Hello John

I read your posts with interest. I don’t have time to do justice to all that you’ve said in this one, but I wanted to join up with two elements of your commentary.

Firstly, the "covenant community of the Creator God" (the family of Abrahm, first Israel, now incorporating Gentile followers of the Messiah, Jesus) in my understanding is called into service for the sake of the world, the community beyond itself. To serve God’s ‘eternal purpose’. Not the other way around. I think this is a major paradigm shift that the Christian community needs to rediscover. Lesslie Newbigin writes about this, though I’ve yet to read as much of his writings as I’d like to.

Secondly, the covenant community are called to become authentic humans. Not superhumans. To show by humility and embrace of Reality (things as they really are, not as we’d like them to be, including our humanity, weakness, vunerabiliy etc. ) what it means to be human (i.e weak, vunerable, open). The gift of the spirit is to restore the humanness which evil has robbed us from. Many people who are not readily associated with Christianity clearly have a head start on many who are. But what I’m saying is that this is the calling of the covenant community, not the exclusive achievement of the same.

I don’t know if that resonates with you, at all? 

shalom! - john (eternalpurpose.org.uk)