Sunday 15th September 2024
To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi
Philippians 1:1 (NIV)
Be a saint
We tend to think of saints being special Christians, which is perhaps due in part to the practice of ‘canonisation’ in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, where a dead person is admitted into the ‘canon’ (or authorised list) of recognised saints.
However, as one writer puts it, “In the New Testament, ‘saint’ is almost a definition of a Christian, and the writers would have found it strange that we tend to identify sainthood with a few special people.”
NIV translates ‘saints’ as ‘God’s holy people,’ as for example in Paul’s greeting to the Christians in Philippi: “To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi,” addressing all the Christians in that place. This is a good translation given that ‘saints’ are literally ‘holy ones,’ those set apart by God to belong to him.
So, to be called a ‘saint’ is “at once an honour, an exhortation, and a reproach. It tells of [our] high calling, it exhorts [us] to live up to it, and it reminds [us] of [our] grievous shortcomings.”
So, to think of ourselves as saints – as God’s holy people – should lead us to thank God for setting us apart for himself, to ask him to make us more and more like what he has declared us to be, and to confess to him where we have failed in that regard.
Lord, I thank you for calling me one of your ‘holy ones;’ I confess the many ways and times where I fall short of that calling; and I ask you to make me truly and fully holy. Amen.
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)