the God of Justice.
In "Birth of Christianity" on page 182
"And how does one know that God is just? Because God stood against the Egyptian Empire to save some doomed slaves. God does not simply prefer Jews to Egyptians. God does not simply prefer slaves to masters. The only true God prefers justice to injustice, righteousness to unrighteousness, and is therefore God the liberator."
Jesus asks the disciples, at one point in some of the gospels, to go out two by two (animals into the ark?) without money or spare clothes to the villages and to stay (in one house only) wherever they are welcomed and to eat whatever they are given and to heal the sick. It's just crossed my mind that they are NOT asked to "preach the good news" but only to heal the sick.
The way the author of B of C puts it is a revelation.
"Jesus' primary focus was on peasants dispossessed by Roman commercialisation and Herodian urbanisation in the late '20's. The itinerants as the just-recently-dispossessed destitute and the householders as the possibly-soon-to-be-possessed poor are brought together into a new family, a companionship of empowerment that is the kingdom of God. It does not break families apart but regroups those families torn apart already (or soon to be torn apart across the generations.)
Also, on page 321,
"Whenever, in the New Testament, you read the term "poor" in English, it is "destitute" in Greek."
It's a fundamental difference.
Again, on page 282,
"a God who opposed systemic evil not because it was systemic but because it was evil."
Suddenly, the"Kingdom of God" makes sense!
In "Birth of Christianity" on page 182
"And how does one know that God is just? Because God stood against the Egyptian Empire to save some doomed slaves. God does not simply prefer Jews to Egyptians. God does not simply prefer slaves to masters. The only true God prefers justice to injustice, righteousness to unrighteousness, and is therefore God the liberator."
Jesus asks the disciples, at one point in some of the gospels, to go out two by two (animals into the ark?) without money or spare clothes to the villages and to stay (in one house only) wherever they are welcomed and to eat whatever they are given and to heal the sick. It's just crossed my mind that they are NOT asked to "preach the good news" but only to heal the sick.
The way the author of B of C puts it is a revelation.
"Jesus' primary focus was on peasants dispossessed by Roman commercialisation and Herodian urbanisation in the late '20's. The itinerants as the just-recently-dispossessed destitute and the householders as the possibly-soon-to-be-possessed poor are brought together into a new family, a companionship of empowerment that is the kingdom of God. It does not break families apart but regroups those families torn apart already (or soon to be torn apart across the generations.)
Also, on page 321,
"Whenever, in the New Testament, you read the term "poor" in English, it is "destitute" in Greek."
It's a fundamental difference.
Again, on page 282,
"a God who opposed systemic evil not because it was systemic but because it was evil."
Suddenly, the"Kingdom of God" makes sense!
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