On the Road to Emmaus

theological and devotional musings by Richard Liantonio

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A Life Poured Out in Love is the Starting Point of All True Christianity (Principles and Practices for the Spiritual Life, Part 1a)

13 June, 2010 (19:50) | Genesis, Gospels, Spiritual Theology | 1 comment

This is the beginning of a series in which I hope to distill a synthesis of my learning and experience with respect to the manner in which one cultivates a deep spiritual life.  My intention is to combine both an understanding of how the spiritual life works along with what practically to do to experience [...]

Why Use Written Prayers? (A series explaining the logic and reasons behind Christian liturgy and worship)

8 January, 2010 (23:11) | Prayer | 1 comment

Among Evangelical and Charismatic Christians, reactions to liturgical aspects of worship and prayer vary greatly from intrigue, to delight, to bewilderment, to straight up scoffing. This series will attempt to explain some of the reasons behind liturgical prayer aimed at people with little or no (positive) experience with it, though ideally it will also be [...]

Emotions Commanded in Scripture

2 January, 2010 (02:53) | Anthropology (Humanity), Bible, Hamartiology (Sin) | No comments

The Scripture does not only command us to do certain activites. We are also commanded to feel certain emotions. Thus an emotion-less obedience is not in fact full obedience. God calls us to follow and obey him with our entire selves – all of our bodily, sensory, emotional, spiritual, and relational existence. This might seem [...]

Developing a Consistent Prayer Life

31 December, 2009 (01:37) | Prayer | 5 comments

My apologies – I meant to say, “how to develop an easy, consistent, diverse, deep, rich in content, broadly-biblical, non-idiosyncratic, Christ-centered, historically-rooted, well-rounded, manageable and profoundly moving prayer life,” but thought that title was at the same time unwieldy and immediately open to the charge of being outside the realm of possibility for the majority of [...]

He Set My Feet on a Rock

18 April, 2007 (19:37) | Personal | No comments

I had a peculiar, yet remarkable experience the other day performing the most simple of actions – shifting my body weight from resting on my heels to the balls of my feet. Modern culture tells us the way to stand is stomach (and rear) in, chest out, shoulders back. This normally happens with locked [...]