Marginal Christianity

The Story So Far Jesus has been born, inaugurating a new creation and reasserting God’s rule over the rebellious nations of the world. Visitors from the pagan East come to worship him even as the King of the Jews tries to use them to find the infant Jesus and kill him. John the Baptist has appeared announcing the imminence of God’s New Exodus. Many Jews have come to him to be baptized and prepare those Jews who will to participate in the new redemptive movement. Jesus himself has come to John for baptism and it hears the divine affirmation of his identity and vocation as King, Servant, and Sacrifice. In the wake of this experience the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert for another, very different experience at the hands of the devil. Jesus vanquishes this enemy and that brings us to the passage we look at in this post. Jesus has retraced Israel’s steps as it sought to be faithful to God who graciously rescued them from slavery in Egypt. The people failed at almost every ...

There are many ways to get at the heart of the biblical message.   One way is by considering the contrasts between i-dolatry (I’ll explain the spelling below) and image.   Created as God’s image-bearers humanity has insistently if inexplicably turned away from God to other supposed deities.   This i-dolatry is the fundamental human problem according to the Bible.   The difference between the 1 st Commandment and Jesus’ 1 st Beatitude makes this clear.   God commands exclusive commitment to him above all and in place of all other deities.   Jesus blesses his followers with “poverty of spirit” – being bankrupt to stand before God and knowing and embracing it.   That Jesus has to gift his followers with such an awareness speaks volumes about how far and how deep we have “fallen.” Created to be God’s glorious image-bearers, that is, his royal representatives reflecting and implementing God’s will and way throughout the creation and oversee...