). Indicative of my aspirations, the title of my journal each year is one word…except this and last year, which it has uncharacteristically two words and for two years: patience and curiosity. Indeed, too often I experience my own regression en route to fuller life in Christ.

SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

            My path was birthed in a family parented by unequally yoked pastor’s kids, a crucible of grandpaternal tension betwixt fundamentalist oneness Pentecostalism and mushy moderate Presbyterianism. This would later emerge as a passion for church unity and the question, “Unified on what?” But long before I understood that the “what” is also a “who,” I decided at 13 that whatever my non-Christian father was doing on Sunday morning – hunting, fishing, golfing, bowling, watching football – was more interesting than going to church. Ten years later I had hair down my back and a guitar in hand, living the rock and roll lifestyle. Ten years following that, at 33, I bent the knee to my Lord and Savior.

            In the years both before and after justification, what you, me, Calvin, and Kuyper might call “self knowledge before God” (SKBG) manifested first in a desperate search for self. This idolatrous detour was compounded for reasons I only now understand, and it contributes to mightily to my SKBG: I’m seriously lopsided. Three examples of lopsidedness will suffice.

First, my Core Values Index (CVI) is Innovator-Merchant and scored as “profound” in both. In short, I’m hyper-gifted at problem solving (creativity with dot-connecting) and nearly so in relational matters (creativity with seeking the highest and best of others).

Second, my Big Five psycometry scores me in the 98th percentile in Openness to Experience (creative/investigative), in the 3rd percentile in Conscientiousness (disdain for structure and givenness to procrastination), and 85th percentile in Agreeableness (genuine interest/care/contribution for others).

Finally, of the 34 strengths illuminated with Strengthfinder 2.0, seven of my top eight (Ideation, Strategic, Connectedness, Input, Futuristic, Learner, Intellection, Activator) are in the category of “seeing/problem solving.”

On my spiritual journey this lopsidedness touched down in three significant ways, each of which was a categorical problem until submitted to Jesus.

One, my early days as an immature Christian meant I still attempted to find my identity in deep left-brain learning.

Second, my lopsided wiring for root-cause analyses and sharing from the overflow of learning struggled to find belonging in community and church.[9]

Finally, and partially in response to the first two, I overly relied on entrepreneurial instinct and under-relied on how community shapes us.

Thanks to the Holy Spirit, however, I found myself burning for what Michel Hendricks put into words: “I wanted Jesus to live His life through me. I did not want an improved life. I wanted a transformed life.”[10] The journey, then, is observed in a number of trajectories, including a number of exclamation points added during my engagement with this class. A partial list includes:

From money to meaning. I spent the first half of my life being the guy in the room with the answers. In my late 40s I had a baptism-of-the-spirit moment that challenged my tidy cessationist theology. I realized a sacrificial life meant being sold out, spending the second half of my life (attempting to) be the most hesed person in the room, making “relationship-building a centerpiece of the group curriculum instead of an afterthought.”[11] I had to first, as Lance Witt put it, truly abandon ministry performed like a job, remembering daily that “as a son, my value is intrinsic, not transactional.”[12]

From left-brained to whole-brained. I knew the answer from my deep experience in adult education theory meant that transformation requires affective engagement, but my default was (is) still to retreat to the scholastic from which I derive joy and then fail to consider the affective needs of others. If “true truth,” as Francis Schaeffer calls it, is that “whole-brained Christianity makes full use of truth and relationship” (emphasis mine),[13] my orthopraxy and orthopathy have much room to grow. Bruce Demarest adroitly sums up both problem and aspiration:

Isolated from spirituality, theology can become dry and barren. Isolated from theology, spirituality can drift into platitudinous piety. Theology and spirituality must be bound together in mutually nourishing relationship.[14]

From proposition to story. I grew up aspiring to be like Paul Harvey (really!), and I am a storyteller. But like the previous point, the “I” often fails (and manifests, for instance, in amateur sermons) because I lean too much to the left (brain), particularly because “connecting all our emotions to joy is done primarily by storytelling, not by teaching.”[15]

From transactional to relational. As my CVI shows, I’m profoundly relational, yet often there’s been a disconnect between caring for another’s flourishing and interactions that fail to facilitate their relationship with the Holy Spirit. For instance, I often genuinely query with “tell me your story,” yet fail even still to live into a reality of trinitarian friendship that gently supplicates, “here we are, you and I, and I hope a third, Christ, is in our midst.”[16]

From trying to training. Pulling myself up by my own bootstraps was a collection of efforts – trophies, addictions, strivings, strategic plans – that I let go of slowly, sometimes begrudgingly. In time I discovered that some just left me for reasons I couldn’t explain (apart from the Holy Spirit). Some practices (e.g., “middle way of prayer”[17]) came easily, while some (e.g., “doing ministry at 3mph”[18]) not so much. “Intimacy is muscular”[19] then became a new favorite aphorism, and the “not yet” of the “already/not yet” life incandesces within with new intensity.

As I arrived home from class, I sorted through my class notes and journals new and old, assembling every ism and question, and praying over what God would have me learn. Mercifully, He reminded me of a distillation of my “self” of long ago and illuminated it anew.

In that distillation, formulated as “collect > reflect > connect > create > relate > respond,” He not only reminded me that He not only wired me lopsidely for a reason, but that it aligns with how he wired me for life and ministry: (collect/reflect > reception + meditation) + (connect/create > contextualization + transcoding) + (relate/respond > personalization + elicitation). I realized with resounding aha! that these map to “love God, love neighbor” in a manner that I’d never seen before --  and I’ve had this “me” formulation for better than a decade.

In sum, God wired me to go deep – perhaps even lopsidedly -- on life’s most foundational questions (i.e., weltanschauung or “worldviews”), overflow as a “teacher” in every setting I find myself. Importantly, he gently reminded me the true work is delegated, not mine alone. It is in this I prayerfully seek to be shaped by Scripture rather than shaping Scripture to my own ends.

APPROACH IN LIGHT OF BIBLICAL/THEOLOGICAL THEMES

Has God wired me consistent with “teacher?” How does this inform an approach to the likely ministry areas of my future?

Here I will look first at an essential context and Scriptural warrant for a truncated list of practices befitting the office and role of “one who teaches regardless of role or setting.” I consider my own wiring in light of this as I go.

In Jewish culture, a rabbi topped the societal ladder, so it’s plausible that as they learned about spiritual gifts and desiring the greater ones (1 Cor. 12:31), more “teachers” emerged than were fit for duty. After all, a teacher is compelled to speak, and the tongue comes under mastery with difficulty. Perhaps this is reason James warned of teachers being judged more strictly (Jas. 3:1-12).[20] Further, the task of teaching is not complete – the “widget” is unattained – until love is evident in disciples.[21] The “widget,” at least in part, is defined as maturing into unity in Christ as a body part (Eph. 4:12, 15-16), therefore the role of shepherd/instructor is Christ-given so as to equip disciples for just such trinitarian spirituality, relational with God and others (Eph. 4:11).

Critically, this shepherding/instructing is grounded in the gospel which is both received (Jude 3, 1 Cor. 11:2, 15:3) and practiced in “submission to Christ’s lordship and the leading of his Spirit.”[22] Pedagogically, learning to follow Jesus in a transformative way is both taught and caught, so a teacher necessarily is one who teaches both doctrine and a Christian way of life[23] first from being a disciple themselves.

Finally, its worth putting a fine point on this: knowledge and practice are both intrinsically and inherently relational in a way that is unique in the Christian worldview. In a secular sense, a relationship can be between persons, objects, or concepts as discrete units, As humans, we as teachers and students may conceive of knowledge and practice as distinct and our relationships as ‘I know you, but I don’t like your idea.’ But Jesus is uniquely simple – an uncompounded unity of way, truth, and life, (John 14:6) – and the “only indisputable time that truth is a person.”[24] The role of teacher relative to disciple, then, is not that of sage imparting wisdom, per se. Rather, it’s in triune relationship with God and disciple, first as a disciple themselves.

But if that’s what I knew, that’s not the way I lived. Even during class I recognized Lance Witt’s turn from doing ministry as an employee to doing so as an adopted son,[25] but only in the last couple weeks recognized that my hard-won self-understanding of my own wiring was anthropocentric. Practically speaking it was often idolatrous.

As self knowledge before God, as of this writing it has not been fully transformed, but that work in progress now looks more like the Figure 1 below. Reconceived, the first two wiring traits, “reception/meditation” replace “connect/reflect.” Importantly, throughout the Bible, the presupposition and sometimes explicit expression is that of passing along what has been received (1 Cor. 11:2, 1 Cor. 15:3, Jude 3). I do absorb and process a huge amount of data (for fun), even lopsidedly so, but absent divine warrant and empowerment (Deut. 20:1 et al), I fail at my part of the missio Dei. If I am “Christian” before “teacher, I must begin with recognition of, communion with, and receiving from God as Source (1 Cor. 8:6, 1 Chr. 12, 14), prayerfully discerning His good, perfect, and pleasing will (Rom. 12:1-2).

The second two wiring traits, then, are reframed from “connect/create” to “contextualization/transcoding.” Do I really create anything? The Cultural Mandate, in part, tasks me with the task of bringing out the potential of the earth to support filling the earth with God-glorifiers,[26] and yes, I’m agent with a creativity that images my Creator. But analogically, contextualization is the superior concept here. Contextualization, generally speaking, is adaptation of something that preexists -- the “social and linguistic webs within which speech is set and derives its significance.”[27] The gospel writers did this with who they addressed (e.g., Matthew for the Jews, Mark for the Romans, et al), and we observe Paul address different audiences differently (e.g., arguing philosophically with the Athenians in Acts 17, arguing from the Scriptures to hostile Jews in Acts 18). Importantly as it applies to teaching today, where once we used sacred stories to illustrate secular themes, now we may be served better by using secular stories to illustrate sacred themes.[28]

To me, “relate” was shorthand for facility with medium and media switching – meeting people “where they’re at” inclusive of more than only in-person means of connecting. Transcoding is more accurate technically but sorely truncated in missiology.[29] But what is the biblical witness?

Beyond general writing for instruction, exhortation, and/or correction, Paul expressed preference for being with a group in-person (but was writing because he couldn’t be) (Gal. 6:20, 1 Cor. 16:5) or that he used letters to express his desire or ask for something (1 Cor. 16:10, Philemon). John expressed a need to abstain from writing so that he could say something in person (3 John 13). But the obvious cultural gap is that today we have media options that didn’t exist. It is clear from the existence of New Testament manuscripts and comments therein that “media” wasn’t eschewed because Jesus didn’t write anything down. It also appears clear that “exegete everything”[30] should include thinking hermeneutically about transcoding, accounting for the nature of the medium as part of communication. A sacrificially-submitted, culturally-situated teacher will be careful to protect the conscience and, as appropriate, find the redeemed use of anything in the created order (1 Cor. 10:31), including and particularly use of media.

Third, the final pair of wiring traits of “relate/respond” better express “Christian who teaches” as “personalization/elicitation.” The object isn’t simply to establish rapport and serve. Pagans do that. Rather, to paraphrase Dr. Brad Strait, the telos isn’t knowledge, it’s transformation in Christ by the power of Spirit: “The product is you.[31] Or in this case both me as a teacher who has not successfully lived into my gifting without transformed disciples. Personalization is the contextualization particular in a hyper-localized sense, but the responsibility is as catalyst -- co-agent with the Spirit with responsibility to educe or invite the disciple’s attention to first be on God. Neither the Cultural Mandate (Gen. 1:26-28) nor Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20, Acts 1:8) are complete without this final step.

Finally, three specific spiritual practices undergird all areas above, all critical to laying my shortcomings at the foot of the cross.

The first, initiated above, is that I would do nothing but what God tells me (John 5:19). Herein I’ve made a quantum shift from self-knowledge to self-knowledge before God. Consistent prayer and journaling, seeking and receiving with confidence the gift of the Holy Spirit’s intimate involvement (Luke 11:13).

Second and following from the first, I must extend and protect “ministry at 3mph.” I already live an interruptible life, but there’s an old aphorism exhorting, “If you want to go far, go with a team; if you want to go fast, go alone.” I’ve always gone fast. It’s a shift from drivenness to create to an abiding in relational stewardship. I need a team and need to trust that a team needs me because God designed it that way (1 Cor. 12:18).

Finally, I must actively seek to be in relationship with others. I easily turn conversations into spiritual conversations,[32] but given my broad definition of teaching includes spiritual friendship, et al, the “going” in “go, baptize, disciple” has been lacking more than it should. I spend too much time researching, and not enough time being in places where God can use me. Yet he has promised that the Spirit would, in fact, use me (Luke 12:12), if I show up.

In sum, passing along what I’ve received begins and ends with the gospel. The role I end up in as pastor, professor, small group leader, podcaster, considered in a cultural context inclusive of digital “places,”[33] bears the same responsibility. I am the product first, and only then a witness, spiritual friend, mentor, or whatever path God directs my steps to (Prov. 16:9). 

RULE OF LIFE

In conclusion, version one of this writer’s Rule of Life emerges:

In response to and as witness of the love of God, I live out of the overflow of intimacy with His will and power, reaching, teaching, and leading by any means and medium necessary that I might help some fall more in love with Jesus.

Expanded upon, I offer this:

In response to and as witness of the love of God

Identity and purpose received, not achieved, my life’s greatest meaning, joy, and peace surpassing understanding must be daily before me. I begin each day reflecting upon His mercies, running so as to win the prize, humbly holding in tension my agency with His Lordship, my daily tasks with unceasing prayer, my time alone with not neglecting the love of others.

I live out of the overflow of intimacy with His will and power

I desire to desire unbroken connectedness such that spiritual devotion is obedience borne of love. In this I will tithe my time in Sabbath, seek daily to quicken my conscience by His holiness, discern His will in my study, and allow his wisdom to power my steps, redeeming the whole of life as sacred.

Reaching, teaching, and leading

Each day I will fill my tank before hitting the road to pass on what I’ve received, refreshed to again – one day at a time – be unconcerned for the praise of people, knowing nothing but Christ and him crucified. In humility and compassion I seek the whole-brain welfare of the body of Christ and inviting them to respond in their own gifting to the invitation and command to invite others to “Follow me.” Hopeful, curious, and patient in all things, I will ever keep before me true truth that the point of service to others is their communion with God.

By any means and medium necessary

To exercise my sacred stewardship I must sacrificially, moment by moment, pursue health in every dimension, grasp time loosely, and engage joyfully learning to meet people where they are or “are,” at three miles per hour. Further, I will grow in self-denial as righteous and joyful suffering, especially in patience with partners themselves under Holy writ, in submitted service to our Lord. 

That I might help some fall more in love with Jesus.

Passing along what I’ve received, I must pursue others in light of who they are and connect them to Spirit-infused experience of life of relationship as the centerpiece of curricula. This will range from a Christian worldview quietly woven into a secular curriculum in pre-evangelistic effort to point people to Jesus to biblical/theological engagement with existing believers. Like Jesus, I will pursue them where they’re at while not being content to leave them where they’re at, inviting them to be known and accepted in hospitable, hesed community, discovering the joy set before them as an invitation and command: “Follow me.”

Soli Deo Gloria. 

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APPENDIX A: TRANSCODING TRADEOFFS EXHIBIT

When considering interlocution in the context of place and time, what are the tradeoffs? Might we consider said tradeoffs as “different” rather than “better and worse?” While the Holy Spirit isn’t represented here explicitly, there is biblical warrant for healing at a distance and, arguably, an invitation to reconsider how we conceive of proximity.

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APPENDIX B: JOURNAL

Over the course of this class I journaled 25 pages (digitally, 8.5x11).

(image excluded as it was simply providing proof)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aelred of Rievaulx, On Spiritual Friendship, trans. Mary Eugenia Laker. Washington:

Cistercian, 1974, in Mark Harris, Companions on Your Spiritual Journey: Discovering

the Disciplines of the Saints. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005.

Barton, Bruce B., David Veerman, and Neil S. Wilson. Romans, Life Application Bible

Commentary. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1992.

Demarest, Bruce. Satisfy Your Soul: Restoring the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Colorado

Springs: NavPress, 1999.

Frame, John M. Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology.

Phillipsburg, NJ: 2006.

Gangel, Kenneth O. and Howard G. Hendricks. The Christian Educator’s Handbook on

Teaching. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998.

Geisler, Norman L. and Ron Brooks. When Skeptics Ask. Wheaton: Victor, 1990.

Hagberg, Janet O., and Robert Guelich. The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, 2nd

ed. Salem: Sheffield Publishing, 2005.

Harris, Mark. Companions on Your Spiritual Journey: Discovering the Disciplines of the

Saints. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005.

Smith, Craig A. “Church Leadership,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al. Lexham Theological

Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2014.

Strait, Brad. “The Goal of Spiritual Formation.” Lecture at Denver Seminary, Denver, CO,  July

18, 2023.

______.  “Five Factors of Intimacy – an Introduction” Lecture at Denver Seminary, Denver, CO,

July 18, 2023.

______. “Learning to Live at 3MPH.” Lecture handout, Denver Seminary, accessed July 17,

2023, moodle.densem.edu.

______. “The Middle Way of Prayer.” Lecture handout, Denver Seminary, accessed July 17,

2023, moodle.densem.edu.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J.  et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. London;

SPCK, 2005.

Wilder, Jim and Michel Hendricks. The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain

Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2020.

Witt, Lance. Replenish: Leading from a Healthy Soul. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011.

(and apparently a copy/paste from Microsoft Word drops all the footnotes that would appear on any given page to the very end)

[1] Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 703.

[2] As of this writing, my ministry context is largely anticipatory. I recently married and moved, so this is an exposition of my trajectory, including insight into what I should likely avoid.

[3] Bruce Demarest, Satisfy Your Soul: Restoring the Heart of Christian Spirituality (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1999), 39.

[4] Brad Strait, “The Goal of Spiritual Formation” (lecture, Denver Seminary, Denver, CO,  July 18, 2023).

[5] Janet O. Hagberg and Robert Guelich, The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, 2nd ed. (Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing, 2005), 6.

[6] Bruce B. Barton, David Veerman, and Neil S. Wilson, Romans, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1992), 260.

[7] Brad Strait, “Five Factors of Intimacy – an Introduction” (lecture at Denver Seminary, Denver, CO, July 18, 2023).

[8] Barton, Veerman, and Wilson, Romans, 260.

[9] Seriously, how many churches encourage lay teachers vs “we need more volunteers in the parking lot or kids ministry?” Even many good ones fail at this.

[10] Jim Wilder and Michel Hendricks, The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation. (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2020), 17, Kindle Edition.

[11] Wilder and Hendricks, The Other Half of Church, 97, Kindle.

[12] Lance Witt, Replenish: Leading from a Healthy Soul (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 109.

[13] Wilder and Hendricks, The Other Half of Church, 181, Kindle.

[14] Demarest, Satisfy Your Soul, 292.

[15] Wilder and Hendricks, The Other Half of Church, 191, Kindle.

[16] Aelred of Rievaulx, On Spiritual Friendship, trans. Mary Eugenia Laker (Washington, D.C.: Cistercian, 1974), p. 51 in Mark Harris, Companions on Your Spiritual Journey: Discovering the Disciplines of the Saints (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2005), p. 89 

[17] Brad Strait, “The Middle Way of Prayer” (lecture handout, Denver Seminary, 2023), accessed July 17, 2023, moodle.densem.edu.

[18] Brad Strait, “Learning to Live at 3MPH” (lecture handout, Denver Seminary, 2023), accessed July 17, 2023, moodle.densem.edu.

[19] Brad Strait, “Five Factors of Intimacy – an Introduction” (lecture handout, Denver Seminary, 2023), accessed July 17, 2023, moodle.densem.edu.

[20] Kenneth O. Gangel and Howard G. Hendricks, The Christian Educator’s Handbook on Teaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 9.

[21] Gangel and Hendricks, The Christian Educator’s Handbook on Teaching, 64.

[22] Craig A. Smith, “Church Leadership,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

[23] Smith, “Church Leadership.”

[24] Norman L. Geisler and Ron Brooks. When Skeptics Ask (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990), 276.

[25] Witt, Replenish, 109.

[26] John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 98.

[27] Vanhoozer et al., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation, 130.

[28] This paraphrases something this writer heard Ravi Zacharias once say (and cannot find to quote). He was speaking about apologetics/evangelism, but it’s arguably applicable inside churches beset with low level of biblical literacy.

[29] See APPENDIX A for a representative chart I’ve used elsewhere. While not discussed in this paper, it presents conceptually a relationship between content and medium when parsed for place and time.

[30] Brad Strait, Introductory Comments (lecture at Denver Seminary, Denver, CO, July 17, 2023).

[31] Strait, Introductory Comments, July 17, 2023.

[32] Twice in the just last two weeks I’ve had time in the cab of a tow truck driver and was a witness for Christ both times. While good and responsive, “going” in “go, baptize, disciple” has been lacking more than it should.

[33] Again, see APPENDIX A.