Always Reforming

I recently shared my thoughts on how pursuing personal holiness is not legalism.  It was my goal to emphasize our responsibility and the covenant motivation for pursuing holiness, but I don't want anyone to think that that is all there is to be said about pursuing holiness.  It is also important to remember that the Holy Spirit is absolutely vital to our pursuit of holiness.  Let's take a look at how the role of the Holy Spirit relates to our responsibility to pursue holiness. Good theology maintains balance.  This can be seen in nearly every field of theology, indeed, of life, but it is displayed most prominently in the discussion of salvation, which includes sanctification.  We must maintain a proper balance between man's responsibility and God's work.  We can truthfully say that man is called to live a holy life, but we can also, and must, truthfully say that he cannot do that without the equipping of the Holy Spirit.  Here is where we must remem...

Ethics is one of the most controversial topics in modern times.  Each religion (sometimes even each denomination within a religion) has its own code of ethics, some irreligious people piece together a make-shift ethical code based on their own vague standards, and many atheists go so far as to deny altogether the objectivity of ethics.  The ethics of Christianity, specifically New Testament ethics, is not totally distinct from that found in the Old Testament (some would argue that the former is a summary and/or intensification of the latter), but Christian ethics does have its own particular set of emphases.  As I continue to study the New Testament and weigh the relationship between the Old and New Covenants, I am becoming increasingly more aware that New Testament ethics is fundamentally concept-based as opposed to being based upon particulars.  The New Testament dedicates more space to general motivations and character traits than to the particular applications th...