Jesus: A Field Manual Is Secretly about Christian Mysticism

This year I published my book, Jesus: A Field Manual (How to Live the Sermon on the Mount). On the surface, the book is all about how to encounter and follow Jesus for yourself, and grow into the enlightened, Christ-like human being he wants you to be. 

But beneath the surface, Jesus: A Field Manual is a first step into Christian mysticism. So don’t read it, and don’t read the rest of this blog, if you’re scared of accidentally becoming a Christian mystic. 

What is Christian Mysticism 

About 8 years ago I started studying and practicing Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism is not “Christianity plus New Age practices,” or “Christianity plus mindfulness meditation.” The Christian mystical tradition has a long history that goes all the way back through the schisms, the early church period, into the New Testament, and right to Jesus. 

I mean, seriously – what else do you call a man who fasts and prays in the desert for 40 days, beats Satan in a test of wills, heals the sick and casts out demons, teaches in parables, and sees God in everyone and everything? Jesus was a mystic by any definition of the word. 

What I love about the Christian mystical tradition is how devoted the mystics have always been to the teaching and the Spirit of Jesus. Most of the early monks, nuns, and hermits were dead-set on aligning their behavior and their interior reality with God’s desires for them. They left the city for the wilderness to focus on obedience to Christ, because they believed that in his commands they would find the path to enlightenment and eternal life. 

All this while the institutional church was writing creeds, burning heretics, and invading the Holy Land. The Christian mystical tradition gives followers of Jesus a much-needed alternative model to church-based, authoritarian Christianity, and I love it. 

Why the Field Manual Is Mystical

As I studied, I realized that the whole mystical tradition, from the church fathers to the Greek fathers to desert mothers and fathers to the Byzantine monastics to the Spanish monks and nuns, had a gold standard for their obedience to Christ – his commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. The poverty of spirit, the self-control, the love of friend and enemy, the complete trust in God that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount has always been the Christian mystic’s guiding star.

Through the ages, Christian mystics have worked to organize their outward and inward lives to truly embody the Sermon on the Mount – and some of them actually did it. But I also realized that most Christians know that this is who we’re supposed to be, but very few of us know how to get there. 

I decided to try an experiment in my teaching and discipleship ministry. I wanted to see if it was possible to assemble an entire spirituality, complete with beliefs, goals, disciplines, and a philosophy of life, from the Sermon on the Mount and the old mystics’ attempts to live it.

It worked. My ministry with students of all ages and spiritual experience led to the first draft of Jesus: A Field Manual. 

Why Jesus: A Field Manual Is “Secretly” Mystical

The first draft of the Field Manual wore its mysticism on its sleeve, but I noticed that people were getting stuck on the more technical language, and on the more mystical concepts in general. For better or worse, when you say “mysticism” in 2023, people don’t automatically think of thousands of years of Christians radically committed to being like Christ. 

So I rewrote the Field Manual to be more accessible to a wider range of readers. To do that, I kept the mystical skeleton of the book, but focused it more explicitly on Jesus. I also made it much, much easier to read. 

This was important, because I believe there is a lot of excellent teaching in the mystical tradition that can greatly help us modern Christians in our spiritual lives. But if explicit mystical language is an obstacle, I felt it was important to reframe the mystical concepts in terms of basic spiritual growth. 

So, Jesus: A Field Manual starts with a detailed commentary on each section of the Sermon on the Mount, with reflection questions so that the reader can respond personally to Jesus’ teaching. It continues with an outline of the 3 stages of spiritual growth: Contact, Commitment, and Embodiment. It ends with individual and community practices to train our souls for spiritual growth. 

These are all mystical ideas and practices, but anyone should be able to read this book and grow spiritually without feeling weirded-out by the mystical stuff. Because honestly, the early mystics weren’t that weird. They believed what we believe, they just meant it more, which is why I admire them so much. 

Jesus: A Field Manual is available now on Amazon. Based on responses from readers, it’s perfect for someone who’s curious about Jesus and what it means to follow him, but skittish about religion in general. It’s also perfect for people who want to reconnect with God through Jesus after deconstructing their faith, or losing confidence in the Christianity they grew up with. 

Whoever you are, Jesus: A Field Manual will help you encounter Jesus for yourself, understand his message, put his teachings into action, and become like him. And the old mystics will be with you through the whole book – they’re just keeping it to a whisper.