Marginal Christianity

Exposition Zechariah is at his appointed duty to offer incense in the temple. This is the Tamid service (1: 8– 10), at which sacrifice for the forgiveness of the people were offered twice each day. The “whole assembly” is gathered in prayer outside. Luke pictures the chosen people acting in obedience to the Lord (vv.8-10). While at his service an angel, Gabriel as it turns out (v.19), appears announcing to him the birth of a son through his up-till-now barren wife Elizabeth. As is usual in these kinds of appearances, fear is the (appropriate) human response. But the angel’s news is good news. A son is coming to this couple! Zechariah’s prayers have been answered (like Isaac, Gen.25:21). The angelic announcement is also similar to that made to Abraham (Gen.17:19). This puts this episode within the story-line Luke is tracing for his readers. As Garland put it: “Divine intervention in the lives of this couple is divine intervention for Israel. Their personal prayers have meshed...

First, live as though in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated into the world and the outcome of history has already been determined. (Quit worrying) Second, love people as the very image of God and resist the temptation to improve them. Third, refuse to make economics the basis of your life. Your job is not even of secondary importance. Fourth, quit arguing about politics as though the political realm were the answer to the world’s problems. It gives it power that is not legitimate and enables a project that is anti-God. Fifth, learn to love your enemies. God did not place them in the world for us to fix or eliminate. If possible, refrain from violence. Sixth, raise the taking of human life to a matter of prime importance and refuse to accept violence as a means to peace. Every single life is a vast and irreplaceable treasure. Seventh, cultivate contentment rather than pleasure. It will help you consume less and free you from slavery to your econom...

Exposition A faithful priestly family, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were living faithfully - “righteous before God” (v.6), that is, within the story line that governs Luke’s account. He carefully situates them in this story within the history of the world going around them. God’s work is this world, in this world, and for this world – “in the days of King Herod of Judea” (v.5). “Righteous” means living in right relation to God and for right relations in the world God created. Far from a stuffy, priggish, rule-keeping fetish, righteousness is the freedom to live for God and from his good order and intentions for his world. Just one problem: Elizabeth was barren! A curse from the world’s point of view, though from the story line of divine promise from which Luke worked, just where she needed to be. A barren “mother” of Israel, Elizabeth takes her place alongside Sarah (Gen.11:30), Rebekah (Gen.25:21), Rachel (Gen.29:31), and Hannah (1 Sam.2:5), as those who received from God new l...

 Exposition Luke’s elegantly written preface expresses his intent in writing this gospel. Luke is traditionally thought to be a Gentile doctor and cohort of Paul (though the gospel itself is anonymous and Luke is a common Greco-Roman name). Aware that “many” have already set down accounts about the events “that have been fulfilled” in their midst, that is, God’s promises to his people in Jesus, he decides to draw up his own to add to their number. Luke believes he has something to say about these things that will aid the story of Jesus having its full effect. One scholar notes that such an addition to a tradition of writings about a similar subject strives not “to strike out boldly in a radical departure from one’s predecessors, but rather to be incrementally innovative within a tradition, by embracing the best in previous performers and adding something of one’s own marked with an individual stamp” (cited in Garland, David E.; Clinton E. Arnold. Luke (Zondervan Exegetical Com...

God intends for you to live the life (Rev.21-22) he always meant you to live (Gen.1-2) with him on earth. We refused this life, broke relation with God, and brought decay and destruction to God’s good creation. God has both reclaimed (forgiven) and restored us (and his creation) to his eternal purpose for us fulfilled and made available to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Messiah. As we await Jesus’ return and full experience of the life God intends for us, we can now begin to live that life (partially and fragmentarily to be sure) as witness to the credibility of God and the reality of his promise of the fulfillment of all his purposes.

In a world of fake news, the only antidote is our ability to judge the reputation of the people supplying us with information. BY GLORIA ORIGGI There is an underappreciated paradox of knowledge that plays a pivotal role in our advanced hyper-connected liberal democracies: the greater the amount of information that circulates, the more we rely on so-called reputational devices to evaluate it. What makes this paradoxical is that the vastly increased access to information and knowledge we have today does not empower us or make us more cognitively autonomous. Rather, it renders us more dependent on other people’s judgments and evaluations of the information with which we are faced. We are experiencing a fundamental paradigm shift in our relationship to knowledge. From the “information age,” we are moving towards the “reputation age,” in which information will have value only if it is already filtered, evaluated, and commented upon by others. Seen in this light,  reputati...