This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.
Galatians 5.16-25 [16] Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17] For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, [21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. [24] And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [25] If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
🗝️ Key Concept: Virtue
We have explored what it means to be made right with God through righteousness. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Being made right is the foundation for becoming right: For growing into the person God created us to be. But how does this happen? How do we move from a legal status of forgiveness to a lived reality of goodness? The answer is through the cultivation of virtue. This isn't about becoming a stuffy, self-righteous person. Virtue is about becoming more fully, vibrantly, and joyfully human. It’s about forming Christlikeness within ourselves.
Virtue can be defined as Christlike character. More specifically, virtues are habits of the heart and dispositions of the mind that are lived out in our decisions, words, and actions, to lead us to thriving. They are the practical, tangible ways we become our truest and best selves as creative children of a creative God. The Apostle Paul gives a great summary of virtue when he encourages the Philippian church to focus their minds on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).
In Christian thought, virtue is not something we achieve through sheer willpower. Instead, it is the natural result of God's own Spirit living and working within us. This is why Paul doesn’t call these character traits the "achievements of the disciplined" but the "Fruit of the Spirit." They are the evidence that Christ's life is taking root in our own. Paul’s deepest desire was to see this transformation happen in the communities he served. He tells the Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), and he writes to them like a loving parent, saying he is “in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). This is the ultimate goal of the Christian life: To have the character of Jesus himself formed in us by the power of his Spirit.
📖 Scriptural Reflection: Galatians 5:16-25
Although there are many lists of virtue in the Bible— such as Isaiah 11:1-3, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:1-12, Romans 5:3-5, Romans 12:9-21, Colossians 3:1-17, Philippians 4:4-9, 2 Peter 1:5-7, and 1 Corinthians 13— the Apostle Paul provides the most famous list of virtues in his passionate letter to the Galatians. He contrasts the destructive "works of the flesh" with the life-giving "fruit of the Spirit." For Paul, the Christian life is a struggle between these two internal forces, and the key to victory is to intentionally "live by the Spirit."
The Holy Spirit is often identified in Scripture with the Wisdom of God: The creative, ordering, and life-giving force that energizes all things. If we unpack Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit in reverse order, we can see how this Divine Wisdom builds a beautiful, thriving character within us.
Self-Control: This is the foundation. It is the mindful attention to our inner world, the discipline to direct our energy toward our goals, and the hard work of choosing the better path. It is the agency we exercise to cooperate with God's work in us.
Gentleness: This meekness is not weakness, but a sensitivity to God and others. It is the humility to be open, curious, and teachable, rather than arrogant and demanding.
Faithfulness: This is about being a person who is both trusting and trustworthy. A faithful person is reliable, firm in their commitments, and follows through on their word, reflecting the faithfulness of God himself.
Goodness: This is the mark of someone who is good on the inside, so that goodness naturally overflows into acts of integrity, honesty, and generosity. This is the heart of "Inside Out" spirituality.
Kindness: A kind person looks beyond themselves and thinks in terms of "we" instead of "me." They are giving, caring, and compassionate, actively seeking the well-being of others.
Patience: This is the ability to abide in hope, trusting that God is working all things together for good. A patient person can wait for the right time to act in the right way for the best results, practicing delayed gratification for a greater future good.
Peace: This begins as an inner sense of calm and harmony with God, which then overflows into our relationships. A peaceful person is a reconciler who looks for non-violent ways to resolve conflict, resorting to anger or force only when absolutely necessary to protect the vulnerable.
Joy: This is a deep sense of delight, thankfulness, and gratitude that is not dependent on circumstances. It is directed toward God in worship and praise, and toward others in celebration and encouragement.
Love: This is the supreme virtue that holds all the others together and makes us most like God. It is the active, self-giving commitment to the well-being of others. As Paul writes elsewhere, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
📎MORE TO THE STORY: See this chart for another view of how virtues and vices interact in human psychology.
🔎 What is the opposite of virtue?
The opposite of virtue is vice. Just as virtue can be described as Christlike character, vice can be summed up as selfishness. A longer definition would be: Vices are habits of the heart and dispositions of the mind that are lived out in our decisions, words, and actions, to lead us to destroy ourselves and others. Vices are the character traits that make us vicious, predatory, callous, addicted, and sociopathic. They are the inverse of Philippians 4: False, dishonorable, unjust, tainted, disgusting, reprehensible, shoddy, and worthless.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul lists the "works of the flesh," which are a catalog of vices. They are the direct inversion of the fruit of the Spirit. Where the Spirit produces self-control, the flesh produces impurity, addiction, and drunkenness. Where the Spirit produces peace and kindness, the flesh produces hatred, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, back stabbing, and envy. At the root of all these vices is a deep-seated selfishness.
As the apostle James writes, "Where there is envy and selfishness, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind... Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures." (James 3:16, 4:1-3)
The vices of selfishness and self-destruction have often been organized into a list of seven "deadly sins." They are "deadly" because (like James says above) they are root sins that give birth to all other destructive behaviors.
Pride: The belief that you are the center of the universe and better than others. It is the root of all other sins.
Envy: Resenting others for their blessings and successes.
Wrath: Uncontrolled anger, rage and bitterness that seeks revenge.
Sloth: A spiritual and physical laziness that avoids effort and responsibility.
Greed: An insatiable desire for more wealth and possessions.
Gluttony: The excessive consumption of anything, not just food and drink, to the point of waste.
Lust: The objectification of another person, reducing them to a means for one's own sexual gratification.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: See this chart for another view of how virtues and vices interact in human psychology.
🔎 How is virtue different from other ethical models?
To speak of virtue and vice is to believe that right and wrong are real. This stands against ethical relativism, the idea that morality is just a matter of personal preference. It’s easy to say "truth is relative" until someone cuts you off in traffic, or steals your phone. At that moment, everyone becomes a moral absolutist, believing that a real wrong has been committed.
To think about objective morality, philosophers have developed three major models, focusing on different aspects of a moral situation. We can focus on the Agent (WHO is doing the action), the Act (WHAT rules are being followed), or the Consequence (WHY the act is being done). A robust Christian ethic needs all three— WHO, WHAT, and WHY— but it gives primacy to one of them.
Focus on the Act (Deontology): This is about rules, duties, and principles. The Bible contains many commands: 613 in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments as their summary, and Jesus's two Great Commands to love God and neighbor as the heart of the Law. These rules are vital. However, if ethics is only about rule-following, it can become cold and legalistic. For Christians, the commands are not arbitrary; they are descriptions of the character of God. We follow them to become more like the God who gave them, not just for the sake of following rules. But even well intentioned rules and laws can be misapplied to harm the very people they attempted to serve.
A great Biblical example is the command to take a day of rest on the Sabbath. This command was originally intended to help us take time out of busy lives to connect with God and reconnect with each other: To practice being "human beings", instead of just "humans doing". Yet, this great intent can easily devolve into endless lists of prohibitions and duties which miss the point. Thus, we find Jesus breaking the letter of the law by doing the "work" of healing on the Sabbath, so that he could uphold the spirit of the law to heal God's children. Thus he says "the sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the sabbath" (Mark 2).
Focus on the Consequence (Consequentialism): This is about the outcome. It’s important to think about the impact of our actions, and whether our means are accomplishing our intended goals. We must always keep in mind our intent and our impact, and adjust to make sure our actions are having the impact we desire. The danger of focusing only on consequences, however, is that it can reduce human worth to mere utility. An approach like utilitarianism, which seeks the "greatest good for the greatest number," can justify sacrificing the few for the many, turning people into commodities in a moral calculation. Even worse, it can justify using and abusing a few people as scapegoats for the benefit of the many. And if Jesus shows us anything, it is that God cares deeply for the outcastes and scapegoats of society.
This leads to the primacy of Virtue Ethics. The Christian life focuses first on the Agent. The primary question is not "What rules should I follow?" or "What outcome should I seek?" but "Who am I becoming?" The goal is to become a person with Christlike character, trusting that a community of virtuous people will, over the long run, follow the right principles and produce good and beautiful outcomes. Christ is our Law and our Goal. As Paul writes, "Christ is the goal of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who is faithful" (Romans 10:4).
📎MORE TO THE STORY: See this chart on Three Ethical Models which focus on the Agent, the Act, and the Consequence.
🔎 How do we form virtue within ourselves?
We form Christlikeness by becoming disciples of Christ. The word "disciple" simply means a student or apprentice, one who follows behind their teacher. There was an ancient rabbinic saying that a good disciple should be "covered in the dust of his rabbi," meaning they followed so closely that the dust kicked up by their master's feet would cover them. As we follow our teacher, Jesus, may we be covered in the dust of Christlikeness.
Practically, forming virtue is a combination of the "Inside Out" and "Outside In" approaches we’ve discussed. We must pay attention to both our inward dispositions as well as our outward practices, because being good leads to doing good, and doing good helps us to become good. Paul uses an agricultural metaphor: "For you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit" (Galatians 6:7-8). This points to a chain of causality that many spiritual paths have recognized:
Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
So where do we begin sowing to the Spirit? The best way forward is to develop a Rule of Life: We need to create a "game plan" or an "action plan" for our spiritual lives. A Rule of Life is not a set of rigid, burdensome laws, but a set of concrete, specific practices that help us intentionally grow into our best selves in Christ. A good rule is one that is both challenging enough to stretch us, but also sustainable enough to be practiced consistently within the realities of our busy lives. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Here are a few ways to start practicing "C.H.R.I.S.T." daily:
Communicate with God: Make time each day to pray and read Scripture, perhaps when you wake up and before you get ready for bed.
Healthy diet and training: Make time for regular exercise and fuel your body with quality food and hydration.
Rest and recreation: Make time for 7-8 hours of sleep per night and a Sabbath day of rest each week.
Involvement in Community: Make time to be part of a healthy Christian community that helps you love God and others.
Service to neighbors: Make time to follow the pattern of Christ in using your blessings to bless others.
Thank God in all things: Practice an attitude of gratitude by thanking God as a constant practice, recognizing God in the good things of life.
The journey of virtue is the adventure of a lifetime. It is the path to becoming the person you were always meant to be. By intentionally practicing and embodying these Christlike character traits, we cooperate with the Spirit's work within us, and we begin to experience the thriving, abundant life for which we were made.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: For a full spiritual and ethical development plan, see this E.P.I.S.C.O.P.A.L. virtues curriculum.
📚 Topical Scriptures
Here are some Scripture passages which explore and elaborate on the themes of this chapter. As you look them up and study them, think about how they relate to the Key Concept and Guiding Questions.
Isaiah 11:1-9
This prophecy describes the ideal messianic king who will be filled with the Spirit of the LORD. Look for the "sevenfold gifts" of the Spirit— wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of the Lord— which are the virtues that create a kingdom of justice and peace.
Micah 6:6-8
The prophet contrasts empty religious rituals with the true essence of a virtuous life. This passage boils down all of God's laws into three core dispositions: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.
Matthew 5:1-12
In the Beatitudes, Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by describing the character of those who are blessed in God's kingdom. These are not commands to be followed, but virtues and inner dispositions— like humility, mercy, and a hunger for righteousness— that God nurtures.
Romans 5:1-5
Paul outlines a chain of spiritual formation that begins with hardship. Notice how he teaches that suffering, when rightly endured through faith, produces the virtues of endurance, which in turn builds character, and finally deepens our hope.
Romans 12:9-21
This passage is a rapid-fire list of practical instructions for living a virtuous life within a community. It offers a portrait of what love looks like in action, from hating evil and honoring others to overcoming evil with good.
Colossians 3:1-17
Paul instructs believers to "put off" the vices of their old life and to "clothe" themselves with a new wardrobe of virtues. Look for the specific character traits— compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and love— that are to mark the "new self."
Philippians 4:4-9
Paul connects our inner state of being with our focus of mind. He provides a list of virtues— whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable— and instructs believers to fill their thoughts with these things as a path to experiencing God's peace.
Galatians 6:1-10
This passage presents virtue in agricultural terms. Notice the principle of "sowing and reaping," where cultivating practices of the Spirit leads to a harvest of eternal life, and the encouragement not to grow weary in the process of doing good.
2 Peter 1:3-11
The author presents a staircase of virtues, urging believers to supplement their faith with goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. Following this path of virtue is what makes one's calling and election sure.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
In this famous "hymn to love," Paul defines love not as an emotion, but as a series of virtuous actions. He demonstrates that without love, all other spiritual gifts and achievements are meaningless, establishing love as the greatest and most essential virtue.
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