Review: Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Jeanne Guyon

            Of late, I have been attempting to help my family in sorting through various groups of personal property my son has acquired.  In doing so, I ran across a copy of Jeanne Guyon’s “Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ”, as printed by Seedsowers, (the original title would have translated into English as “Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer; Which All Can Practice With the Greatest Facility, and Arrive in a Short Time, by Its Means, at a High Degree of Perfection”).  As I have been writing on house church issues, I was familiar with Seedsowers as the publishing house connected with the works of Gene Edwards, a pioneer, but controversial figure with those believers involved in simple expressions of Christian life. At this time, I have not read any of his works.  This particular issue has a forward and afterward to the writing, which has no indication whether it was written by Edwards or someone else.  Anyway, in my recent free time, I read it.

            Jeanne Guyon was a woman living in France in the 17^th century.  France, of course, was politically and socially dominated by Roman Catholicism in that time, and she was officially Catholic throughout her life.  This writing drew the ire of parts of the religious and political status quo, and she was denounced as a heretic and imprisioned.  History shows that her writing influenced John Wesley, the Quakers, Zindendorf and the Moravians, the Holiness Movement and Watchman Nee, among others.

            This book is on the subject of prayer.  As those of us who have been believers and desired to follow Jesus learn, prayer is something, in one sense more complicated, and in another sense defying description, in comparison to our society’s concept of what it is.  On the first page, she quotes 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.”  The unbeliever, who thinks of prayer as a thing done publicly by one person, recounting God’s acts and verbalizing requests, thinks this to be impossible.  Reviews of her life describe her as a mystic, I would assume for considering this command to be possible, which, of course, it is not by human effort alone.  She attempts to describe entering this depth of following Jesus and prayer with the term “prayer of simplicity.”  To the world, this isn’t prayer at all, and I know that we who are believers daily deal with the idea, even among fellow believers, that the formal public prayer is what is meant by prayer.  Whoever wrote the afterword to this version wrote, “Even in the original French version, the book is vague and complicated with a vocabulary at once so exacting and yet so obscure that reading it has always been a study in frustration.  The English translation did nothing to help.” 

            Much of the early explanations about how to pray in the early part of this book appear to be extremely similar to explanations of Eastern meditation, with the substitution of Jesus or scripture inserted in place of a point, place on the body, or emptying of the mind.  While the two are far different, how to pray is a thing that Guyon and others I have read struggle to put into words, not that I feel that I could do any better.

            There are, though, some really good parts of this book.  In the later part, as she begins to describe the results of learning what she describes as depth in prayer, and what others might describe as basic Christian maturity (as the two are different descriptions of the life of desiring to live God’s way, and not separate compartments), she started describing things I have sensed, but have never heard publicly stated.  Some of these things I will say are true Christian, mature spirituality, but are insidious to status quo religion, be it the Catholicism of the 17^th century French culture she lived in, or modern Western Christian status quo, be it Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal/Charismatic (if you consider that flavor separate from the previous), or unaffiliated informal believers (which would be where Edwards’ and my interests would come into play here).  I won’t tell you what these are, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending, as some say about movies. 

There are places where I question whether she chose the right words to describe a certain thing, in many places, and this makes this simple to read book a challenge to read.  I fully well recognize that she didn’t have the advantage of a modern Christian book’s being gone over by proofreaders and scholars before being printed.  Still, for the believer desiring to do some spiritual mining, there’s a lot of gold amongst the rock here.

            As most books concerning simple worship are not readily available in bookstores (Christian and secular), and, further, this has an original publishing date in this version of 1975, I will state it is available at www.seedsowers.com, and I must note that, in comparison to virtually every publishing house I am familiar with, all there books are quite reasonable, with regard to price.

Simple Church Minute 100--worship

100—worship

THIS IS NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Today, we look at the word “worship.”  To the early church, worship was how one lived one’s life moment by moment.  First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 17 directs us to “pray without ceasing”.  This indicates that worship and prayer were more a continuous attitude than something that only happened at a special time.  Part of the way the believers stood out from society was that faith in Jesus was a quite irreligious religion.  They had no temple, holy men, ritual, no special times, they weren’t just Jews anymore. They were not united in occupation, in an era of occupational cults.  The church met together informally and regularly.  They gathered to praise God, spoke to each other what the Holy Spirit put upon their spirits, they prayed, encouraged each other.  Fellowship was worship, but all of this was no more so than any other time lived to honor Jesus.

            After the legalization of Christianity, formality and, ultimately, ritualized meetings became known as worship.  Over time, various styles of music have been associated with worship.  So, too, did ethnicity, association to political leaders. Worship became associated, sometimes by force of secular law, with direction by specially accredited individuals, chosen for training in ritual or intellect or music, at various times and places.

            The direction of the Holy Spirit throughout history has not been subject to human dictates and formalities.   The Spirit blows where he wills.  I believe this is why he oftentimes moves powerfully specifically when the situation is worship that is informal or is in a manner than is contrary to whatever human rules are in vogue at a time, and believers allow the direction of worship to move outside human control.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  You can find out more about organic church at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 52--prayer

52—prayer

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Both religious traditionalism, not just Christian, but also some other beliefs, and our civil pseudo-religion, tell us that prayer is something connected to bowing one’s head, closing one’s eyes, and having a serious demeanor.  First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 17 says, “pray without ceasing.”  This clearly cannot be done with eyes closed, hands folded.   Neither you nor I can drive a car, do one’s job, and a whole bunch of other things with one’s eyes closed.  Might I suggest that following God’s direction, pray without ceasing, requires my attitude being one of my desiring my spirit being in communion with the Holy Spirit at all times.  In Matthew chapter 6 verse 7, Jesus connected saying the same words over and over with being an unbeliever.  From there through verse 13 appear the most often repeated group of words that are repeated over and over as a prayer in traditional churches.  Verse 7 should be a huge hint that that was exactly the opposite from what Jesus was communicating.*

            Now, what I just said is the basis of innumerable teaching in which traditional churches are often followed by doing the same ol’ societally traditional prayers.  Honestly, it isn’t appropriate to stand up and say “The Emperor has no clothes” as in the children’s story when it comes to this point.  First, the Holy Spirit has to speak to your spirit about this.  Second, this is why in the Word, it teaches that every believer is empowered to lead every other one to fullness of faith.  Third, if someone proverbially sticks their foot in their mouth, the brother or sister can be gently corrected by believers they know and trust are looking out for their best and everyone be stronger in following Jesus.  This can only happen if every believer is not just allowed, but encouraged, even expected to minister to everyone else for God’s glory.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

*What is written here is slightly different, and, I am convinced, more correct, than what I recorded in the audio version.