Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

Resources for Application

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Soul Work and Soul Care: Experiencing Renewal in Christ through a Simple and Disciplined Life Jeremy Treat

Each Sacred Roots Spiritual Classic has a “Soul Work and Soul Care” resource to illustrate how Christian leaders across cultures and generations have found a particular spiritual classic helpful in pastoral ministry. “Soul work” includes the personal work of watering, weeding, pruning, and fertilizing the garden of one’s own soul. In a similar way, “soul care” involves the pastoral work of nurturing growth in another’s friendship with God. When Jesus discusses “soul work” and “soul care,” he often uses metaphors from the medical and agricultural professions. Like a doctor for souls, or a farmer caring for an orchard of fruit trees, congregational leaders who hope to tend souls can learn much from the wisdom of those who have gone before us. How does this vision for renewal in Christ play out in practice? Athanasius and Antony would speak of the ascetic life. The word “ascetic” comes from the Greek aske ō which means to train or exercise. For Athanasius, the ascetic life is a life of simplicity and discipline, a training of the heart to daily experience renewal in Christ. And while Antony models an extreme version of the ascetic life by spending much of his life alone in the desert, Athanasius lived an ascetic life in both the desert (while in exile) and in the bustling city of Alexandria. An ascetic life is not so much about what is happening around you, but what is happening inside of you.