Salt and Light: Growing into Spiritual Capability 

By Brent Davis, Campus Ministry Coordinator and AUHS staff 

A mature person is a capable person. So, what does it take to become spiritually mature? 

Christians often answer this question by talking about what we should believe or what we should do. We read Scripture, pray, worship, serve, fellowship with other believers, and seek to obey God. All of these are essential. Yet Scripture also describes Christian growth as something deeper: God is forming us into people who are increasingly able to live faithfully and lovingly in the circumstances of life. 

 

Second Peter provides a helpful picture of this kind of growth: 

“Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5–7, KJV). 

Peter begins by reminding believers that God has already provided what we need: “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3, KJV). Christian formation therefore begins with grace. God provides the resources. Our question is how those resources increasingly become part of the way we actually live. 

From Spiritual Resources to Spiritual Capabilities 

The economist and philosopher Amartya Sen uses the term capability to describe a person’s real ability or opportunity to do and become something valuable. The distinction can also help us think about spiritual formation. 

A Bible is a resource. Christian teaching is a resource. A church community is a resource. Prayer, worship, the sacraments, mentoring, and fellowship all provide resources for spiritual growth. Most importantly, Christians have the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. 

But possessing a resource is not quite the same thing as having developed the capability to use it faithfully. 

A person may know that forgiveness is commanded yet still struggle to forgive when deeply hurt. Someone may understand that God is trustworthy but find it difficult to trust Him during uncertainty. We may know that we should love our neighbor while still needing to develop the patience, courage, wisdom, and self-control required to love a difficult person well. 

Spiritual maturity involves the gradual conversion of the resources God provides into genuine capacities for faithful living. 

Peter describes some of these capacities: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. They are not merely ideas to understand. They are qualities that increasingly enable us to respond like Christ. 

How Does God Form These Capabilities? 

God does not ordinarily form mature Christians by simply giving us information. 

He places us within a rich ecology of formation. Scripture teaches us. Prayer turns our attention toward God. Worship reorients our desires. Christian community gives us people to imitate, encourage, correct, forgive, and love. Trials exercise perseverance. Service develops compassion. Repeated obedience forms habits. The Holy Spirit works through all of these to transform us. 

This helps explain why the New Testament gives so much attention to the church as a community. Paul writes that Christ gives leaders to equip His people until “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man” and attain “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, KJV). 

The goal is maturity in Christ, and God uses people, practices, relationships, and institutions to help us reach it. 

A healthy Christian community therefore does more than provide religious activities. It creates an environment in which people can learn to trust, worship, forgive, discern, persevere, serve, and love. 

Becoming What We Behold 

One especially important practice is beholding. 

Scripture repeatedly directs our attention toward God—His character, His works, His promises, and above all Jesus Christ. Paul writes that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18, KJV). 

What repeatedly holds our attention begins to shape what we value. What we value shapes what we desire. What we desire influences how we act. Repeated actions gradually become characteristic ways of living. 

Christian practices such as Scripture reading, worship, prayer, communion, testimony, and fellowship can therefore be understood partly as ways the church helps us repeatedly turn our attention toward Christ. 

We behold Christ so that, through the Holy Spirit, we increasingly become like the One we behold. 

Spiritual Maturity Is for Love 

Peter’s list reaches its culmination in love. 

This is significant. Spiritual capability is not primarily about becoming more impressive, knowledgeable, disciplined, or religious. The mature Christian becomes increasingly capable of loving God and loving others. 

We might describe the process this way: God gives love and grace. We receive that love, learn to live from our identity in Christ, redirect our desires through repentance, train those desires through spiritual disciplines, and develop stable virtues. Community circulates that love, institutions help structure it, and mission extends it to others. Flourishing is its fruit.