Marking Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year

60

Mark i ng T ime : Formi ng Sp i r i tua l i t y through the Chr i s t i an Year

we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, [25] it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, [26] men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. [27] We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. [28] For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: [29] that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

e. Background and ethnicity are no longer obstacles to faith and spiritual maturity.

(1) Gal. 3.28 (ESV) – There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (2) Col. 3.11 (ESV) – Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

E. The power of dynamic standardization

1. Through a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, we now can train, equip, and empower an entire generation of believers in Christ.

2. Supporting texts

a. We share fundamental practices for we are essentially one in Christ, Eph. 4.1-6 (ESV) – I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner