SPIRITUAL FORMATION: COMER OR AUGUSTINE?

Posted on Feb 5, 2025 in BLOG |

I just finished reading John Mark Comer’s bestselling book, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus, Become Like Him, Do as he did. Someone had asked me what I thought of the book, so I decided to read it. Spiritual formation is the buzz phrase today in pastoral circles. Many spiritual formation pastors are using Comer’s book to shape the lives of their people, so I knew I should be familiar with the way of life he promoted.

I found him winsome, funny, and likable. The book is easy to read. He has a gift for presenting theology in a popular format. There are some good, practical, and helpful insights about spiritual growth in the book, and I found myself enjoying him even as I reacted skeptically to his underlying doctrines of God, sin, and the gospel. I did find it interesting how little he used the gospels to help us understand Jesus since his whole point was to be like Jesus … but that’s getting into the weeds of a thorough review.

I cannot fully review the book in this blog because I want to explain the Augustinian model for spiritual formation. However, if you want an excellent review, see the link in the endnotes.[1] Comer is a self-proclaimed mystic whose model for spiritual formation reflects the Catholic traditions of mystical communion with God through monasticism. He cites approvingly the German Jesuit Karl Rahner, who said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.”[2]

 THE BENEDICTINE WAY

Comer boils God down to “love loving” (Saint Ignatius of Loyola) and spiritual formation as entering into the loving community of the trinity, which makes the gospel all about experiencing the love of God.[3] Abiding in Christ is all about feeling the depths of His love. Comer traces his model for spiritual formation back to the Italian monk Saint Benedict (480-547) and his rule of life, the Benedictine way. He modernizes Benedict to develop a 21st-century rule of life (way of life) that each of us can adapt for personal spiritual formation.
 
One hundred years before Benedict, another teacher taught a better set of principles for spiritual formation – Saint Augustine (354-430). Augustine taught a full-orbed doctrine of God. God is love but also holy, just, and immutable. God is not only immanent (Comer) but transcendent (not Comer). We become like the God we worship, and if our God is immanent and changeable, we will have a popular but shallow concept of spiritual formation. The Augustinian model for spiritual formation is ancient, deep, and grounded in all of Scripture, not just a few selected passages. We learn to know God in all His fulness and glory, leading to a more profound doctrine of spiritual formation.

 THE AUGUSTINIAN WAY

The Augustinian way, as opposed to the Benedictine way, is founded on a thorough and “laborious search” of Scripture, for knowing the Bible is the “first step” in spiritual formation.[4] Augustine emphasizes the importance of becoming intimately familiar with all of Scripture. We do this by reading and re-reading the Bible carefully and thoroughly. He goes through the entire canon of Scripture, outlining the contents of the Bible to help us in our studies.

Augustine laid out his seven stages of spiritual formation in Teaching Christianity. 1) The first stage is “to be converted by the fear of God to wishing to know his will, what he bids us seek and shun.” In this stage, the fear of God “nails our flesh (and pride) to the wood of the cross.” 2) The second stage is piety, characterized by not contradicting the Scriptures in our lifestyle. The test of whether we have understood the Scriptures is whether we think we “have better ideas and make better rules ourselves.” Instead of following our rules for life, we learn to know and follow God’s will, taught in the Scriptures.

3) After fear and piety comes knowledge, the third growth stage in our spiritual formation. By knowledge, he meant knowledge of Scripture as applied to self. He wrote, “One first has to discover oneself in the Scriptures.” We learn from Scripture to mourn over our sinfulness. When we discover who we are in our sinfulness, we are ready to love and be loved by God. The test of our knowledge of Scripture is whether we love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls and love our neighbors as ourselves.

4) At this point in our spiritual growth, we reach the fourth stage, which he calls “fortitude or courage, in which one is hungry and thirsty for justice.” We turn away from our “deadly delight” in temporal things and learn to love “eternal things.” We pursue justice and fight injustice in this world. 5) The fifth stage is “counsel which goes with mercy.” In this stage, we learn to purge our selfish appetites and develop compassion for our neighbor. We crucify our self-interest to take up the cross and follow Christ. 6) Now, we reach the sixth stage of spiritual formation when we purify our spiritual eyes from distractions to see God clearly. We must learn to die to this world because as long as we live for this world, we cannot see God.

7) The seventh and final stage of spiritual formation is wisdom. Augustine writes:

“Such children of God are now climbing up to wisdom, which is the last and seventh stage, which is to be enjoyed in peace and tranquility. Thus the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10), and it is through these stages that one moves from that to this.[5]

If you want to practice the way, practice the Augustinian way. You will experience a far deeper and more balanced spiritual formation as you follow Jesus!

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About the Author:
 
David Christensen served in dual ministry for thirty years as a Bible college professor and local church pastor. He is the founder of The Rephidim Project, a ministry devoted to encouraging and equipping pastors for expository preaching. David is the author of seven books including “A Philosophy of Pastoral Preaching: Shepherding God’s People with God’s Word in One Place.” He retired as Preaching Pastor of Galilee Baptist Church in 2018 to devote himself to encouraging pastors, missionaries, and church leaders through Bible exposition and teaching the methods of expository preaching to the next generation of preachers.
 

[1] https://www.wyattgraham.com/p/how-john-mark-comers-view-of-god.

[2] Comer, Practicing the Way, 68.

[3] Comer, Practicing the Way, 63

[4] Augustine, Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana) Book 2 in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Translation and notes by Edmund Hill, editor John E. Rotelle, Hyde Park, New York: New City Press, 1996, 140.

[5] Augustine, Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), 136–138.