Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus: Reading the Bible Like Dallas Willard

Pastor Ripper (The Fellowship of the Suffering) offers a manner of spiritual reading that is formed and informed almost exclusively by the writings of and about the late University of Southern California professor and philosopher Dallas Willard (1935–2013). Ripper aims to demonstrate that encountering God through Scripture is, according to Willard, the primary vehicle for a life of authentic Christian spiritual formation. Willard, himself a Protestant, was deeply influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and often uses refreshed Ignatian language to develop a method of spiritual formation through scripture reading not unlike lectio divina (literally, “divine readings”). This has coalesced into a practice called IMMERSE (Immersion, Meditation, Memorization, Encounter, Response, Supplication, and Experience), each step a river of communication and communion bringing spiritual apprentices into the ocean of union with God. Experience is the key here: each chapter ends with experiential exercises, many of which urge readers to follow up with Willard videos or books.