The Life of God in the Soul of the Church: The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship [Paperback]

Thabiti Anyabwile (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2012

In this transformational book, trusted pastor Thabiti Anyabwile repositions our thinking about spiritual fellowship. Extending the concept of Divine life presented in Henry Scougal’s classic The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Anyabwile contends that union with Christ is not individualistic, but is discerned in the soul of the local church. This vision of spiritual fellowship is not centered on external activities and programs, but on our shared life in Christ.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“There can be no healthy church apart from true biblical fellowship; there can be no true biblical fellowship apart from the gospel. In this powerful book Thabiti Anyabwile draws these two together, anchoring the life of the church in the message of the church”.
Tim Challies, Blogger at challies.com
" In his new book, this gifted pastor takes us right into the heart of New Testament Christianity and the very nature of the church, demonstrating the fellowship that is one of the signs of the gospel – both to the church itself and to the watching world."
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.,President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
“It is both rooted in the exposition of God's word and full of practical wisdom. I pray that God will use it to encourage many Christians to pursue the fulness of 'the life of God in the soul of the church'.”
Tim Chester, a pastor of The Crowded House in Sheffield, director of the Porterbrook Seminary.
“Picking up where Henry Scougal left off, Thabiti reminds us that the life of God, which is in the soul of man, is consequently and necessarily also in the soul of the church. In other words, union with Christ is not just an individual truth, it is also a corporate, covenantal possession as well. Thabiti leads us through several texts that confronts and comforts us with this truth. This is a much appreciated addition to our understanding of Christ-centered church life.”
Anthony Carter, Lead Pastor, East Point Church, East Point, Georgia.

About the Author

Thabiti Anyabwile is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands and is a council member of The Gospel Coalition, and his internationally regarded blog, Pure Church, is hosted by The Gospel Coalition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Christian Focus (September 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845509234
• ISBN-13: 978-1845509231
• Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 5.3 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I love the Lord because He first loved me. I love His people because He has given me a new heart. I have received God's favor in the form of my wife, Kristie. And together we know His blessing through three children. I was once a Muslim, and by God's grace I have been saved through faith in Jesus Christ. By God's unfathomable grace I am a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in which I hope to serve Him until He returns or calls me home!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended but handle with care November 3, 2012

By David L. Sherrill

Format:Paperback

The full title of the work is The Life of God in the Soul of the Church: The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship. It is published by Christian Focus under the 9 Marks imprint.

Henry Scougal was a 17th century Scottish pastor who wrote a small book for a friend entitled The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Although the book was small, it has proven to possess enduring quality and powerful insights even to this day.

Enter Thabiti Anyabwile, a 21st century pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman. Pastor Anyabwile, inspired by Scougal's original work has written a book designed to extend our understanding of the Life of God beyond the individual soul, to encompass the overall fellowship of the local church.

Pastor Anyabwile's book is offered as a corrective to over-emphasized individualism found in many evangelical churches. He seeks throughout the book to highlight discipleship pursued intentionally through relationships in the the local church, using the rich tapestry of fellowship found throughout the New Testament as the basis for this course correction.

The book is essentially a lightly edited sermon series that Pastor Anyabwile preached in his home church in 2008. As expected from a sermon series, the book is not written in a heavily academic tone but rather carries a pastoral feel, with strong contextualization within the body of his local church. Publishing a collection of thematic sermons has both strengths and weaknesses. It is written at a very understandable level, avoiding unnecessary theological jargon. This makes it accessible to nearly every adult Christian. As expected of sermons, many illustrations and most applications are chosen and emphasized from within the congregational life of a pastor's local church.... Since this work is a collection of sermons, this means it requires some re-interpretation for your own local church context, with little instruction within the text itself in how to do this.

This book is a hard read. Not hard to read. Anyabwile challenges us across the spectrum of church life. There is a mix of ideas presented, from strongly exegetical to less binding personal preference. This is one of the reasons it is a hard read. A variety of Anyabwile's examples could be directly applicable to your church. Others may need to be applied as a concept and not necessarily using the explicit example offered in the book. It takes effort to grasp these differences and thoughtfully mingle them with the character of your own individual local church.

The book has two major divisions. Part 1 builds the foundation for Christian fellowship as union with Christ. Part 2 has specific examples of union with Christ expressed through fellowship in the local church. The specific examples cover a broad range of fellowship, including: loving one another, spiritual gifts, restoration, suffering and comfort, giving, acceptance, and singing to one another among others.

A sample of quotations follows to whet your appetite.

"Membership in the local church is a biblical idea and an implicit requirement for the Christian life."

"I pray that you would see how indispensable you are to everyone in your church according to God's design."

"There are not two classes of Christians-- super-spiritual and ordinary. Because every Christian possesses the Spirit of God through faith, every Christian is spiritual. In that sense, the gospel flattens the world for us. We are all equal; we all live on the same plane."

"It's really remarkable to see how Trinitarian the Christian life is from beginning to end."

"To see and experience this joy, we must commit to carrying `each other's burdens' (Gal. 6: 2). Restoration cannot be achieved a hundred yards away from the burdened. We cannot restore people by shouting across a football field, `Hey! Get it together! Get it right!' The idea of carrying burdens requires proximity, intimacy, and teamwork."

"The Christian church is an astounding thing. It is the bodily presence of Christ in the world. Where is God in suffering? He's in His people administering comfort. Christian, you're not just you. You're you-- with God working and flowing through you! You're an utterly strange being, and the only lasting source of compassion in a world gone mad with suffering."

"The stubborn pride of man that clings to self-reliance may be so strong God may sit death before us in order to shake us from it."

Finally, one quote surprised me quite a bit, considering it is coming from a baptist pastor.

"People often ask why the church is not flowing in the gifts the way the early church was in Acts-- or like the church at Corinth which had every spiritual gift (1 Cor. 1: 7). They ask, `Why are we not seeing miracles and things like that?' Just reading through 1 Corinthians 12- 14, I think the answer can be boiled down to this one problem-- churches are not flowing in the miraculous because the commitment to love is so weak and partial in very many churches. Congregations are not bent on loving one another so that equal concern is shown for every member (12: 25) and so that the common good is the main goal (12: 7)."

In my thought, this is a less-than-helpful explanation why God does not move through miracles displayed commonly in the church today. I fear that this statement could be taken to extremes by many readers, laying a deep burden of guilt on the church as a whole. Perhaps my fear is unfounded, but it is my conviction that there is danger lurking here. It could easily cause burnout in most churches as the people attempt to love one another enough so that their church is flowing in the miraculous. When the miraculous fails to materialize, where will the church turn? Will they speed up the love treadmill and try even harder, or pull the ripcord and float away in exhaustion?

To summarize, I recommend that this book be read broadly but with care, as should be our approach with all theological writing.

Full disclosure: I received a free review ebook from Christian Focus to prepare this review. This has not unduly influenced me and I offer this review with a clear conscience. Read more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Book on The Importance of The Local Church For Spiritual Growth October 5, 2012

By Nathaniel Claiborne

Format:Paperback

Way back in the mid 1600′s, a guy named Henry Scougal wrote a short little book to encourage a friend in his spiritual life. It was later published for wider readership as The Life of God in the Soul of Man. I would probably be unfamiliar with it myself if John Piper didn't make a big deal about it in The Pleasures of God (I suppose I should get around to reading it).

In a very similar vein, Thabiti Anyabwile put together a sermon series for his church called The Life of God in The Soul of The Church. That sermon series has now been published by Christian Focus and is part of the 9 Marks series.

Overview

When originally preached to the First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman over the summer of 2008, Anyabwile's goal was to "impress upon the saints of First Baptist Church a particular vision of spiritual fellowship centered not on external activities and programs but on our shared life of spiritual union with Jesus the Son of God." (p. 12 iBooks ed.) In short, he wanted his church to see that life together is both rooted in Christ and grows up into Christ.

The book is organized around the doctrine of our union with Christ. The first part, which includes 2 sermons, explains the doctrine itself briefly, but focuses on the nature of spiritual fellowship and what it looks like in the body of Christ. His key texts for these two sermons are 1 John, and 1 Corinthians 12:12:27.

Next, Anyabwile spends the rest of the book applying our union with Christ to our relationships. Deftly moving throughout the epistles, Anyabwile begins and ends this group of sermons with chapters on loving one another. Though I don't think Anyabwile intentionally used a chiastic structure for this section, if he did then his sermons on suffering and forgiveness form the core.... I thought these were the most important, especially the sermon on forgiveness drawn from Ephesians 4:1-6.

His perspective in the sermon on singing to another is a refreshing take on how we approach worship, as is his sermon on giving. Other sermons discuss spiritual gifts, partnering together in the Gospel, encouraging one another, and accepting one another. Though Anyabwile does not preach verse by verse through a book of the Bible in this sermon series, he still unpacks exegetically the key texts he uses in each sermon. As such, each sermon/chapter offers a fresh exposition of a text as well as simple and significant ways to apply to the principles he draws out of the text.

Strengths/Weaknesses

As Anyabwile intended, this book still has the feel of lightly edited sermon transcripts and is very readable. This leads to the main weakness, which really isn't all that significant, but is worth mentioning. Because these are sermon transcripts, there are occasional tangents detailing people in the congregation of First Baptist. These are not that intrusive, but they are still, to me at least, elements of the book that are not relevant to many who will read the published version.

Other than that though, Anyabwile offers us a compelling, readable account of the necessity of spiritual fellowship within the local church. Just as the life of God takes us residence in individuals when they come to faith in Christ, so does the life of God take up corporate residence in the body of believers as the church gathered.

Conclusion

This book would make an excellent small group study. But before it is used there, it should make its way into the pastor's study. If your pastor hasn't already caught the vision for seeing the life of God grow up within the church, then this book might make a great gift during Pastor Appreciation month. If he has, then maybe the best gift would be to figure out how you can pass around this book within your church so that everyone catches the vision for the life of God growing in the soul of your church!

[You're reading this review because I'm participating in a blog tour put on by Cross Focused Reviews and was provided an ePub copy of the book!] Read more ›

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rigorously Biblical and Imminently Practical August 27, 2012

By Tara Barthel

Format:Paperback

Pastor Anyabwile has been one of my favorite contemporary churchmen ever since I first read his books and blog, listened to his sermons, and heard him speak at a Peacemaker Ministries conference. I am truly grateful to his family, his beloved church family at First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, and IX Marks, for making his wisdom and insights available to us all. What a gift of God's grace! And what a treasure this book is. I started in on page 1 of "The Life of God in the Soul of the Church" and didn't stop reading until the last page of the Afterword. Throughout the entire manuscript, I would stop, thank God for His Word, and cheer an internal, "Yes!" in response to Pastor Anyabwile's exegesis and application. His strengths as an author are many, but I particularly appreciate how deeply he moors Section 1 (theological foundations of spiritual fellowship) in Holy Scripture so that both section 2 (expressions in the life of the local church) and section 3 (koinonia/sharing/fellowship) flow so naturally and necessarily from each point that he makes. I also appreciate the tangible, practical examples he gives for living out our union with Christ and one another.

In his Introduction, Pastor Anyabwile stated that he "wanted us to see that our life together was both rooted in God the Son and grows up into the full resemblance of the Son. Our union with Jesus is both the root and fruit of spiritual fellowship." He most certainly achieved this goal. Thank you, Pastor Anyabwile!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a good book ! October 5, 2012

By M. Alan Davey

Format:Paperback

This book is essentially a sermon series on various New Testament texts taken from the Epistles, texts that deal with our life as the church.

We live in a time of huge individualism, where commitment to the group (or even to one person) seems less and less attractive to people. It's a great opportunity for Christian people to show the reality of the church, the people of God, the body of Christ, the challenge of true community.

The problem is that we have all grown up in our culture, too, so we have to battle against that individualistic tendency ourselves. It's here that this book come in helpful.

Expositional, the book deals with passages of Scripture. I find this far more helpful than a simple topical approach.

Sermonic, the book addresses the reader personally, sometimes as "O beloved". The unbeliever is not forgotten, he's urged to seek salvation in Jesus Christ.

Practical, the book urges action on all Christians. Join your church. Be active in it. Care for people. Good examples are given of people in First Baptist Church, Cayman.

Spiritual, the book takes as its starting point our union with Jesus Christ. It's a very important doctrine and one that challenges us in many ways.

Do I have nothing negative to say ? Well sometimes some of the illustrations didn't speak very clearly to me. Is inclusion in Christ really like an "out-of-body experience" ? Perhaps for some folk that works better than it does for me.

But I repeat, this is a good book and it has the potential to do a lot of good !