The way of imagination

  “I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,   with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,   one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4.1-6, NRSVUE )      It’s a dream as old as the first empire – to have one world, with everyone united with a single common purpose, worshipping the same God(s).   But how to unite the world?   Sadly, even today, the answer is usually the same as it’s always been – conquer it!   The typical strategy – in the time of Paul, as in our own day – is for one powerful nation to impose itself on others, thereby “liberating” or “civilizi...

  “So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone;   in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord,   in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (Ephesians 2.19-22, NRSVUE )      A religious world.   Where does one go in order to experience the presence and reality of God/the gods?   For most of human history, the answer was – go to a temple.   The ancient world was indeed choked full of temples, much like the modern world is replete with churches, synagogues, mosques, and various places of worship.   The ancient goddesses/gods were believed to “inhabit” their temples in some way; the image of the god in question symbolized the divinity’s having taken up residenc...

  ·         Biblical texts : Jeremiah 21.1-10; Psalm 89.19-33; Gospel of Luke 11.37-51       Not-so-great expectations .   Have you ever been disappointed by God?   I don’t believe that God can ever really disappoint us (since he’s perfectly good and faithful), but I’ve often felt disappointed because God didn’t do what I wanted him to do or things didn’t turn out the way I would have liked.   Does that sound familiar?   We have a tendency to approach God with expectations.   This is quite natural – we believe that God has the power to intervene in our lives and we approach him with a sense of expectancy that he is going to solve our problems.   However, a better strategy is to approach God with attentiveness – with ears that are ready to listen to his voice and hearts that are willing to obey what he tells us to do.   We see this dynamic at play again and again in both Luke’s Gos...

  “ While Apollos was in Corinth , Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Then he said, “Into what, then, were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” (Acts 19.1-3, NRSVUE )      Acts 19 begins with this fascinating episode of Paul finding 12 disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus (cf. Ac. 19.7; Lk. 5.33; 7.18; 11.1).   Of course, there were twelve …this is the last time that John the Baptist is mentioned in Luke-Acts.   There seems to be something “definitive” going on here.   This is the final phase of the transition from John to Jesus, a transition that John had himself alluded to (Lk. 3.15-17; cf. Ac. 1.4-5).   These “disciples” had most probably been converted to John’s baptism by Apollos (cf. Ac. 18.24-25). [...

  “…[Paul] argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.   This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.” (Acts 19.9-10, NRSVUE)      A cursory reading of Luke’s succinct summary of Paul’s almost-3-year-stay in Ephesus (cf. Ac. 20.31) can give the reader the impression that this was a mostly quiet time, a refreshing “academic hiatus” (daily lectures) from the usual rigours of apostolic life.   However, once we step back from the frame and consider the larger context of Paul’s activity that we discover in the New Testament, a very different picture emerges.   Several things demand acknowledgement.      First of all, while Paul continued to use the scholarly skills he had developed as a Pharisee, as an apostle of Jesus he had to pay his own way.   At this point in the history of the Church, to be an apostle (of Jesus) was to be a nobody – an individual ...