Sublime

Jesus’ whole work was aimed at announcing that the day of mourning, of exile, of necessary and god-ordained national separateness, was coming to an end. His claim that Israel’s god was acting to fulfil the ancient promises in and through his own work was therefore seen to be deeply threatening by the self-appointed guardians of Israel’s heritage.

Because the woman’s illness is the result of impersonal forces, the pastor, somewhere deeper than she can admit, wonders whether to pray for a personal intervention.

The church loses community when its relationships become instruments. When it loses community, it loses the resonance of revelation itself. It is no longer a living community (a life-community, a phrase Bonhoeffer uses that I’ll unpack below) but is alienated from the world and therefore from the living God, who moves in the world as the minister o

30And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. 31Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; I have returned their conduct upon their heads, says the Lord GOD.

The Bible therefore is one witness to God's empowering presence in human affairs, along with other important testimonies. The other testimonies include sacred documents of the African-American experience—such as the speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, the music of the blues, jazz,

His announcement of the kingdom was a warning of imminent catastrophe, a summons to an immediate change of heart and direction of life, an invitation to a new way of being Israel.

This is not simply a problem for Israel; it is not simply a problem for the world (though it is of course both of those as well). It is a problem for God, as Romans 3:1-8 makes clear. God's single saving plan has apparently been thwarted. How is he then going to be faithful not only to the promises made to Israel but to the promises made through Is

The Bible was written

he contends that philosophy has been overly concerned with knowledge (epistemology). This, he believes, turns all our relationships into instruments, alienating us from the world (to give him a little of Rosa’s language).