The pursuit of holiness Jerry Bridges
Holiness seems to be a topic that Christians often have difficulty dealing with. Sometimes this difficulty manifests itself in mistaken beliefs about earning salvation, sometimes in petty legalism and sometimes in trying way too hard to not be legalistic. The pursuit of holiness attempts to explain what holiness is, why it is important and how a Christian would go about pursuing holiness.
He does a good job of emphasising the necessity of us making effort towards holiness without falling into the trap of making it sound as though we earn our way right with God. This can be a hard balance to find. The first few chapters especially would be worth going over a couple of times to ponder what he has to say.
One particularly helpful chapter is the one on pursuing holiness and aiding other peoples pursuit of holiness when it comes to activities which the bible does not prohibit but that some would feel the need to abstain from. This chapter alone would make the book worth reading. Another particularly helpful emphasis is on personal responsibility to sin. While certainly external factors and internal predispositions can make particular sins easier to give into for some, personal responsibility is important to emphasize.
I think this book is worth reading for all Christians. It isn’t long (4 hours in audio or 179 pages in print) but gives lots of good food for thought.
You can get the audiobook for free until the end of January 2011 at christianaudio.com
Review copy provided by christianaudio.com
