Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries

352 Pages·2010·3.683 MB·English

by  Gerald L. Sittser

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Praise for Water from a Deep Well
“Ever since that day at noon when a Samaritan woman asked for living water, peo-
ple have turned to Jesus for the water that satisfies the thirst of the human condi-
tion and wells up to eternal life. In Water from a Deep Well, Gerald Sittser has fol-
lowed the lives of significant Christians down through the centuries who have
tasted the water, shared it with others and, in some cases, carried it to foreign
lands. This book will serve as an excellent resource in the classroom, in our per-
sonal libraries and in our prayerful consideration of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’
who have drunk from the well before us.”
ALBERT HAASE, O.F.M., DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF SPIRITUALITY AT
MAYSLAKE MINISTRIES AND AUTHOR OF COMING HOME TO YOUR TRUE SELF
“Gerald Sittser opens up windows into worlds of spiritual practice that we truly
need—both because they intensify our thirst for God and because they stimulate
our imaginations for the varied ways God meets and leads the people of God.
While this book feeds me, it also does something even more important: it leaves
me hungry, which is where I need to be in order to grow as a disciple, husband,
father, friend and pastor.”
MARK LABBERTON, PASTOR AND AUTHOR OF THE DANGEROUS ACT OF WORSHIP
“What Gerald Sittser gives us is not a guidebook . . . but something which reads
more like an extended declaration of love. A history of Christian spirituality it may
be, but such spirituality is understood less as a benefit to be acquired neutrally
through detachment than a matter of being enthralled and enticed by the beauty
which is Christ. Each chapter is instructive and informed, and Gerald Sittser pro-
vides the kind of clarity and simplicity which only grows out of deep knowledge.”
IAIN TORRANCE, PRESIDENT, PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AND FORMER
MODERATOR OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
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“Gerald Sittser offers us two enormous gifts in this compelling history of Chris-
tian spirituality—a wonderfully flowing narrative that catches us up into the lives
and practices of great saints, and voluminous endnotes so that we can pursue more
thoroughly the topics and characters he describes. This beautiful book will widen
everyone’s spirituality, for Sittser introduces us to an extensive range of eras and
their greatest contributions. Taste and see—this book will deepen you!”
MARVA DAWN, AUTHOR OF KEEPING THE SABBATH WHOLLY
“Much of the current interest in ‘spirituality’ suffers from a kind of amnesia—for-
getful or oblivious that there is indeed a centuries-long well to draw from, full of
an inheritance which can enrich our lives. Jerry Sittser has provided a bucket by
which we can draw from that well, whether simply to taste, or better to drink
deeply. This is a book to humble us, discovering how much more there is to know,
but also to bring fresh hope that God works beyond our small personal experi-
ences, and beyond our own lifetime. Read it—enjoy, and be stretched.”
LEIGHTON FORD, AUTHOR OF TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP
“Jerry Sittser is a rare kind of writer: a scholar with a scholar’s depth, and a man
with the spiritual health of his readers ever before him. . . .The chapters are full of
anecdotes that inspire and amuse, and practical suggestions to help us appropriate
the wisdom that is the deposit of the church’s great men and women through the
ages. Water from a Deep Well is a thoroughly worthwhile read.”
BEN PATTERSON, AUTHOR OF WAITING
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Water from a Deep Well
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY FROM
EARLY MARTYRS TO MODERN MISSIONARIES
Gerald L. Sittser
FOREWORD BY EUGENE H. PETERSON
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InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com
E-mail: [email protected]
©2007 by Gerald L. Sittser
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and
faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a
member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional
activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895,
Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Photographs are reprinted with permission. See illustration credits at the end of the book.
Design: Cindy Kiple
Images: Grant V. Faint/Getty Images
ISBN 978-0-8308-7997-7 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-3745-8 (print)
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To
Rachel Johnson
Sister Florence
Harold Korver
Rits Tadema
—my Abbas and Ammas—
with affection and gratitude
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Contents
Foreword by Eugene Peterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Introduction: There Is More!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1 WITNESS: The Spirituality of the Early Christian Martyrs. . . . . . . 25
2 BELONGING: The Spirituality of Early Christian Community . . . . . 47
3 STRUGGLE: The Spirituality of the Desert Saints. . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4 RHYTHM: The Spirituality of Monasticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5 HOLY HEROES: The Spirituality of Icons and Saints . . . . . . . . . 113
6 WINDOWS: The Spirituality of the Sacraments. . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
7 UNION: The Spirituality of the Mystics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8 ORDINARINESS: The Spirituality of the Medieval Laity. . . . . . . . 180
9 WORD: The Spirituality of the Reformers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
10 CONVERSION: The Spirituality of Evangelicals . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
11 RISK: The Spirituality of Pioneer Missionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Discussion Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Annotated Reading List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Illustration Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
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Foreword
I was standing with a friend on the shore of an alpine lake in Montana. It
was a clear, moonless night. The late autumn air was crisp. Every star was
sharply etched on the domed firmament—the sky didn’t have to compete
with town lights.
My friend said, “I can hardly wait to get to heaven and learn the names
of all the stars!”
I said, “I know how you feel. But why wait? I can tell you of a few of their
names right now. Look. Right over there is Deneb. And that bright one off
to the left is Betelgeuse. Just over that pine tree—see that tight cluster of
seven stars?—that’s the Pleiades that are mentioned in Job. A lot of them
have stories that go with them. Let me tell you about the hunter, Orion . . .”
That was enough for my friend. She impatiently brushed me off and
changed the subject. “I’ll wait for heaven.”
Dr. Jerry Sittser doesn’t want us to wait for heaven to get to know the
names and stories of our brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents,
uncles and aunts and cousins, this firmament of saints, this family of faith
into which we have been baptized. He tells us their names and stories in
this book, Water from a Deep Well. The book is a bucket lowered into a well
that brings up stories that get me in touch with my family. When I take
my place in a pew each Sunday morning with my local congregation, the
people I don’t see far outnumber the people I do see, this “cloud of wit-
nesses” that provides much-needed depth and texture and companionship
as I follow Jesus. Their bones have been placed in cemeteries for twenty
centuries on every continent. Their names are written in the “book of life.”
I worship with them.
There is more. This book is a timely antidote to the amnesiac, one-
generational world that we live in. A one-generational church is capable of