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Set Apart
Set
Apart
Calling a
Worldly Church
to a
Godly Life
R. KENT HUGHES
CROSSWAY B OOKS
A DIVISION OF
GOOD NEWS PUBLISHERS
WHEATON, ILLINOIS
Set Apart
Copyright © 2003 by R. Kent Hughes
Published by Crossway Books
A division of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.
Cover design: Josh Dennis
Cover photo: Getty Images
First printing, 2003
Printed in the United States of America
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible:
English Standard Version,copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of
Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations indicated NASBare taken from the New American Standard
Bible,copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by
the Lockman Foundation.
For my wife, Barbara,
whose encouragement and convictions
inspire me
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 8
Preface 9
1 Set Apart to Save 13
2 Set Apart to Save: Materialism 25
3 Set Apart to Save: Hedonism 37
4 Set Apart to Save: Viewing Sensuality 51
5 Set Apart to Save: Violence and Voyeurism 63
6 Set Apart to Save: Sexual Conduct 75
7 Set Apart to Save: Modesty 89
8 Set Apart to Save: Pluralism 101
9 Set Apart to Save: Marriage 113
10 Set Apart to Save: Church and the Lord’s Day 127
11 Set Apart to Save: The Unending Yes 143
Appendix I: The Gospel—Old and New 153
Appendix II: Internet Safety 163
Scripture Index 167
General Index 171
Acknowledgments
Anyone who writes theology is aware of standing on the shoulders
of past saints. And when it is done in the week-in, week-out
hustle and bustle of the church “with all the saints” (Ephesians 3:18),
those who write know that what they have accomplished comes from
the saints’ locking their arms in prayer and advice. Here I must give
thanks for the strong arms of College Church elders Roger Sandberg,
Harold Smith, Wayne Martindale, and Lee Ryken for their advice and
their weekly leading the congregation in discussion of the issues. I
must especially thank Dr. Ryken for his masterful editing of the
manuscript before it arrived in the capable hands of Crossway Books
Managing Editor, Ted Griffin. And, as always during the past fifteen
years, my ongoing thanks goes to my Administrative Assistant,
Sharon Fritz for preparing the manuscript, and to Herb Carlburg for
weekly proofing. Of course, my deepest thanks goes to my wife,
Barbara, for her intense interest, advice, and prayers.
Preface
The chapters of this book were originally a series of sermons that
I preached. The series was partly occasioned by a convergence
of my preaching on Lot’s lamentable accommodations to Sin City
(Genesis 19) and my reading of Robert Gundry’s book Jesus the Word
According to John the Sectarian, which offered a critique of contempo-
rary evangelicalism. I eventually added to Gundry’s list of ailments
afflicting evangelical churches today. I will note in passing that my
church devoted the Sunday evenings during the series to question-
and-answer sessions on the topic on which I had preached in the
morning.
Part of my venture can be called cultural critique, by which I
mean that I begin my chapters with a survey of sociological data that
delineates where our culture and the church stand on the announced
topic. Not everyone is comfortable with such cultural critique from
the pulpit. In one of the evening question-and-answer sessions,
someone submitted a note saying that I should stop talking about cul-
ture and just preach the Gospel.
I understand the impulse behind that comment. A sermon that
gives extensive initial attention to sociological data and cultural anal-
ysis has a different feel from a sermon that single-mindedly works its
way through a biblical passage. But there is a time and place for cul-
tural critique among Christians. Our own time and place require that
we take stock of what is actually happening in our culture and in the
