Andréa Snavely is passionate about reaching the lost with Spirit-empowered Training, Resourcing, and Equipping for Acts 1:8 Ministries. As an author, missionary, and theologian, Dr. Snavely and his wife, Darla, have been in ministry together for nearly 30 years; serving in pastoral ministry and, as a professor of Bible, theology, and ministry at Central Bible College and Global University. They currently live in Brussels, Belgium where Dr. Snavely servers as Professor of Theology at Continental Theological Seminary, and Darla serves with Breaking Chains, a ministry that helps women escape prostitution.
His book Life in the Spirit explores what the church would look like if Christians saw their lives as totally dependent on the Spirit’s presence––to live as Jesus lived.
You can find Andréa and Darla on:
Or support their work at agmd.org.
Resources
Life in the Spirit by Andréa Snavely
The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder
Episode Audio:
Chapter 1 - The Value of Spirit-Christology for Your Daily Life
In this episode of the podcast, we are going to be talking about some fairly deep theological issues. But don’t let that turn you off, because this conversation is worth it! While the topic of Spirit-Christology may sound intimidating, it has proven to be one of the most practical disciplines for exploring for how to become more like Christ. And it starts by understanding who Christ was and how he was able to live the sort of life he lived.
Chapter 2 - Why You Shouldn't Follow Jesus' Example
If you read the title of this chapter, you should be asking, “Why Shouldn’t I follow Jesus’ example?” Jesus lived a perfect life without sin, and the Bible is full of statements calling us to be like Jesus. But there’s a valuable distinction between trying to be like Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to make us like Jesus. And in this chapter, Andréa explains the value of looking at the Spirit’s work in bringing daily growth to our lives as something that can only be done by him. In the end, your daily growth as you become more like Jesus isn’t your responsibility. it’s something only God can do, and he invites you to join him in the process.
Chapter 3 - Spirit-Christology Can Transform Your Marriage
Have you ever thought about why God gave us marriage? In Scripture, it’s one of the most used analogies for his love and relationship with the Church. But perhaps it’s more than an analogy? Maybe our marriages should actually be a reflection of God’s own trinitarian nature. So we wanted to ask Dr. Snavely how a Spirit-Christology affects our marriages. And although there is still a lot of work to do on how we flesh this out in our lives, Spirit-Christology becomes very practical as it gives us a clear demonstration of what submission and love for one another looks like.
Chapter 4 - It's a Scary Thing to Become More Like Jesus
Do you really understand what it means to say, “I want to be more like Jesus?” When you look at Jesus’ life, it involved a lot of difficult things that made even Jesus plead with God not to let it happen. If you want to be more like Jesus, it might mean following the Spirit’s leading into places you would rather avoid. In this chapter, Andréa unpacks what it really means to pray, “Jesus, make me more like you,” as well as the things God’s done in his own life as a result of praying that prayer.
Chapter 5 - The Struggle to Find a Satisified Life
We each have a vision for how we think our lives should play out. We have ideas about how quickly we should progress in our careers, when we should get married, and what size house we should own. So when those visions don’t come to fruition, we feel dissatisfied or unsuccessful in life. But following Jesus flips this dissatisfaction. As we grow in him, we slowly learn to be content with what we have and where God has us serving. But at the same time, as Dr. Snavely elaborates in this chapter, a new dissatisfaction takes its place. We begin to yearn for more of God’s presence in our lives. And the more of him we find, the deeper we want to go.