Peter, thanks. It’s funny how you get used to that crack in the record. I’d miss it if it ever went away.

I agree that Pentecost got slightly overlooked, though obviously it’s implicit in the sentence ‘The microcosm is spinning into the light again, but with a new king, a new lord, and the Spirit of God possessing the hearts of its people’. Pentecost itself seems to me to be fundamentally bound up with the experience of and expectation of eschatological transition. For Peter it is as much a forward-looking event (Acts 2:17-21, 34-35) as a consequence of what has happened. Joel’s Spirit is a Spirit of prophecy that discerns what God is going to do in Israel. But to Paul’s mind there is the overlay of the renewal of humanity in the resurrection ‘according to the Spirit of holiness’ (Rom. 1:4; cf. 1 Cor. 15:42-50).

I’m not sure what you’re saying about the ‘old paradigms’. Maybe I need to interpret the parable a little. The ‘paving stones’ are not old theological paradigms; they represent post-Christendom society. The weeds are not some new or emerging theological paradigm. They represent the church in the West as it finds itself marginalized and misunerstood - and must, I think, discover new ways of establishing itself as a creational microcosm. The church once (sort of) provided the paving stones of western culture. Now the church must struggle to make its presence felt as renewed humanity between the cracks.

The article hasn’t yet been posted on Restoring Eden.