THE GREAT OMISSION

Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship

DALLAS WILLARD

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

the great omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship.

© Copyright 2006 by Dallas Willard.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Willard, Dallas.

The great omission: reclaiming Jesus’s essential teachings on discipleship / Dallas Willard.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-088243-3

Cover painting: Natural History Museum, London / Bridgeman Art Library

To bertha vonallman willard

A true apprentice of Jesus Who has blessed all she has touched—Grace and truth through and through

Contents

Introduction

Apprenticed to Jesus

Chapter 1: Discipleship

Chapter 2: Why Bother with Discipleship?

Chapter 3: Who Is Your Teacher?

Chapter 4: Looking Like Jesus

Chapter 5: The Key to the Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter 6: Spiritual Formation in Christ Is for the Whole Life and the Whole Person

Spiritual Formation and the Development of Character

Chapter 7: Spiritual Formation in Christ

Chapter 8: The Spirit Is Willing, But …

Chapter 9: Living in the Vision of God

Chapter 10: Idaho Springs Inquiries Concerning Spiritual Formation

Chapter 11: Personal Soul Care

Chapter 12: Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, and the Restoration of the Soul

Discipleship of the Soul and the Mind

Chapter 13: Christ-Centered Piety

Chapter 14: Why?

Chapter 15: Jesus the Logician

Chapter 16: Letters by a Modern Mystic by Frank C. Laubach

Books on Spiritual Living: Visions and Practices

Chapter 17: The Interior Castle of Teresa of Avila

Chapter 18: Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton

Chapter 19: When God Moves in

Chapter 20: A Room of Marvels by James B. Smith

A Parting Word: “As You Go …”

Credits and Permissions

INTRODUCTION

Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let Earth receive her King! Let every heart, prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing!” So sings the grand old Christmas carol, with the implication that now, with the coming of Jesus into our world and our lives, things are going to be really different. And that theme is sustained through the ages up to the present. No knowledgeable person can think anything else. Transformation into goodness is what the “Good News” is all about … isn’t it?

But there is a great deal of disappointment expressed today about the character and the effects of Christian people, about Christian institutions, and—at least ...

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About The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship

The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations." But Christians have responded by making "Christians," not "disciples." This, according to brilliant scholar and renowned Christian thinker Dallas Willard, has been the church's Great Omission.

"The word disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament," writes Willard. "Christian is found three times and was first introduced to refer precisely to disciples of Jesus. . . . The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ. But the point is not merely verbal. What is more important is that the kind of life we see in the earliest church is that of a special type of person. All of the assurances and benefits offered to humankind in the gospel evidently presuppose such a life and do not make realistic sense apart from it. The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian—especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He or she stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God."

Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth. He calls on believers to restore what should be the heart of Christianity—being active disciples of Jesus Christ. Willard shows us that in the school of life, we are apprentices of the Teacher whose brilliance encourages us to rise above traditional church understanding and embrace the true meaning of discipleship—an active, concrete, 24/7 life with Jesus.

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Table of Contents