Living out the ethos of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is a matter of a changed heart, not just behavior or rules, whether from a mountain in the Sinai or one in Galilee. The only way we can live out the counter-cultural ethic of the kingdom of God is by the power of the indwelling Spirit.

This blog introduces the background to Paul’s lists of works of the flesh and fruit of the Spirit. Lists like these can be found in Jewish background, elsewhere in the New Testament, and then in early Christian literature.

This is the opening blog of a series on the Person and Work of the Spirit. It’s the overflow of an eight-week class I’m teaching on Sunday mornings April–May, 2019.