Perfection
Last night Sandy and I went out to the Goat. We talked about some John Wesley work she was reading and how he talks about how a Christian should not have sin in their lives. Any at all. That's setting the bar high. But attainable if we spend a lot of time reading the Bible and in prayer, I would think. It's just hard to find that time!
posted by Aphra @ 12/16/2006 07:29:00 AM
2 Comments:
That does sound unattainable to me, but the good news is when we do sin, if we are truly sorry, we are forgiven and allowed a fresh start :)
I'm not at all convinced that spending a lot of time reading the Bible and praying will keep us from having sin in our lives. I certainly wouldn't discourage Bible reading and prayer but I see no evidence to suggest that Bible reading and prayer will make us "sinless." In fact, I suspect that doing so will make us even more aware of our inadequacy.
We might have to be careful that we don't take too simplistic a view of Wesley's idea of sinless perfection. Wesley and many other holiness preachers have a very specific meaning when they speak of sanctification, holiness, sinlessness, etc. Samuel Logan Brengle followed a similar line of thinking.
Bible reading and prayer are certainly two wonderful means of grace but there are few credible witnesses who will testify that these, in themselves, enable us to be sinless.
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