Shaped by the Word Anniversary Edition: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation

By M. Robert Mulholland

In the foreword to the first edition of Shaped by the Word, Bishop Rueben Job wrote, "One of the great strengths of this volume is that it grows out of the spiritual pilgrimage of a capable and committed biblical scholar. It was my privilege to hear these lectures when they were presented to the first Academy for Spiritual Formation in 1983. They became for those who heard them a window to God."

Nearly forty years later, Shaped by the Word continues to provide this "window to God" to readers across the world.

In a success-oriented world, it is easy for Bible study to become another task to perform rather than a transformational experience. Those who hunger for a deep relationship with God often struggle with barriers that keep us from being able to meditate and listen to God with the deepest core of our being. Shaped by the Word seeks to overcome these barriers through a formational reading of the Bible. In this timeless book, Robert Mulholland shows readers how to listen for God's voice in our study of the Word and allow God to lead our reading and understanding so that we may truly be transformed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upper Room Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780835820479

M. Robert Mulholland

M. ROBERT MULHOLLAND JR. (1936-2015) was a professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the author of several books including Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation and The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self.

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FOREWORD TO THE

ANNIVERSARY EDITION

It’s unusual for any book to remain in print for forty years. Yet, having known Bob Mulholland for even longer, this achievement for Shaped by the Word comes as no surprise to me. I count Bob Mulholland’s presence in my life, as a soul friend and mentor, among the greatest blessings I have received. We met during my PhD studies at Duke University in the late 1970’s, while he was a young professor at McMurry College (now University), my undergraduate alma mater. We had no idea that we would eventually end up teaching in the same seminary, but we did. For our eight years working together, we met with an almost-weekly small group where we discussed many of the ideas covered in this book, and many of the ideas covered in his other books as well.

Bob believed that the Bible is meant to read us as much as we are supposed to read it. Entitling the book Shaped by the Word was his witness to that. He was committed to promoting formative reading, and he did so in the classroom and wherever else he ministered in the church. The ancient practice of lectio divina became for him the means to ignite the formation he wanted us all to experience. Combining the classic aspects of lectio divina with insights from the Wesleyan tradition and from New Testament scholarship, Shaped by the Word brings light to the biblical text and life into us.

Lectio divina is a form of contemplative reading. The mind descends into the heart so that the written word can become a living word in and through us. To make that clear, Bob added actio to historic lectio divina. He knew putting into action what we read is assumed in contemplatio, but he wanted to be sure contemporary readers did not miss it.

Since the book was published in 1985, it has been used in numerous undergraduate and graduate school classes. I used it in my seminary classes and in other ministries. Bob used it too, including while teaching in the Upper Room Academy for Spiritual Formation. Additionally, classes and small groups across the world have used Shaped by the Word in local churches, conferences, and retreats. The influence of this book is impossible to calculate, but it is immense.

The publication of this anniversary edition of Shaped by the Word is a fitting way to remember and honor Bob, who died on December 20, 2015. It is also a recognition that the need to read the Bible formationally is as great now as it was when Bob first wrote this book. In fact, this need is as great as it has been since Christianity began and James exhorted believers to be doers of the word and not merely hearers (James 1:22). Without the kind of reading that Bob commends, we run the risk of having what John Wesley called dead orthodoxy.

Wesley wanted the people called Methodist to have living faith. He added that one way to develop such a faith is to read, mark, and inwardly digest the Bible. Shaped by the Word will heighten your desire and increase your ability to read this way. That is a gift from Bob to us. Knowing him, I would invite you to use Wesley’s three intentions as you read his book. I know Bob did not write this book merely to be read, but to shape us through the words we are reading. I trust that will happen as you read this book.

Steve Harper

Retired professor of spiritual formation and Wesley studies

FOREWORD

The transforming power of God is available to every Christian. But the transformed life does not come by accident or by chance. To be formed in Christ and to have Christ formed within us are clearly gifts of God. Yet there are requirements made of us if we are to receive the gift of transformation.

Many fail to receive this gift because they have not been carefully taught. We have done little to teach persons how to receive the transforming power of God into their lives or how to live their lives within the transforming presence of God. Many of us begin our spiritual pilgrimage without much awareness of the resource that is available to us in the Bible.

Clearly one of the most important resources for spiritual formation is the Bible. But our approach to the Bible will in large measure determine its transforming effect upon our lives. Dr. Mulholland’s clear distinction between information and formation is a very helpful concept for the person serious about spiritual formation. He points out the poverty of any informational approach to spirituality. Often our desire to know is simply another expression of our consumer culture, of our acquisitive nature, of our desire to have more and more and more. The approach to the scriptures suggested by Dr. Mulholland differs radically from an informational approach.

The enormous interest in spiritual formation today is a symptom of humankind’s deep hunger for God. This yearning for God holds great promise and potential for another great awakening and for a world more loving and just. This time also holds great risk. The temptation to offer cheap grace, an easy way, a sure answer, a success-oriented program is always with us. Bob Mulholland offers the kind of direction that can save us from turning our hunger for God into another fad. Here is a resource that can keep us moving toward the One who continually urges us onward in our pilgrimage toward wholeness, maturity, perfection, spiritual formation, God.

One of the great strengths of this volume is that it grows out of the spiritual pilgrimage of a capable and committed biblical scholar. The academic homework has been done, and the serious student will not be disappointed. It was my privilege to hear these lectures when they were presented to the Academy for Spiritual Formation. They became for those who heard them a window to God. May this volume be as much for you, the reader.

Rueben P. Job

Retired bishop in The United Methodist Church

PREFACE

This book emerged originally from a week of lectures delivered to the initial gathering of The Academy for Spiritual Formation, launched by The Upper Room in May 1983. Following the lectures, Bishop Rueben P. Job, then World Editor of The Upper Room, requested that the lectures be prepared for publication as quickly as possible.

A heavy load of administrative as well as teaching responsibilities made it impossible for me to give attention to the project at that time. In order to facilitate the process, Ms. Janice T. Grana, the past World Editor of The Upper Room, offered to have the tapes of the lectures transcribed. For this invaluable assistance, I am indebted to Ms. Grana and the unknown people who undertook the tedious task of transcribing many hours of lectures.

I am also indebted to Ms. Grana and Ms. Marie L. Roy, who took Ms. Grana’s place as editor for this project when Ms. Grana was elected World Editor. Their support, encouragement, and advice have been most helpful, to say nothing of their understanding when it became impossible to meet the first deadline that had been agreed upon.

Finally, this book would have been delayed even longer had it not been for the many, many hours my family sacrificially released for me to work upon this project. Most of all, I must acknowledge the painstaking work of proofreading and correcting undertaken by my wife, Lynn, and her mother, Viola Scholl.

Wilmore, Kentucky

1984

This book, as noted above, was originally conceived almost twenty years ago, before post-modernism became the acknowledged shaping perspective of most of the world’s culture. I wrestled with whether or not the book needed to be completely rewritten to speak to a postmodern world. Some reflection, however, brought me to the awareness that what I had attempted to do originally was help people transition from a modernist approach to scripture (informational) to a postmodernist approach (formational). This meant that the book would not require a radical restructuring and that its focus upon a formational reading of scripture could continue to help a postmodern world encounter the living God in the scripture.

The revised version has been ably nurtured first by George Donigian, then by JoAnn Miller and Stephen Wilburn, all of whom have been most helpful and supportive, to say nothing of patient with the vagaries of my schedule.

Again, I am profoundly thankful for my wife, Lynn, who graciously allowed me the space in our vacation to accomplish most of the revision.

Wilmore, Kentucky

2000

SECTION I

Introduction

1

Getting Oriented

There is an awakening across the church to disciplined spiritual formation as an essential part of growth into Christian wholeness. Increasingly, more and more programs of spiritual formation are appearing; more and more books on the spiritual journey are being written. Many of these are profound and rich; others, unfortunately, superficial and simplistic.

I do not claim to be an expert in the experience of spiritual formation. In fact, there probably aren’t any experts in this field. We are all pilgrims on the way toward the wholeness God has for us in Christ. We build one another up as we share what we have experienced and learned on our pilgrimage.

It is my prayer that this book might be whatever God wants it to be in your spiritual journey. I don’t know what God purposes to do in your life through this book; probably you don’t know either. I doubt if we ever really know completely and fully, in any sort of comprehensive way, exactly what God wants to do in our life at any given point. If we did, then we, not God, would be in control of our spiritual journey. But God does have purposes for our growth to wholeness in the image of Christ. Ultimately you are not reading this book simply for some personal reason, although you certainly have a personal reason. Far deeper than whatever motivation led you to open this book are the purposes God wants to fulfill in your life. This book may very well be part of those purposes. I pray that together we will let the Lord fulfill those purposes.

As we begin, I would invite you to covenant with me in prayer. First, pray for me, that what I have written might be released to God as you read so that God can speak to you through me. Second, pray that you will yield to whatever it is God wants to do in your life through this book. Take a couple of moments, right now, to quiet yourself. I don’t know what you have been doing for the past few hours. Perhaps you have been abiding in God’s presence. More likely, you have been fragmented and distracted by the various pressures of your life. Take a few moments to center yourself in silence. In whatever way you release yourself to God, take time to release yourself to God’s purposes for you in your reading of this chapter. Give God permission to do that work in you. You may want to join me in this prayer:

Gracious and loving God, we thank you for your divine providence in our lives that has so ordered the course of our living that you have intertwined our lives together in this book. We pray that by your grace, by the deep working of your Spirit in our lives, you would help us to be so released to you in what we do together that you may be able to fulfill in us and through us the good and perfect will for our wholeness for which you have brought us together in this book. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

One of the difficulties in preparing a book like this is not knowing where you, the reader, are in your experience and practice of Christian spirituality. This means that some of what I have to say may be familiar to you. In this case, perhaps God’s reason for your reading this book is to give you a spiritual discipline of patient endurance; although, as one of our New Testament ancestors in the faith has said, it doesn’t hurt to hear again some of the basics (Phil. 3:1).

Other things I feel led to share may disturb, upset, or trouble you. Let me say at the outset this is not my intended purpose. If you do find this happening, I would suggest that perhaps those are points where God is seeking entrance into your life at a deeper level. That disturbing perspective, that upsetting element, that troubling idea may be God’s knock upon one of the closed doors of your life. I have discovered in my own spiritual life, as I hope you have, that when I run into something destructive to my precarious inner peace, often it is God’s initial knock upon some area of my life where I have closed God out and imprisoned myself within.

We usually think of Revelation 3:20, where Jesus speaks of knocking on the door, as God’s knock upon the unrepentant sinner’s heart. We must remember that this letter was addressed to Christians. True, they were lukewarm, worldly, acculturated Christians who had accommodated themselves to the values, perspectives, and dynamics of the surrounding culture (Rev. 3:15-17). They were Christians who had shut God out of their lives in the world. God, however, stood at those closed doors in their lives and knocked. God said to them, Those whom I love, I reprove and nurture (Rev. 3:19).¹

When God puts a finger on those things in our lives that are inconsistent with God’s will for our wholeness, it is not simply to point them out. It is not just to say that they must go or must be changed. That finger has a hand attached that offers us the nurture into wholeness that we need at that point. This concern for our whole being is the essential nature of God’s knock upon the closed doors of our lives. The knocks come at those points where God is shut out of our lives; and we are imprisoned within, imprisoned by some bondage that does not allow us to be free in God’s love and in God’s will for our wholeness in our life with others. Precisely at these points in my life is where I regularly encounter something that disturbs me, upsets me, troubles me, throws me off balance in either my perceptions or my feelings. With consistent regularity, these experiences become God’s knocking upon the closed doors of my life. These are the points where God chooses to begin a new work of growth toward wholeness in my being.

I suggest that if you become disturbed with what I share at certain points in this book, perhaps, instead of tuning me out or turning me off or giving up the book, your first reaction might