CPTJ Archive | Volume 11 – Essays on Humility
Title
“Out of the Devil’s Reach”: An Edwardsian Assessment on the Role of Humility in Evangelical Spiritual Formation
Coleman ford
Abstract
Does humility play a role in contemporary evangelical spiritual formation? Reviewing the common texts on spiritual disciplines in evangelicalism today, Coleman Ford argues that humility, once an explicit focus in spiritual formation, has become largely implicit. This leads to a poverty in spiritual formation practices and texts that needs addressing, as humility plays a central and necessary role. To address the issue, Ford turns to Jonathan Edwards’s reflections on humility, particularly those developed in his treatise Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival. Surveying many common texts on spiritual formation today, Ford contends that following Edwards’s model of making humility central provides a necessary corrective and an essential guiding framework for all those involved in the task of discipleship.
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Coleman Ford (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Texas Baptist College in Ft. Worth, TX. He is a member of the St. Basil Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
