by Eron Henry | Apr 4, 2025 | Lent 2025
The gospel presents more than a religious belief system or moral code. It unveils an alternative ordering of human existence. In Jesus Christ, God reveals a fundamentally different way of structuring life than the dominant patterns that shape our social, economic, and political relationships. This alternative emerges not as theoretical ideal but as incarnate reality in the person and ministry of Jesus.
The dominant ordering of human existence typically revolves around hierarchies of value, accumulation of power, and mechanisms of competition. Success means ascending these hierarchies, securing advantages, and positioning oneself favorably against others. Even religious systems often reinforce these patterns through hierarchical structures and merit-based frameworks for divine approval.
Christ reveals a radically different ordering. His ministry systematically inverts conventional hierarchies: elevating children, women, foreigners, and the socially marginalized while challenging those at the apex of religious and political power. His teaching redefines greatness as service rather than domination: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). His economic vision prioritizes sufficiency for all over accumulation by few, as evidenced in feeding miracles and early church practices.
What makes this alternative ordering particularly subversive is that it originates not from human social theory but from the character of God revealed in Christ. Jesus’ boundary-crossing love, solidarity with the suffering, and ultimate self-giving at the cross demonstrate that the divine life itself operates according to principles of generosity, vulnerability, and mutual flourishing rather than domination, security, and competition.
The resurrection then validates this alternative ordering as not merely idealistic but ultimately more aligned with reality than systems built on power and exploitation. The vindication of the crucified one suggests that the universe itself is structured according to self-giving love rather than coercive power, that reality’s deepest currents flow toward reconciliation rather than division.
For Christian disciples, embracing this alternative ordering means more than personal piety or occasional charity. It requires reimagining economic relationships beyond scarcity mentalities, political engagement beyond partisan power struggles, social connections beyond homogeneous groupings, and environmental relationships beyond utilitarian exploitation.
This divine alternative doesn’t withdraw from existing systems but creates counter-communities whose practices and priorities bear witness that another way of organizing life is possible, communities shaped by Christ’s pattern rather than prevailing cultural assumptions.
Prayer
Creator God,
You who have revealed in Jesus Christ an alternative ordering of human existence, we thank You for showing us that the dominant patterns of our world are neither inevitable nor aligned with Your intentions. In Christ, we glimpse not merely religious truth but a fundamentally different way of being human.
Forgive us for conforming to this world’s systems even while claiming allegiance to Your kingdom. We confess how readily we adopt cultural assumptions about success, security, and status while merely adding a veneer of religious language. Deliver us from the subtle idolatry that pays lip service to Your alternative while organizing our actual lives around values You have called into question.
Reorder our economic lives according to sufficiency and generosity rather than accumulation and comparison. Challenge our political imaginations to seek flourishing for all rather than advantage for our group. Transform our social connections to reflect the boundary-crossing solidarity we see in Jesus.
Form us into communities that embody this alternative ordering so convincingly that others might glimpse through our common life what a Christ-shaped world looks like. May our practices of sharing resources, extending hospitality, seeking reconciliation, and caring for creation demonstrate that another way is possible.
When living by Your alternative feels costly or countercultural, remind us that in Christ You have revealed what is ultimately most real and life-giving. Give us courage to resist the pressure to conform to patterns that distort Your image in humanity.
Through Jesus Christ, in whom we see not just who You are but who we are called to become.
Amen.
by Eron Henry | Apr 3, 2025 | Lent 2025
Throughout Scripture, the gospel message consistently engages with fundamental questions of social organization, specifically how power is distributed, how material goods are shared, and who has access to community resources and opportunities. Far from being peripheral concerns added to a “spiritual” gospel, these social dimensions are at the very center of biblical faith from Genesis through Revelation.
The Torah establishes a social vision that systematically limits the concentration of power and wealth. Sabbath laws, Jubilee provisions, and gleaning requirements created a framework where economic exploitation was constrained and resources were periodically redistributed. These weren’t merely humanitarian additions but fundamental expressions of covenant faithfulness. To know God meant to participate in just social arrangements.
The prophetic tradition intensified this connection. Isaiah, Amos, and Micah condemned religious observance divorced from social justice. Their critique targeted specific economic and political practices: land monopolization, corruption in courts, exploitation of workers, and neglect of vulnerable populations. Their vision of restoration consistently included transformed social relations where power and resources were justly distributed.
Jesus’ ministry continued this trajectory. His proclamation of the kingdom directly addressed questions of power (challenging religious and political authorities), material goods (calling for economic sharing and criticizing wealth accumulation), and access (removing barriers that excluded marginalized groups from community participation). His table fellowship deliberately reconstructed social boundaries, creating new patterns of inclusion that challenged existing hierarchies.
The early church embodied this social vision through concrete practices, sharing possessions, crossing social boundaries, establishing new economic relationships, and creating alternative power structures. Acts describes a community where “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34), echoing Deuteronomy’s vision of a society without poverty.
What makes this biblical witness particularly powerful is its consistency across diverse historical contexts and literary genres. Whether in law codes, prophetic oracles, wisdom literature, gospel narratives, or apostolic letters, Scripture persistently engages questions of how communities should organize power, distribute goods, and structure access.
This biblical concern for social relations emerges not from external ideological frameworks imposed on the text but from theology itself, specifically, from understanding God as creator of all, redeemer of the oppressed, and sovereign over all human arrangements. The gospel is “social” not because believers add social concerns to a spiritual message, but because God’s redemptive purpose encompasses the entire fabric of human relationships.
Prayer
God of Righteous Community,
You who established covenants not merely with individual souls but with households, communities, and nations, we praise You for Your consistent concern with how we order our life together. From Sinai to Pentecost, You have revealed that knowing You means organizing our social relations according to Your justice and compassion.
Forgive us for divorcing “spiritual” concerns from questions of power, goods, and access. We confess the temptation to reduce Your gospel to private belief while leaving social arrangements unchallenged. Deliver us from false dichotomies that separate personal faith from collective responsibility.
Open our eyes to see how power operates in our communities, who holds authority and who lacks voice, whose interests are protected and whose are overlooked. Give us courage to name and challenge concentrations of power that contradict Your vision of mutual flourishing.
Transform our relationship with material goods. Free us from both consumerism that devours resources and individualism that hoards them. Guide us toward practices of simplicity, generosity, and common care that reflect Your abundance shared equitably among all Your children.
Make us advocates for access and inclusion. Where barriers of race, class, gender, ability, or nationality restrict full participation in community life, empower us to dismantle these obstacles as a fundamental expression of gospel faithfulness.
When addressing social relations brings conflict or cost, remind us that this is at the heart of Your revelation, not its periphery. May our communities become laboratories where Your justice takes tangible form, signs and foretastes of Your coming reign where all relationships will be ordered according to Your perfect love.
Through Jesus Christ, who proclaimed good news to the poor and release to the captives.
Amen.
by Eron Henry | Apr 2, 2025 | Lent 2025
From its inception, the Christian proclamation has disrupted comfortable assumptions, challenged established powers, and demanded radical reorientations of both personal and communal life. This inherently confrontational quality explains why the gospel has consistently provoked resistance throughout history.
Jesus Himself demonstrated the gospel’s provocative nature. His proclamation of God’s kingdom directly challenged religious and political authorities, questioned established social hierarchies, and redefined what constituted true faithfulness. Far from seeking universal approval, Jesus’ message attracted fierce opposition, ultimately leading to His execution as a perceived threat to social order.
The early church continued this disruptive witness, refusing to confine their message to private religious matters that wouldn’t disturb Roman social arrangements. Their insistence that “Jesus is Lord” implicitly challenged imperial claims and dominant cultural values. Their communities embodied alternative social practices that contradicted prevailing norms around status, wealth, and power. Consequently, they faced persecution precisely because their message was revolutionary proclamation.
What makes the gospel inherently disruptive is that it reveals both human brokenness and divine alternatives with uncompromising clarity. It names sin not merely in individualistic terms but in its systemic manifestations through economic exploitation, political oppression, and social exclusion. Simultaneously, it proclaims God’s radically different vision for human community, one structured around self-giving love rather than domination, generosity rather than accumulation, and inclusion rather than hierarchy.
Efforts to domesticate this message into “easily agreed-upon matters” fundamentally distort its character. When the gospel becomes reduced to affirming conventional morality, providing psychological comfort, or reinforcing existing social arrangements, it has been stripped of its prophetic power. The genuine gospel necessarily creates tension by exposing the gap between divine intent and human reality.
This challenges Christian communities to resist the temptation toward conflict-avoidance or people-pleasing. Authentic gospel proclamation will inevitably provoke disagreement precisely because it addresses matters of ultimate significance where human resistance to divine transformation runs deepest. The measure of faithful witness isn’t widespread approval but truthful engagement with the radical claims of Christ.
Prayer
God of Uncompromising Truth,
You who sent prophets to speak uncomfortable words and ultimately gave us Your Son whose message disturbed the powerful and privileged, forgive our tendency to reduce Your gospel to innocuous pleasantries that demand nothing and change nothing.
We confess our fear of conflict and our desire for approval that often lead us to soften Your message until it loses its transformative edge. We admit how tempting it is to discuss only those aspects of faith that generate easy consensus while avoiding the challenging demands of discipleship.
Embolden us to proclaim the full gospel in all its disruptive power. Give us courage to name sin in both personal and systemic manifestations, to speak truth about exploitation, injustice, and exclusion even when doing so brings opposition or cost.
Guard us against the subtle temptation to measure success by popularity rather than faithfulness. Remind us that Jesus Himself was rejected by religious authorities and executed by political powers precisely because His message challenged their comfortable assumptions.
When we face resistance for speaking difficult truths, sustain us with the knowledge that such opposition often confirms rather than contradicts our alignment with Your prophetic word. Where we have compromised Your message to avoid tension, renew our commitment to the gospel’s radical claims.
Help us discern the difference between unnecessary provocation and necessary confrontation. May we speak truth with both courage and compassion, never softening the message’s demands yet always expressing them through genuine love for those challenged by its implications.
Through Jesus Christ, who did not come to bring easy peace but the sword of truth that divides falsehood from reality.
Amen.
by Eron Henry | Apr 1, 2025 | Lent 2025
In the shadow of imperial Rome, where Caesar claimed titles like “Lord,” “Savior,” and “Son of God,” the early Christian proclamation that “Jesus Christ is Lord” constituted nothing less than a revolutionary political theology. Paul’s declaration to the Philippian church represents one of the most audacious counter-imperial statements in the New Testament, challenging the very foundations of Roman political ideology.
The historical and geographical context of this proclamation amplifies its subversive nature. Philippi was no ordinary Roman colony, but a special settlement established for veterans of Rome’s civil wars. As a Roman military colony, it maintained strong imperial allegiance and Roman cultural identity. The city literally embodied Roman imperial victory, with the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by Octavian and Mark Antony in 42 BC occurring on its doorstep. This battle marked the decisive shift from republican to imperial Rome.
Into this distinctly Roman environment—where imperial cult worship flourished and loyalty to Caesar was expected—Paul writes of a crucified Jewish teacher who has been exalted above every earthly power. The language of Philippians 2:9-11 deliberately echoes Isaiah 45:23, where YHWH declares that every knee will bow to Him alone. By applying this text to Jesus, Paul makes the extraordinary claim that Jesus shares in divine identity and authority.
The political implications were unmistakable. When Paul proclaimed that “every knee should bow” to Jesus, his first-century audience would have immediately recognized the parallel to imperial ceremonies where subjects demonstrated submission to Caesar. The confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord” directly challenged the loyalty oath to Caesar as lord. The Philippian Christians were effectively pledging allegiance to an executed enemy of the state over the living emperor.
What makes this proclamation even more remarkable is that it appears within the “Christ hymn” (Philippians 2:5-11), which describes Christ’s self-emptying and humiliation before His exaltation. Unlike Caesar, who grasped at divine honors, Christ willingly surrendered status and power, embracing the shameful death of a slave. Paul presents a radically different model of authority based not on domination but on self-giving love.
This alternative political theology had implications for the Philippian community. If Christ rather than Caesar is Lord, then the community’s primary allegiance and source of identity shifted from the empire to the ecclesia. Their “citizenship” (politeuomai) was now in heaven (Philippians 3:20), creating an alternative political community amid the Roman colony.
The message remains equally challenging today. In contexts where political, economic, or cultural powers demand ultimate allegiance, the confession “Jesus is Lord” continues to function as a boundary-setting claim that relativizes all other loyalties. Christ’s lordship calls Christians to evaluate every system, ideology, and institution against the measure of the crucified and risen one who emptied Himself for the sake of others.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians reminds us that authentic Christian faith can never be fully accommodated to any earthly power structure. It always maintains a critical edge, calling every authority to account before the one to whom, ultimately, every knee will bow.
Prayer
Sovereign Lord Jesus,
In a world of competing powers and principalities, we declare again what the Philippian church boldly proclaimed: That You alone are Lord, above every authority, every system, every empire.
When earthly powers demand our ultimate allegiance, remind us of Your exaltation to the highest place, not through force or domination, but through the path of humble service and self-emptying love.
Like those first believers in Philippi, who confessed Your lordship in the shadow of imperial might, may we too find courage to live as citizens of heaven while still journeying through the empires of this world.
Forgive us when we bend our knees too readily before other lords, before wealth and comfort, before national identity and political ideology, before all powers that promise security through strength rather than sacrifice.
Help us to embody a different kind of community, where status comes through service, where greatness is measured by generosity, where power is expressed in love.
May our lives together become a living witness to the subversive truth that the crucified one is Lord, that the way of the cross supersedes the way of the sword, that Your kingdom relativizes all earthly kingdoms.
Until that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
by Eron Henry | Mar 31, 2025 | Lent 2025
When we examine the Gospel narratives closely, we discover Jesus operated within a highly charged political environment where Roman occupation, religious sectarianism, and social stratification created a complex web of tensions. Jesus’ ministry unfolded against this backdrop, and He was repeatedly drawn into the political and social debates of His day.
The Gospel accounts reveal numerous attempts to entrap Jesus through politically loaded questions. When asked about paying taxes to Caesar (Mark 12:13-17), Jesus was confronted with a perfect dilemma: support the Roman tax and alienate his followers, or oppose it and risk charges of sedition. His nuanced response—”Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”—transcended the binary options while subtly questioning the legitimacy of imperial claims.
Similarly, when presented with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), Jesus faced another trap. Affirming Mosaic law would position Him against Roman authority (which reserved capital punishment for itself), while rejecting it would undermine His credibility as a teacher of Israel. Again, Jesus found a third way that exposed the hypocrisy of the religious establishment while preserving both justice and mercy.
Jesus also engaged with existing theological-political debates among Jewish leaders. The questions about Sabbath observance, ritual purity, and association with “sinners” were not merely religious matters but involved competing visions of Jewish identity under Roman rule. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots represented different political strategies—accommodation, collaboration, withdrawal, or resistance. Jesus’ practices and teachings implicitly challenged each of these approaches.
What distinguishes Jesus’ political engagement, however, is that He refused to be contained within existing categories. When questioned about the greatest commandment—a live debate among schools of Jewish thought—Jesus combined two separate commandments (love of God and neighbor), effectively reframing the entire discussion. When asked about divorce, tribute money, or resurrection, Jesus consistently transcended partisan positions to offer transformative perspectives.
This pattern reveals something significant about Jesus’ approach to political engagement. He neither withdrew from political questions nor allowed Himself to be co-opted by any faction. Instead, he engaged these issues on His own terms, often exposing the inadequate assumptions underlying the debates themselves. His responses consistently prioritized human dignity, challenged systems of exclusion, and pointed toward the in-breaking of God’s kingdom as the ultimate context for all political questions.
For Christians navigating polarized political landscapes, Jesus’ example offers neither simple answers nor permission to disengage. Rather, it calls us to a more demanding approach: engaging political questions from a stance rooted in kingdom values, refusing false dichotomies, and maintaining primary allegiance to God’s reign even as we participate in earthly politics. Like Jesus, we are called not to escape political realities but to transform them through prophetic witness to a higher order.
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You who walked the politically charged pathways of occupied Judea, grant us wisdom to navigate our own complex political landscape.
When we are tempted to withdraw from difficult social issues, remind us how You engaged the questions of Your day. When others try to force us into simplistic categories, show us how to transcend false dichotomies as You did.
Give us discernment to see beyond the traps laid in political discourse, to recognize when questions themselves contain faulty assumptions. Help us to respond not with partisan reflexes, but with the revolutionary wisdom that places human dignity at the center.
May we likewise engage without being co-opted, speak truth without becoming pawns in power games, and maintain our primary allegiance to Your Kingdom while still serving the common good in our earthly cities.
In a world of political tribalism, make us agents of Your boundary-crossing love. In spaces of polarization, help us create room for transformative dialogue. Where others seek to entrap and divide, let us, like You, find the unexpected third way that opens possibilities for justice and peace.
We pray in your name, You who refused both the throne and the sword, yet challenged the powers of Your day through the revolutionary politics of Your coming Kingdom.
Amen.
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