A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation by Matthew Bingham. Crossway. 369 pages. 2025
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This book was introduced to our church leadership team by our lead pastor at our annual leadership retreat last fall, who encouraged all of us to read the book. I’ve been reading discussing with two men in our church. It’s the best book that I’ve read in the past year.
Today, many are leaving evangelicalism for denominations like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in search of a greater depth of spiritual practice. The author tells us that the purpose of the book is to explore and commend a distinctively Reformed Protestant vision of Christian growth for twenty-first-century evangelicals. The book aims to demonstrate to evangelical readers that the spiritual depth and seriousness they rightly long for can be found without having to look to Rome or Constantinople.
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He writes that when he refers to “our Reformation heritage,” he is focusing his attention mostly on the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers and their seventeenth-century post-Reformation successors. Among all the varied pools of Reformed thought from which he draws in the book perhaps no single source is as significant as that of the English Puritans. He writes that for contemporary evangelicals, if we want to better understand how our theological forebears understood spiritual formation, we cannot ignore our Puritan inheritance. They devoted an incredible amount of time and attention to the subject of spiritual formation. They wrote at length on what it means to live and grow as a Christian.
The author is persuaded that a Reformed approach to spiritual formation is consistent with what the Bible itself teaches.
This book is divided into four main parts. In part 1, “Foundations,” the author lays the groundwork for all that follows. Part 2 presents what the author calls the “Reformation triangle,” the connection of Scripture intake, meditation, and prayer that represents the heart of both Reformed piety and this book. In part 3, “Widening Our Scope,” the author takes the three Reformation triangle disciplines and applies them more broadly to three additional means of grace: self-examination, an appreciation of the natural world, and Christian relationships. Part 4 addresses two challenging topics: the role of the body in spiritual formation and what to do when our pursuit of spiritual formation doesn’t proceed according to plan. Though I benefitted from the entire book, it was the section on the Reformation triangle that I got the most out of.
For this review, I want to share a few quotes that I found helpful from each chapter:
Chapter 1: Spiritual Formation: A Simple Concept with a Complicated History
- The Bible portrays Christian growth as both God’s work and, in some lesser but no less real sense, our work. In this book we are primarily concerned with the second idea, that believers must be actively involved in Spirit-wrought Christian growth.
- When we think specifically of the active role that believers are called to play in their own spiritual growth, one of the Bible’s loveliest exhortations comes from Proverbs 4:23: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
- If you are a Christian, your main business before God and other people is to “keep your heart” in and through all life’s varying circumstances. And for this reason, “keeping the heart” is “the most important business of a Christian’s life.” The question of how we keep it is the subject of this book.
- Spiritual formation is the conscious process by which we seek to heighten and satisfy our Spirit-given thirst for God (Ps. 42:1–2) through divinely appointed means and with a view toward “work[ing] out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) and becoming “mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).
- Our focus in this book, then, is on those “divinely appointed means” that God has clearly given in Scripture and that the Reformed tradition has consistently commended as unambiguously biblical and therefore consistently edifying.
Chapter 2: Spiritual Formation in a Reformation Key Five Solas for Head and Heart
- For Bunyan, union with Christ was the key to understanding salvation in all its facets, the sum and substance of our spiritual life—justification and sanctification each originating together from the one same union.
- Union takes a central place in Reformed theology because of the way it effectively solves the puzzle of precisely how justification and sanctification relate to each other.
- When we think about spiritual formation in Reformation perspective, it is vital to grasp that any real growth we achieve flows out of this Spirit-wrought union. This is what distinguishes a biblical keeping the heart from a moralistic self-striving.
- A Reformed approach to spiritual formation is always profoundly word centered and that this relentless return to Scripture as the basis of authentic spirituality is something that has historically distinguished Reformation-minded Protestants from their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox counterparts.
- When we describe a Reformed approach to spiritual formation as being marked out by a biblical simplicity, it is difficult to feel the force of that distinctive emphasis unless one first grasps the highly elaborate array of extrabiblical practices against which the Reformers were reacting and that continue to characterize many non-Reformed approaches to piety up to the present day.
- The Reformed authors on whom we draw in this book consistently affirm that the ordinary God-ordained means for keeping the heart and cultivating God-honoring affections involve setting one’s mind on God’s truth.
- What led to a decline in American religious life was a failure to maintain Puritanism’s “delicate balance between intellect, which was esteemed as essential to true religion in New England, and emotion. A burden of this book is to recapture something of that “delicate balance.” Spiritual formation in a Reformation key takes seriously the biblical insight that born-again believers are marked by a fruitful synergy between head and heart.
Chapter 3: Scripture Hearing from God
- In a Reformed context, then, when we talk about spiritual formation, we are always, in one way or another, talking about engaging with God’s word.
- The Bible is not just one tool among many in our spiritual formation tool kit, but rather, whether directly or indirectly, the whole of our spiritual formation flows out from our engagement with it.
- For Reformation-minded Christians, spiritual formation cannot be reduced to Bible reading, but it can also never be separated from it.
- At the heart of historic Protestant spiritual formation is a triangulated relationship between Scripture, meditation, and prayer. Taken together, these three can be conceived as a conversation between the believer and God: we hear from God through his word, we reflect on what we’ve heard in meditation, and we then respond to God in prayer.
- No real spiritual growth is possible apart from engagement with God’s word.
- To read Scripture in step with the historic Reformed tradition, we must read frequently, actively, and expectantly.
- If approaching the Bible is the functional equivalent of approaching God himself to commune with him, then such an exercise never proceeds fruitfully unless it is accompanied by earnest prayer, prayer that the same Spirit who breathed out the words of Scripture will bless the one who reads them.
- When we come to the word, we come to commune with the living God, to hear from him, and to be shaped and formed thereby.
Chapter 4: Meditation Reflecting on God
- Meditation involves taking God’s word to heart, chewing it over, pondering it, and working through its implications for every facet of life.
- We can see here a tight connection between the practice of meditation and the practice of prayer, the two activities representing, in some sense, two aspects of the same underlying reality.
- Godly meditation is essentially a sustained sort of thoughtful reflection.
- The real significance of meditation lies in its capacity to transform mere thoughts about God and the things of God into heartfelt, soul-stirring, life-transforming convictions about the same.
- One might say that meditation attempts to move God’s truth from our heads into our hearts.
- Meditation must be held in a close relationship with both Scripture intake and prayer.
- Much of the practical mechanics of meditation revolves around figuring out how to apply biblical insights to our lives.
- Many Reformed authors were reluctant to be overly prescriptive when talking about meditation.
- Meditation is, in large part, nothing more than an intentional sort of thinking.
- You hear from God in Scripture, and then you think about what he has said through meditation, applying it prayerfully to your own life.
Chapter 5: Prayer Responding to God
- Prayer is real communication with a God who is actually there and really does listen.
- Prayer is of supreme significance within the Christian life because it is largely in response to our prayers that God has promised to bless us.
- The simplest and most straightforward way to define prayer is as a person talking to God.
- God has addressed us through his word, and we respond to him through our prayers.
- Matthew Henry described the Bible as “a letter God has sent to us” and prayer as “a letter we send to him,”
- The Puritans modeled a commitment to praying God’s own words back to him.
- When we come to our devotional times, then, our basic goal should be to commune with the living God through these three foundational spiritual disciplines, allowing each one to inform and flow into the other two.
Chapter 6: Self-Examination
- One mark of God’s people is that they are a remembering people, a people who never forget and actively call to mind God’s redemptive dealings with them.
- Of the three Reformation-triangle disciplines, it is arguably meditation that fits most neatly with what self-examination hopes to accomplish.
- If asked to explain self-examination, one might well describe it broadly as a sort of meditation on yourself.
- In self-examination you are reflecting on the shape of your life, on God’s providential care for you, on your growth in grace and godliness, on your conduct toward others, and on your indwelling sin and need for ongoing forgiveness and inward renewal.
- Self-examination is commanded in Scripture, and it has been a great blessing to generations of Christians who sought to pursue it in an intentional way.
- The most basic and clear-cut rationale for self-examination is that the practice assists believers in their fight against indwelling sin and their desire to grow in grace.
- Regular self-examination helps us spot creeping sins early before they develop into much more serious problems.
- Self-examination helps us in our struggle against indwelling sin is by leading us to confession, repentance, and a renewed sense of gospel assurance.
- Self-examination leads to gospel assurance by exposing and convicting me of my sin, driving me to Christ for forgiveness, and empowering me by his Spirit to press for further renewal and growth.
- We must be intentional about our self-examination. If we don’t actively decide to do it, we likely won’t do it at all.
Chapter 7: The Natural World
- For biblically minded Christians the creation exerts a spiritual allure insofar as it draws our thoughts and affections toward the one who called it into being by the power of his word.
- That nature reflects God’s glory is arguably the clearest and most straightforward way that the natural world fosters Christian growth.
- Every aspect of the created order, from the sky above our heads to the dirt beneath our feet, presents us with an opportunity for wonder and praise.
- The first thing we need to remember is that meditating on the works of God in nature can serve us well only if controlled by Scripture at every point.
Chapter 8: Christian Relationships
- Americans at the end of the twentieth century were far less likely to do things with other people than were their mid-twentieth-century counterparts.
- For the Puritans, this pursuit of relationships that angled deliberately toward spiritual formation went under the name of “conference.” The first step in retrieving something on par with the Puritan practice of conference is simply to acknowledge the role that intentional conversation can play, and the second is to look intentionally for ways to pursue it.
- For the Puritans, the paradigmatic biblical friendship was that between David and Jonathan.
- Christian friends are used by God to sanctify us and advance our spiritual formation.
- If we are interested in running the Christian race with joy and endurance, we should be looking to cultivate new friendships and invest in the ones we already have.
Chapter 9: What about the Body?
- The Reformation was an attempt to realign anthropology and ministry by recognizing that people have minds and hearts, minds that need to be taught so that hearts might be moved to love and service.
- Spiritual formation involves more than merely acquiring knowledge and is intended to shape us into people who love God and love neighbor, people who want what God wants and who long to see his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
- Rather than trying to invent new extrabiblical “embodied rituals,” we could more carefully consider how we approach those “embodied rituals” that Scripture already gives us: the Lord’s Supper and baptism.
- We could also attend more carefully to the ways our physical worship spaces affect our worship experience.
- We could also pay more attention to the various ways meeting or failing to meet our need for exercise, healthy food, and restful sleep might affect the trajectory of our spiritual formation.
Chapter 10: When Things Go Wrong
- There is no more basic reason for our spiritual disconnect from God than the ongoing presence of sin in our lives.
- The baseline reality that the state of our bodies and the state of our spiritual formation are linked should be something we can all agree on.
- Whether we perceive things to be going well or poorly, the circumstances in which we find ourselves can affect and shape our spiritual formation, and we must be attentive and responsive to that inescapable fact.
- When things go wrong in your spiritual life—and they will—remember that many saints have walked that road before you and have found the Lord faithful.
Appendix: A Brief Note on Spiritual Formation, Individualism, and the Church
- The Bible makes clear that while God certainly calls individuals to new life in Christ, the individual person is called into a community composed of many others responding to the same call.
- God addresses the individual but then summons him or her to the communion of saints, and the concrete manifestation of that communion is the local church.
Start Here: A Beginner’s Guide to Reading Charles H. Spurgeon. Alex DiPrima writes “On one level, it doesn’t matter where a reader begins with reading Spurgeon. Every page has a blessing on it, because no matter where you look in Spurgeon’s books, you’re sure to find the Lord Jesus Christ.”
- My Book Reviews. Enjoy nearly 600 of my book reviews on Goodreads. Read my recent reviews of Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology by Kevin DeYoung, What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative by Jim Collins, and What Great Leaders Do: 7 Essentials for Enduring Impact by Andy Stanley.
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.”
- On The Pleasures of God with John Piper. On this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever welcome John Piper to reflect on his book The Pleasures of God, newly reissued by Crossway. Together they explore why God’s self-exaltation is not vanity but love, how grace overflows from a God who is full and free, the connection between God’s glory and His happiness, and why a gloomy view of God distorts everything downstream.
- Psalm 51 Is a Manual for Repentance. On this episode of the Crossway podcast, Matt Boswell, author of Create in Me a Clean Heart: Experiencing God’s Abundant Mercy in Psalm 51, discusses the importance of repentance as the starting point of the Christian life and how David exemplifies this practice in Psalm 51, setting a pattern for believers to follow. Matt addresses the shame, restoration, and next steps that come with repentance and how this Psalm points us to Christ and how to have a right relationship with him.
- Use Us Up, Lord: Finishing Well for Our Good and His Glory. Our new book Use Us Up, Lord: Finishing Well for Our Good and His Glory is now available in paperback and Kindle editions. Read a sample here.
- We Will be Changed with Alistair Begg. On this episode of Life and Books and Everything, Alistair Begg visits with Kevin DeYoung about his new book We Will Be Changed, on the fruit of the Spirit. Listen in as Alistair explains why it’s “fruit” not “fruits” and why it is the work of the Spirit not ultimately our will power that makes the difference. Alistair also talks about what it’s like in a different season of ministry after stepping away from Parkside Church.
What Is Wrong with the World?: The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid by Tim Keller
Please join us in reading the first book of Tim Keller’s that has been released since his death in 2023.
“During his tenure as founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Timothy Keller explained on a weekly basis how the Bible provides the most comprehensive and sophisticated response to the fundamental questions of life. In What Is Wrong with the World?, based on a series of teachings given at Redeemer, Keller answers the title’s pressing question by revealing that the only thing that can account for the world’s pain and chaos is what the Bible calls sin. This clear-eyed and ultimately hopeful book reveals how sin is not simply a “bad” thing we do but something much more subtle and complex, affecting our relationships, our thinking, and every aspect of our existence. And only when we recognize sin for what it is can we find the profound, life-transforming answer our souls long for.”
This week, we look at Chapter 8: Sin as Slavery. Here are a few quotes from the chapter that I found helpful:
- Why is it that even when we know the right thing to do, we still don’t do it?
- We are spiritual slaves. We see what should be done, but we can’t do it.
- Not all addictions are sin, but the Bible shows us that all sin is addiction.
- Being addicted to something may not seem like your experience, but the Bible says it is the experience of every human being to some degree.
- When you live for anything more than you live for God, that is a sin that creates an addiction. You will find that the more you get the object of your desire, the more you need it and the less satisfying it is.
- The way to get out from under the enslaving habits—the secret to freedom from spiritual slavery—is to worship.
