Contagious Holiness

The idea of "contagious holiness" has sort of made the rounds in recent years, most notably in Craig Blomberg's Contagious Holiness: Jesus' Meals With Sinners. In this book, Blomberg took a look at what it meant that Jesus ate with sinners. In a culture where purity was key to one's standing before God, this was a tremendous break not only with tradition but also with theology. Blomberg concludes that Jesus' meals were in fact a sort of parable-in-action: Jesus showed God's contagious holiness in a very human way to demonstrate the new way of the kingdom.

Blomberg's book is well worth the read if the above description intrigues you. He's done a superb--and thorough--job of discussing a concept not many have really touched on. But by the end of the book, it was clear to me that Jesus' eating habits was not the only example of contagious holiness in his ministry.

In fact, I think the idea of contagious holiness begins way back in the Old Testament, back as far as the Tabernacle and sacrifices Eden and can be see drawn larger than life in the prophets. In fact, it seems quite possible Jesus was deliberately evoking these images and stories in his actions, demonstrating contagious holiness not just as part of his announcement of the new kingdom way but as a fulfillment of the prophecies and symbols of the Jewish Scriptures. With this in mind, in the next couple of posts I'll tackle some Old Testament passages and talk about a new way Jesus brought holiness: through his healing ministry.

Now here's my disclaimer: these will really be more like outlines of ideas based on these passages and certainly not publishable as is. I'm still putting this together in my mind, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Addendum: I've recently come across some ideas that mean I need to rethink some of my approach and incorporate some new information, so it may be another couple of days before I get to the good stuff!