Part of what it means is transformation. To be born again, made anew. To become dead to sin and alive to grace. A way to think about this is to contrast the ways of the flesh with the ways of the spirit. Gal. 5:19-23 is a good way to start:
The ways of the flesh are: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
The ways of the spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The point of this? "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh … Since we live by the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit." (5:24-25). In other words, if we are truly born anew in Christ, elements of list #1 will wither and die, and elements of list #2 will flourish.
How to do this? Mainly a question of discipline. (For a more expansive treatment, see Introduction to Spiritual Disciplines.) The key point is this:
Spiritual living <== [requires] Spiritual fitness
Spiritual fitness <== [requires] Spiritual discipline
Just like being physically fit requires discipline in eating and exercise, being spiritually fit requires discipline in the spiritual sphere. This course will focus on three disciplines: prayer, study, and meditation, focusing on Gal. 5:22-23, the "fruit of the spirit."
Each week there will be daily at-home exercises for prayer, study, and meditation. Most of these will involve daily journal exercises. The class sessions will be small-group discussions, following up on the at-home exercises.
Why is the discipline necessary?
We all know the basic Christian view of the nature of salvation:
The "ways of the spirit" are really the last step in this process: sanctification. But, it is critical to understand that sanctification does not exist alone. It is nurtured and encouraged by one's knowledge of and gratitude for justification, which is in turn energized by one's faith, which is in turn initiated and strengthened by one's knowledge of sin and repentance for those sins. In other words, the whole sequence is a dynamic whole.
One cannot separate the elements. One cannot say, "I'll have great faith, but not so much sanctification," or "I'll have great faith but not so much repentance." And therein lies the rub: Anesthetize the sense of sin, weaken the heartfelt sorrow for sin, trivialize the nature of faith, and the inevitable result will be enervation of the ways of the spirit. Or, run the sequence the other way: minimize the focus on sanctification, and the inevitable result is a weakened sense of faith, a trivialization of the nature of sin, and a loss of repentance.
Trying to separate our transformation into discrete elements is sort of like saying, "Hmmm… it looks like that end of the boat is sinking."
Discipline, then, is critical because it enters at numerous points in the link. Through prayer and study and meditation (among others), we become aware of sin, increase our repentance, strengthen our resistance, understand the will of God, increase our energy to do better, and so on. Our total transformation is enhanced and invigorated.
The object of discipline, though, is not discipline itself (that is asceticism), but rather a fuller and more complete transformation to a Christian life. We are told what the elements are of a truly "Christian" life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. What we are going to do next is to examine each of these with three purposes in mind: (1) Exactly what is meant by each of these elements? (2) What are the obstacles we face in really living out each and every one of these elements? (3) What can we do, individually but also collectively, to help us overcome those obstacles and live as real Christians, dead to sin and alive to grace?
Toward, that end, attached is a series of small group exercises. (This file is in MS Word 7.0; if you need it in some other format, please let me know.) Each group will do some or all of the exercises according to the amount of time available for such. We will then reconvene to share thoughts, questions, and conclusions.
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4/17/98