The words that we use to describe ourselves and others are significant. John the Baptist’s description of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as a ‘Brood of Vipers’ lies at the heart of a powerful prophetic critique.
In calling for Christ’s kingdom, we do not call for Christ to dominate over and against the world. Rather, his kingdom brings transformation of the world, so that the world corresponds with God’s justice and grace, enabling creation’s arrival at its fullest selfhood.
The Apostle Paul’s charge that those who are unwilling to work should not eat has often been taken in support of a callous form of conservatism. However, understood rightly, it reveals the way Christ speaks to all areas of life and labor.
Habakkuk 2:4—’The righteous person will live by his faith’—is a familiar text. The recognition that the faith in question may be God’s own faithfulness, rather than our own stumbling faith, may inspire a stronger confidence in us as we face a world of injustice.
Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is a challenging account of the one neglected at the gate, who ends up being exalted, while the one at ease within is cast out. This story has a particular contemporary resonance in the context of the recent events surrounding the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Psalm 14:1, though popularly employed to dismiss non-theists as foolish, is principally targeted against practical atheism, against those who believe that justice is without force in the universe and that all that matters is power.