EVERYDAY HOLINESS:
Become who you were made to be
By Josh Moody
Christian Focus. 135 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 527 107 250
Holiness is a word that all Christians know, but for many it is a mysterious zone for the elite rather than an everyday reality for all.
Josh Moody, (who for many years contributed a regular Letter from America column in en), has provided a slim but substantial book on this topic.
The book is helpful as much for how it defines what holiness is not as for its exposition of what it is. In the first chapter he considers whether the call of holiness allows a pastor to offer a cold beer to someone visiting his house or an otherwise upright church member to carelessly use the N-word. His answers are ‘yes’ to the first and a firm ‘no’ to the second. Writing for the UK context, the answers may well have been reversed in some contexts.
Using the second half of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, the author paints a picture of what everyday holiness looks like in our relationship to God, ourselves and one another. For Paul, holiness is about our being in Christ and the lifestyle that flows from that. This lifestyle is not one that is laden down with hundreds of do’s and don’ts, but one that displays Christlikeness in our attitudes, as they are expressed in our desires, words and actions.
The book concludes with three brief but helpful appendices, that provide a brief History of holiness, Spiritual warfare and holiness, and Holiness and mental health.
The book is based on a series of sermons preached by the author; they transfer well to the written page. This book is Scriptural, wise, well-illustrated, and sensitively applied to life.
