Today we examine Paul's prayer for spiritual maturity in Philippians 1:9-11:

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Having discussed the problem of evangelical anti-intellectualism and the sentimental juvenilization of American Christianity, we turn to Scripture to establish the priority of spiritual maturity. In so doing, we will create a foundation for the pastor-theologian paradigm of ministry for which this podcast was founded.

“We’re all adolescents now.” So begins the treatise by Thomas Bergler called The Juvenilization of American Christianity. He has written extensively on this topic, essentially lamenting the lack of spiritual maturity in American Christianity due to the shift of priority toward youth ministry during a specific time in history. Additionally, Todd Brenneman wrote a fascinating assessment of modern American Christianity in his book Homespun Gospel: The Triumph of Sentimentality in Contemporary American Evangelicalism. In this work, he demonstrates that sentimentality has overtaken modern evangelicalism so much that maturity isn’t something Christians think about. I believe juvenilization and sentimentality have combined to assault the Christian ideal of spiritual maturity and a response is necessary. I offer a brief attempt in today's podcast.

This week on The Minister's Ordinary Conversation, we continue our discussion of anti-intellectualism in modern Christianity and I argue that anti-intellectualism is actually anti-discipleship. Christians are expected to make progress in their faith (Titus 2:11-14; Philippians 2:12-13; Ephesians 4:11-16; Hebrews 5:12-6:1), and refusing to learn is essentially refusing to follow Jesus. I look forward to our discussion.