Dr. David Palveston is a biblical counselor in the author of some very important books

and journal articles. Resources that perhaps could lead some to see as promoting Christian

growth apart from the local church. But of course that would be misleading as he explained

to me a few years back when I sat down with him at the Christian counseling and educational

foundation offices near Philadelphia. I asked him to explain the vital role the local

church plays in growing and sanctification in our growth and holiness. Here's what

he said.

Local church is integral to sanctification in all sorts of from all sorts of different

directions. There's an obvious direction that will come at second and there's a less

obvious one. Every single fruit of sanctification gets expressed within the context of the

church. And so if sanctification, if the payoff, the quote, 1 Timothy 1, 7, the goal

of our instruction is love. It comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, any sincere

faith. That love gets expressed in the church. It gets expressed towards brothers and

sisters in the Apostle John's first letter. It's the, you know, if you love the son,

if you love, you love the brethren, you know, if you love the father, you love the children.

If you, if you are in Christ, you are in some intrinsic way wedded to the welfare of

others. And so I'm going to get to second the way the church blesses us in sanctification.

But the very goal of sanctification involves the church. There is a sense. I am not perfected

until you are perfected. We are not perfected until every single one of us, the children

of living God, is perfected, which means another person's struggle. I have a stake in that

for my sanctification. Sanctification is not a private endeavor. It's not a moral self-improvement

project. It's not, it's not less than that. But it's so much more than that because the

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