11: Holiness as Devotion to God
“The best way to ruin holiness is to turn it into a list of Don’ts (with no Do’s) or to pull out Leviticus and point it at the on-fire football player who just got a cross tat on his muscular shoulder. Flannery O’Connor once called this picayune attentiveness to every possible peccadillo measuring “your sins with a slide rule.” Lev. 11:44-45 gives us the elements of holiness. God is holy. Therefore, God’s people are to be holy.
BEYOND “SEPARATE”. Holiness is not just separation from the world. Holiness is about being “devoted” to God.
WHEN I THINK OF HOLINESS, I THINK OF … How can we be holy or how can our church be holy.
HOLINESS AS THE WORK OF GOD. Each community has its own idea of what holiness should look like. Paul makes it abundantly clear that “it is the work of God’s Spirit in us that produces holiness.” “So if we want our church to become holy, we need to learn to spend time in God’s presence, basking in the light of his holiness.”
THE DON’TS BECAUSE OF THE DO’S. The are things we don’t do because we don’t want to sin. Focus on the Do’s and the Don’ts will come naturally.
Quotes from: Scot McKnight. “A Fellowship of Differents.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/9W9u1.l