Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. This week we're going to finish a conversation

on the Christian ideal. It's a discussion about the biblical theme of holiness. If you haven't

listened to the first hour of this conversation, I highly recommend that. It's the last podcast

episode. We're having this conversation on holiness because we're making a workbook

that will accompany the theme video of holiness. And so we had to get together and discuss

what we wanted to cover, how we were going to frame the contents of the workbook. And

we began to wrestle with the question, what's going to make someone want to pick up a book

on holiness? And as we thought about that, we realized that holiness is really an answer

to a more basic question we have as humans, which is, how do I live a full, complete,

joyful life where relationships are right, where I myself feel good about who I am. It's

a desire we all have. It's a desire for divine life.

The Christian narrative is putting its thumb on a really universal human feeling of lack

of emptiness or of disappointment or failure. And then in Jesus of Nazareth, who's embodiment

of the whole story is that fullness meeting us on our own terms and then inviting us

into something more. And who doesn't want to be a part of that kind of story? Many people

don't want to be a part of an official religious institution, whether a person would say,

I want to participate in the divine nature. Most people would never say that. But I'm

aware that I don't love as well as I ought to. So if we want to reframe holiness, we want

to say that those longings and disappointments, those speak to something real.

So today on the podcast, we talk holiness. How to participate in the divine nature. We're

joined by Paul Pastor, a colleague of ours, just helping us write this workbook. Thanks

for listening. Here we go.

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