The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

passive activity. Or whatever you want to call it. According to the 2000 US Census, 79 percent of Americans live in urban or suburban areas. Most people who will read this book live in what we often simply call “the city” or in a suburb of the city. Every day those of us who live in these areas, particularly in the suburbs and the “nicer” areas of the city, demonstrate with our routines and our attitudes that we are experts at actively being filled with the spirit of something. It is deceptively and dangerously easy for even suburban Christians, because of the environment of convenience and consumerism they swim in, to become lovers of convenience and embracers of consumerism. Where we live, and how we live there, shapes us. It does so with our participation and permission even though most of us are not conscious of it. And that is the same sort of active passivity Paul appeals to in the confusing part of Ephesians 5:18.