Holy Is a Four-Letter Word responds to the need for an accessible and simple articulation of the holy life, and what it means for the collective church as well as for individual believers. This goal is accomplished by taking the fundamental tenets of holiness doctrine and shaping them around twelve four-letter words: (1) Holy, (2) Self, (3) Full, (4) Pure, (5) Will, (6) Mind, (7) Body, (8) Love, (9) Rest, (10) Life, (11) Sent, and (12) Call. Each chapter deals with holy living according to scripture as it pertains to each four-letter word.
Setting the concept of holiness against the backdrop of modern (and often profane) media culture accomplishes two objectives: (1) it reveals the relevance and urgency of holy living amongst a super-charged, secular media culture, and (2) defining holy living, first and foremost, by what it is not thereby accentuating «holy» as being set a part for the purposes of God.
Mainstream Christianity tends to define salvation exclusively in terms of substitutionary atonement (Jesus died for me so that I can go to heaven when I die).
While this is not incorrect, nor unbiblical, this definition of salvation is incomplete.
Where does Israel fit into salvation? And what about the covenant? Most importantly, what about the kingdom of God that Jesus preached fervently? How do all of these dimensions that are central to the biblical text and its message fit into the bigger picture of salvation?
Salvation in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom reminds readers that salvation is not centrally about the believer, but about God and his World Renewal Plan. Salvation, when properly framed by the entire text that runs from Genesis to Revelation, is not all about me and Jesus, but about God and his plan to renew the creation through the Jewish Messiah and his covenant people. Salvation in Fresh Perspective seeks to bring back into focus the often forgotten dimensions of the great story of salvation.