Marginal Christianity

http://howardsnyder.seedbed.com/2013/06/30/authentic-fellowship/ June 30, 2013 by Howard Snyder What is “Fellowship” in the biblical sense? This question was posted in Christianity Today . Here is my response. How do we learn the deep “one another” community of Scripture without being in close proximity? – Karen Shepard, Wheaton Illinois Community in the New Testament sense of koinonia assumes and requires face-to-face communication, whether in a horse-and-buggy age or an Internet age. Three things marked New Testament Christian community: It was centered in Jesus Christ—believers met together as Jesus followers, constituting his body; this fellowship was a gift of the Holy Spirit; and the community was missional. That is, the New Testament community was directed toward a purpose outside itself—actually being a living witness to Christ and gospel power in the world. Many churches have a superficial idea (and experience) of community. Christian community is ea...

Brian D. Russell (http://catalystresources.org/what-is-a-missional-hermeneutic/) A missional hermeneutic is an interpretive approach that privileges mission as the key to reading the Scriptures. Missional hermeneutics works across the spectrum of approaches to the biblical text. It takes seriously the historical situation of the text (“behind the text”). It recognizes the influence of the reader’s social location (“in front of the text”). Yet it is fundamentally rooted in a close reading of the text (“the world of the text”). A missional hermeneutic seeks to hear the Scriptures as an authoritative guide to God’s mission in the world so that communities of faith can participate fully in God’s mission. At the 2008 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, G.R. Hunsberger (“Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation”) reviewed current proposals on missional hermeneutics and organized them into four categories: The Missional Direction of the Story, T...

  “A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not “die to itself” that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of “adjustment” or “mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would “do anything” for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into his presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, k...

“The Glory of God is Humanity Fully Alive, and Life is Beholding God”                      (Irenaeus, 2 nd century) God, the Great King and Father, loves his creatures and creation and has a wondrous goal for them.   God intends to live with his creatures in loving community on this creation in its full flourishing! God created women and men in his own image.   As God’s children we are created to be his royal representatives and caretakers for the well-being of creation. Inexplicably, we have heinously turned our backs on our Father and Creator and forfeited this primal dignity and vocation. Fortunately, God never acquiesced in our rebellion and set himself to both reclaim us from the bondage into which we have fallen and restore us to our creational dignity and vocation. God called Israel through Abraham and Sarah to use this people to spread di...