Bishop’s Message
Scriptural holiness is a teaching prevalent among Methodist churches. John Wesley believed that the unique design of Methodist preachers (and by extension, all Methodists), is “to reform the nation, and in particular the Church, to spread scriptural holiness over the land”.1
To pursue scriptural holiness is to live our lives according to Scripture; to continually be purified and consecrated by the reading of Scripture. It is not an easy call to take up. As disciples of Christ, we must “deny [ourselves] and take up [our] cross and follow [him]” (Matthew 16:24).
1 Peter 1:16 (NIV) encourages us in this pursuit of holiness: “Be holy, because I am holy.” Holiness has already been set in our hearts. As we are made in the image of God, it is an intrinsic desire.
To this end, we need to first know the standard of holiness that we have been called to. That standard can only be found in the one true God, and we learn it through reading Scripture. There is simply no other standard we can follow, not anything set by man or in this world. To do so would be to fall short of what God has called us to be. And as Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, the only way we can reach that standard is through his grace and sacrifice.
Hebrews 10:24-25 encourages us to pursue holiness together, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
The journey to scriptural holiness is easier to walk when we are in a community of believers. As one of the tenets of scriptural holiness is love for the Church, we are, in turn, called to be a loving and safe community for our fellow brothers and sisters in our own pursuit of scriptural holiness.
So, in our pursuit of scriptural holiness, we should first read the Scripture to know the Way of Holiness, and then cover ourselves in the blood of the Lamb to walk the Way of Holiness, together.
1 John Wesley, ‘Minutes of the Conference of June 28, 1763’, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 10, ed. Henry D. Rack, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011), p. 845.
Bishop Philip Lim was elected Bishop of The Methodist Church in Singapore in 2024. He served as a missionary in Cambodia under the Methodist Missions Society (MMS) previously, and was Executive Director of MMS from 2012 to 2018.