Marginal Christianity

Communion     Sharing the life of the triune God means sharing in the rich communion of Father, Son, and Spirit throughout eternity. Communion builds on the Communication we considered in the first post in this series. Otherwise this Communication would remain external to us - coming from the outside. But in Christ this Communication between God and us is rooted in a profound Communion shared between us. The great New Covenant prophecy of Jer.31:31-34, fulfilled in Christ, shows this well: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord , when I will make a new                     covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not                               be like the covenant that I made with thei...

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016   Divine Parenting - Joel (1) Lent 6           In the construction of the Book of the Twelve Joel sits between Hosea and Amos, serving as a kind of bridge from the one to the other and introducing a major note, “the Day of the Lord,” not present in Hosea. Rendtorff calls Joel “a sort of collection of texts about the ‘Day of the Lord’” ( The Canonical Hebrew Bible, 277). It also includes an account of the national repentance of the people that is now used in many Ash Wednesday services to kick off Lent (1:12; 2:15-17).           The end of Hosea (14:8-9) counsels wisdom so the people can clearly understand why their relationship with their God has been so rocky. In Hosea the answer is unambiguous: spiritual adultery/I-dolatry. Apparently such wisdom has not been heeded. Joel begins with the people under assault from a massive army of locusts....