Marginal Christianity

We Gentiles are proof that Pentecost is true! The Spirit poured out on the Jews in Jerusalem that first Pentecost transformed them into the Abrahamic Israel God promised and his blessing started to spread – 3000 people that first day. Then on to Judea/Samaria and the ends of the earth, including you and me. As we are caught up in this ongoing movement ignited by Pentecost the surprising  gifts and blessings of the Spirit engulf us as well. We are new people made into a new community “ turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). And so it goes, and so it has gone. Failures and embarrassment aplenty, to be sure. But still the ongoing work of the Pentecostal Spirit. I  close with this from Peter Leithart: Why celebrate Pentecost? An old Pentecostal riff, in shadowy imitation of Christopher Smartt . Because the Spirit is the hovering wind that forms the formlessness, fills the void, brightens the darkness. Because the Spirit is the breath that gives Adam life. Becau...

Luke’s Pentecost tale is a triad of stories: -Acts 2:1-13 the experience of "tongues," -Acts 2:14-41 Peter's speech and the response of the crowd, and -Acts 2:42-47 the discipleship community of goods. The first two parts, what we usually consider the Pentecost story is fascinating, perplexing, strange, and a bit fabulous. And if we don’t read to closely we get away with sentimentally celebrating the “birthday: of the church and move on without further ado. Closer reading, however, will not allow that. If in the gift of the Spirit Jesus returns to indwell his church, that is, if God “comes again” to them, we should expect a thorough reworking of the church’s life in every area. This is what happened to Israel when God called Abraham and Sarah and redeemed their family from Egypt and made them his own people and we should expect nothing less when his Spirit is poured out on them. And it is that reworking of the shape of the church’s life we find if we include ...

The Spirit Jesus poured out at Pentecost on the Jews in Jerusalem births a new Abrahamic community and the risen Jesus promises them the Spirit will do the same through them in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth (1:8). As that work unfolds throughout this dispersal of the church throughout the earth we can watch the Spirit forming these new Abrahamic communities as the form of Jesus’ presence in their world – his coming again as I have called it. And I find four “C’s” marking these new communities: conversion, community, compassion, and conflict. Listed below are texts in Acts where each of these four “C’s” are seen: Conversion - 2:37-41; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 8:26-40; 9:1-19 (parallels in 22:6-16; 26:12-18), 35; ch.10; 11:21, 24; 12:24; 13:48-49; 14:1, 21; 16:5, 11-15; 17:4,12,34; 18:8; 19:26; 28:24 Community - 2:42-47; 4:31,32-37; 6:1-6; 9:17-18; ch.10; 11:26; 13:1-3; ch.15; 18:23; 20:2; 28:28 Compassion - 3:1-10; 4:30; 5:12-16; 8:4-8; 9:17,18,32-43; 11:2...

Tongues of Fire The tongues of fire and the speaking the gospel to all the visitors to Jerusalem in their own languages obviously grab every readers attention and interest in Luke’s Pentecost account. We considered some of resonances of fire for Jewish hearers in the first post in this series on “Word, Wind, and Fire.” What resonances, however, would the proclamation of the gospel is all the different languages represented in the crowd have for them? First, we need to notice that the “crowd” present at this event is Jewish visitors to Jerusalem for the  festival not all Gentile nations. Pentecost is an inner-Jewish event though certainly with significance for the wider world of nations. Too often, we apply it directly to the nations but a careful reading of Acts constrains us at this point. The “all flesh” of Joel’s prophecy that Peter uses to interpret what is happening (Acts 2:17) refers to the indiscriminate outpouring of the Spirit on all Jews not on every human bein...

We have just celebrated Jesus’ ascension to the Father to take up his royal rule on the heavenly throne. Before we can catch our breath from that, though, he’s coming back again! Pentecost is really Jesus’ second coming in the biblical narrative. He’s not the incarnate Son in this coming, to be sure. But it is the “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7). The form of his continuing presence in the world as he pursues God’s ultimate purpose. God never intended to leave his creation alone. From the first moments when he walked with our fore-parents in the Garden of Eden (Gen.3:8) God purposed to be near and dear to his human creatures. And that’s the story line of the Bible punctuated a key points with events hastening and deepening that divine nearness. Pentecost is another of those moments tracked by the church’s calendar. Luke story of Pentecost in Acts 2 is a rich telling of this key events. In my several posts on it we’ll explore a few aspects of it. In this first post I want to focus...

REDISCOVERING AMERICA Mark 3:31-35 A distinguished professor of American Church History once expressed the relationship of the church to the nation in the following slogan. America, he wrote, was "a nation with the soul of a church." If we asked about the American church, though, we’d have to say, in my view, we have a "church with the soul of a nation." These two slogans mark the parameters of the dilemma American Christians face when they gather for worship on the Fourth of July weekend. For on this weekend in particular, the "church with the soul of a nation" lionizes the nation presumed to have "the soul of a church."  Unfortunately, truth - the truth about this nation - and integrity - the integrity of the church - are almost completely obscured. Illusion and expediency are the primary hosts at this bash! "The nation with the soul of a church" is a fiction. (That is, unless you have a pretty debased notion of what a chur...