The Hole in our Holiness - Week 3

Week 3 of our Pseudo-Family study over The Hole in Our Holiness is in the books.  We had a solid turnout this evening and people showed up ready to discuss and delve deeper into the chapter.  Per the new tradition, we started with finding out what each other was learning this week in the Word.  Yours truly has considered this to be one solid accountability tool because nobody wants to be that person who’s the first to say, “I don’t have anything for this week.”  The themes of the week for people (which per Dustin's request were not decided via Aussie Rules) included the following:

• ·         Enduring and comforting others during the bad times
• ·         Viewing the sacrifices in the OT in light of Christ’s sacrifice for us
• ·         Looking at the Bible through a different culture
• ·         The ever-lasting focus on improving our character and breaking from a “past life.”
• ·         How to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

The first part of the book discussion focused further on the process of sanctification, as well as justification.  To rehash previous discussion topics, sanctification is the process of growing in godliness while justification is the act of being justified by God.  However, Kevin presents additional definitions to consider in definitive sanctification and progressive (not soup or insurance) sanctification.  Definitive sanctification would be the process of God covering our sins and Progressive is the act of continually sanctifying ourselves by growing closer to God. 

From there we began a discussion of churches in society.  It seems like some parts of God’s word are intentionally glossed over at times in order to avoid controversy and stepping on toes.   While it’s good to speak out, we need to learn to temper ourselves properly in order to show love and not be too extreme.  It’s a fine line to walk that can be difficult at times.  Also, we discussed why we’re more willing to be tolerant of our friends and show grace to them for the sin in our life as opposed to the people that we don’t know.  It’s easy to judge the guy on the street that we don’t know whereas we’ll  give a break to our friends.

Next was a discussion of virtues and vices.  The laundry list of vices shown in the book read like your typical ‘Grand Theft Auto’ game while the list of virtues seem to be much shorter.  In most of our lives, we were more willing to admit our faults rather than seeing the virtues that God has bestowed.  The discussion then flowed to how to develop and grow our virtues.  The major way seems to be through following our conscience.   We also talked about how much of an impact modern society has on us as we have become so desensitized to many things.  This can definitely affect the impact that our conscience has on us.   For the most part, our time in the Word will continually grow and shape our conscience and it’s up to us to figure out what’s right for us in our walk and what isn’t.  Some may abhor drinking or certain movies while others may find them ok.  While following our conscience may not ever turn us  into Beaver Cleaver, we can take steps to move away from being Ron Burgundy.  

Some verses that we hit on this week during our time in the book in order to further our discussion are as follows:

• ·         Luke 5:27 – 31
• ·         Romans 12:16 – 21
• ·         1 Corinthians 10:23
• ·         Romans 2:14 – 15

And now for the moment of reflection…