“Though bringing people to new birth in Christ through evangelism is essential,” says Eugene Peterson, “isn’t it obvious that growth in Christ is equally essential? Yet the American church does not treat Christian growth and character formation with equivalent urgency. We are genuinely uneasy with the quiet, obscure conditions in which growth takes place, and building maturity in Christ too often gets relegated to footnote status in the text of our lives…we are feeding childish and adolescent impulses and refusing to take up the cross of Jesus.” In the name of relevance the modern western church has adapted and adjusted to the culture to the point where we are indistinguishable from the culture.
The use of the epistles (letters) as a medium of divine revelation was unheard of until the time of Paul and his contemporaries. This personal form of communication was appropriate to the new message that believers had been adopted as sons and daughters into the household of God by His grace. These letters circulated organically under the sovereign superintendence of God, and were recognized as inspired revelation, making up almost 40% of the New Testament. These writings were filled with an abundance of doctrine designed for the transformation of believers into the image of Christ.
Read through the epistles chronologically. Pay attention to their historical and literary context. Compare these letters with each other and then combine what you find with the entirety of the New Testament. What you discover will captivate you, consume you, and change you.
- You will be able to leverage spiritual intensity by recognizing the Spirit’s work of sanctification, or transformation, in your lives.
- You will be equipped to engage in spiritual warfare.
- Your spiritual intelligence will increase enhancing the way that you express the love of Christ, energizing you to use your liberty in Christ appropriately, and enabling you to be wise in your discernment and decision making.
- You will be able to understand your spiritual inheritance, received from those before you and relayed to those beyond you, consummated in Christ for all of us.
Ephesians 4:13 implores us to “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Reaching this full stature is a refusal to live a reduced life with a minimalist spirituality.