Teaching Series

This 4-part series on Biblical Christian Apologetics was recorded at Grace Church in Los Alamitos, CA in April 1990. It later became the foundation for the book, The Allure of Gentleness.

• Apologetics as a Fundamental New Testament Ministry
  The Biblical example and teaching about the use of reason as a helping, loving ministry.
• Lifting Doubts About the Reality of God and the Spiritual World
  Why the physical (natural) world cannot exist on its own. What the supraphysical world must be like. Why evolution cannot answer such questions. History with and without God.
• Lifting Doubts About Communication Between God and Man
  The purpose of human history. Why there would be a chosen people and a Bible. Objections raised to the particular form the Bible takes–turned to the advantage of God's high purposes with humanity. Doubts about God's personal word to individuals.
• Lifting Doubts About Living and Acting with God in the Kingdom of the Heavens
  The reasonableness and the actualities of prayer. Acting with God ("synergism") in the kingdom now. Life in the kingdom as the only ultimate apologetic.
• Apologetics in the Manner of Jesus: Final Q&A
  Primary topic is the way God speaks to us. Also some discussion about how science continues to prove more about the existence of God.

Warning: Poor audio quality

Dallas mentions Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline, throughout the series. Richard’s book had just been published in 1978, and Dallas’s The Spirit of the Disciplines was later released in 1988.

On May 11, 1996, Dallas spent a Saturday morning at the Presbyterian Church of the Master in Mission Viejo, CA, teaching on the topic of forgiveness. (Note: The sessions were recorded on cassette tapes, which creating short gaps in the audio when the tapes ran out in the middle of each session.)

• Session 1A - Introduction. Some scriptures about forgiveness. Discussion of terms like mercy, confession, prayer, anger, love and sin.
• Session 1B - Sin, unforgiveness, regret, loving our enemies. Three things forgiveness does NOT mean: I stop hurting, I forget what happened, I treat the person exactly as before. 
• Session 2A - Being forgiven, confession, living in truth. Moving from being forgiven to forgiving others, and how those are connected in the Kingdom. Learning not to take up the offense in the first place. From forgiveness we move into "living from God."
• Session 2B - Moving from forgiveness to blessing. Doing good for the people around us. An overview of the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:24-26) and an exercise in blessing your neighbor.

In this series of six studies in the reality of spiritual life here and now, Dr. Willard discusses how to do the things Jesus did and said, and explains how patient apprenticeship to Jesus leads us into the fullness of life for which God made us.

Session Titles:
1) How our hearts and lives are broken and the promise of healing.
2) Understanding the will and the mind, the center of brokenness and of healing.
3) Out of the furnace of feeling. Escaping the tyranny of feeling, passion, emotion.
4) The broken body and its social world. Healing the family and its wounds.
5) The restoration of the soul. “He restoreth my soul.”
6) Living wholeness of life in the Kingdom and Power of God. Questions and Answers

Available from the Valley Vineyard on DVD for $119 and on CD for $39.99 (plus shipping & tax)

This series is considered a follow-up to The Divine Conspiracy. Dallas shares a way to experience God as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.

Session Titles:
1) Living in the Kingdom of God is Walking in the Character and Power of God.
2) The Kingdom of God as the Basis for Death to Self
3) How to be In the World but Not Of It.
4) The New Kind of Human Life and It's Community
5) Learning Love
6) The Word of The Kingdom as Life Force - How to Respond

Available from the Valley Vineyard on DVD for $119 and on CD for $39.99 (plus shipping & tax)

This 8-part series on how to live in the reality of the 23rd Psalm was presented as a mid-week evening Bible study at Valley Vista Christian Community, Dallas and Jane’s home church, in 1991. Later material from Dallas's teaching on these topics has been blended into the transcripts of these recordings and published in a book, Life Without Lack, in 2018. As you listen, we invite you to follow along with a copy of his original handout.  

• God in Himself, Part 1
• God in Himself, Part 2
• Why There Are People on Earth
• Why Such Lack and Evil?
• Trust in God: The Key to Life
• Trust and Death to Self
• Sufficiency Completed in Agape
• Through One Day With Jesus

WARNING: This series was recorded on cassette tapes, so while the teaching quality is wonderful, the audio quality leaves something to be desired.

Dallas spoke at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's National Faculty Conference, June 22-26, 2008. His teaching sessions blended spiritual formation and the academy, "and there is no place more important for spiritual formation than the academy."

• Spirituality and Christian Spiritual Formation
• Discipleship and Spiritual Disciplines
• Christian Teachings Banished from Knowledge
• The Disciple in the World of Knowledge

This eight-part series presented at Hollywood Presbyterian Church previews and elaborates on themes found in The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and other of Dallas Willard's writings. Especially helpful are the connections made between Jesus' teaching and our contemporary cultural setting.

There are seven presentations:

• "The Meaning of the Rule of Heaven"

• "Rule of Heaven in the Old Testament"

• "The Beatitudes as Gospel"

• "Beyond the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees"

• "The Power of The Word of the Kingdom"

• "How to Become a Disciple"

• "Disciplines for the Spiritual Life"

A 3-part sermon series from Valley Vista Community Church, Dallas’s home church, in August 1990.

1. An Introduction to Your Soul (or “How to Save Your Life”)
2. The Sufficiency of God to Your Soul
3. Prayer – A Working Relationship with God

The recordings below are from a conference at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Birmingham, Alabama. August 5-6, 2011

1. Theological Foundations of the “Hearing God” life.
   - The Life of the Trinity as Communicating Community.
   - The Purpose of Creation.
   - The Spiritual Nature of Man and His Kingdom Under God. Gen. 1:26.
   - The Gospel of Jesus—Return to the Kingdom. Col. 3:17.
2. Experiences of “Hearing God.”
   Biblical Patterns and What They have to Teach Us.
   The “Normal” Way It Works—Then and Now.
   The Nature and Meaning of “The Still, Small Voice.” I Kings 19:12
   Why God’s Voice Is So Gentle and Must Be Sought.
3. The “Sermon on the Mount” and Other Essential Biblical Teachings as the Framework of a Hearing God Life.
   The Essential Role of Spiritual Disciplines in This Life.
4. Barriers to and Blessings of a Hearing God Life.
   Standard Objections to and Problems for a life of Hearing God.
   Why It Is So Important for All Disciples to Understand and Practice the Hearing God Life.

In this 7-part Scripture and Ministry series, Dr. Willard discusses the role of scripture in the renewing of the mind, and the role of the pastor and the congregation in this process. The larger picture of Christian "spiritual formation" is discussed and how it relates to "growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"? Does being saved have anything to do with transformation of character? Recorded at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, October 2010.