God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World
God Calling provides groundbreaking and provocative insights into how God works in the world through the gift of his Holy Spirit. In the NT we do not find the saints praying and constantly asking God what to do; instead, the Spirit continuously leads and guides, giving Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World—people just like you! Looking at the biblical record as a whole, God Calling delivers a paradigm shift for our understanding the indwelling Spirit’s impact on Christians’ decision-making, prayer life, spiritual practices, and knowing God’s will. Bringing spiritual warfare down to the real world, God Calling helps us correct some of our hyper-spiritual practices, while giving clear spiritual direction to enable followers of Jesus living in the real world to be wise, mature, and Christ-like, and for his church to be robust, proactive, and confident.
Jeffrey J. Kilmartin, a rural church pastor for over 20 years, is now serving as a seminary lecturer and missionary in Central and West Africa, ministering among an unreached people group. He and his wife, Sonya, have four grown children and presently live in Banyo, Republic of Cameroon.
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Interview with Jeffrey J. Kilmartin
What prompted you to write God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World?
Several things came together, both positive and negative. Positively, I felt I had gained a biblical understanding of how God works in us that I haven’t seen in other authors, and I really thought that would be a good help to people. Negatively, I saw a whole bunch of popular but harmful teachings in the larger church. I wanted to write something that would be a corrective for these things.
Tell about yourself, and your qualifications to write this book.
I have over 20 years pastoral experience, an earned doctor of ministry degree, am a seminary lecturer, and am presently ministering in West and Central Africa. The issues being dealt with are universal, and I’ve had opportunity to experience them from a host of different perspectives. I have been thinking about and studying the issues I write on for many years, and spent a good amount of time during my seminary years researching and writing them.
Who do you hope will benefit most from reading the book? Who is your target audience?
The people I first had in mind as I was writing were my own children; they have been affected by the popular teaching I am opposing, and I wanted to write something to bless them. More broadly, the book was written with a North American evangelical audience in mind, but I think anyone who wants to know more about how God does and does not work in the world will be helped by this book.
What do you hope readers will glean from this book?
I really hope readers will gain a clearer understanding of how God guides us today through his Spirit. I think they might be as pleasantly surprised as I was by the findings there. I hope that new knowledge will bear fruit in Christian maturity, confidence, and effectiveness in living.
What surprised you most while writing the book?
A couple things surprised me. I was shocked by how far we NA Christians are from the prayer practices of NT Christians. This prompted me to investigate NT prayer and God’s guidance more closely, and I came to understand the work of the Spirit in our lives in a way I haven’t seen explored by other researchers. The paradigm shift that took place in my understanding provided me with the most pleasant surprise I received in thinking about these issues.
What are some of the controversial aspects of the book?
I come out pretty strongly against the practices of “conversational prayer” and the extra-biblical spiritual disciplines as they are presently being taught. In both cases, I show how they are unbiblical, unnecessary, and even harmful to Christians and our witness in the world. In another direction, the book has a chapter about wealth and giving which may be deemed quite controversial in our materialistic world – though it is a simple reflection on NT practise and teaching.
There are some fairly in-depth appendices; is this an academic work?
No, the book is not academic. While much of the work is based on academic research, it comes from a pastor’s heart. The appendices are there because I am getting into the weeds a fair bit; they provide the proof for some of the controversial assertions I make. I hope everyone will read them, but I didn’t want readers to get bogged down in the details before going through the rest of the work.
What are the main critiques you have received, and how have you responded to them?
Actually, most of the reviews have been quite good. Most of the criticisms thus far have come about because of how I have said things, not from the actual content of the book. I’ve been accused of being a Biblicist, and while I plead guilty to the charge, I am only writing that way in order to fairly meet my opponents on their own ground. It has also been said that I am sometimes harsh with those I disagree with; while I am seeking to be charitable all through the work, I must confess that sometimes I really am not happy with some of the poor teaching I see out there.
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An Excerpt from God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World
I should confess that during my initial study for the last chapter, on how the NT saints made decisions after Pentecost, my jaw kept sliding closer and closer to the floor, until by the end I had to pick it up and re-hinge it. It came as a major surprise that the practice of Christians in the NT would be so very different from our own today, and it was shocking to realize how far apart we were. (This was especially so since I am a Christian of the Baptist persuasion, and we Baptists pride ourselves on having the Bible as our “only guide for faith and practice.”)
Today we find that almost any significant decision needing to be made by an evangelical Christian will be preceded by the announcement, “I will pray about that;” or, “Let us pray and see what God says,” as though the expectation is that God will indeed respond with an utterance from on high and bring an end to the dilemma. Normally, of course, God does not do that, so for the uninitiated the idea can be both confusing and frustrating, as they wait for a voice that never seems to speak.
To be sure, there is prayer mentioned in the NT, even after Pentecost; they are just not the same kind of prayers we are making today. The early saints prayed each morning, we know (Acts 2.42), and they prayed after their decisions had been taken (Acts 6.6; 14.23), and Paul often broke into prayer as he was writing his letters (Eph 1.15–19; Phil 1.8–11; Col 1.3–12)—but we emphatically do not read of them praying to ask God to tell them what to do.
Sometimes those prayers of Paul were concerned with knowing God’s will (and therefore they are about knowing what to do), but the way they are framed is much different than directly asking God what to do in a particular instance. Listen to his prayer for the saints in Colossae:
We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. (Col 1.9–10)
Godly guidance is explicitly what Paul is asking for, but in a way very unlike we are used to. To borrow an old proverb, it is as though we post-modern Christians are asking God to give us a fish in our prayers, while Paul is here asking him to provide a fishing pole. That is to say, we normally ask God to tell us what to do in each and every instance, while Paul is asking for wisdom and knowledge in general, so that in any given instance the Colossians (and us!) will already have a good idea what God’s will is.
For a long time, I saw the disparity between the prayers of the NT saints and those of contemporary Christians, but the why and the how of it eluded me. I did not understand why the disparity was there, because I could not see how God was really working in the lives of those early Christians. Then one day, as I was reading through Isaiah’s explanation of the “true fast” (Isa 58), the answer came to me as I came to verse 11. When I read the promise found there I finally understood why it was the early Christians prayed the way they did, and how it all fit together. (It was exciting!)
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Praise for God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World
“Without doubt this is the best book on Christian guidance that I have ever read. . . . The author’s wryly self-deprecating conversational style is coupled with experience-derived wisdom, a deep understanding of human nature, and a keen eye for pious hocus-pocus.”—Jonathan Bonk, Research Professor of Mission, Boston University
“The author . . . has written a very timely, witty, entertaining, and yet at the same time sobering book. He does a fine job and a great service to the church in delineating false assumptions, especially as it relates to understanding and ascertaining God’s will. . . . I recommend it highly!”—Jerry Shepherd, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Taylor Seminary
“How can Christians learn God’s specific will for daily life? Not by observing signs, nor by practicing over-subjective ‘conversational prayer,’ nor by ascetic disciplines such as fasting, but by growing into Christ’s character as described in the general precepts of Scripture, then making sensible decisions to meet needs around us, empowered by God’s Spirit. Kilmartin offers a sane (and in places controversial) corrective to individualism, materialism, and hyperspirituality in the North American church.”—Paul A. Rainbow, Professor of Bible, Sioux Falls Seminary
“With an easy-to-read and down-to-earth style, Jeff Kilmartin explores discerning and walking according to the will of God. Confidently navigating the Scriptures, he challenges contemporary ideas about hearing God’s voice. Any Christian seeking clarity regarding prayer and God’s guidance will be helped by this book.”—Jonathan Kienzler, Director of Biblical Studies, Vanguard College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
For more information contact:
Jeffrey J. Kilmartin
jeff.kilmartin@gmail.com
587-372-0803
https://kilmartinblog.wordpress.com