https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/20180916sermon.mp3
Texts: Jeremiah 29:1-7; Revelation 21: 9-14, 22-25
It’s been observed that the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city.
If you want to get a little more technical, the Bible begins in the formless and void, and ends with a warning that if anyone changes any of the words in the book of Revelation that God will bring on them the plagues so vividly described within.
But if we’re willing to treat the first chapter of Genesis as something of an introduction, and if we’re willing to bracket the very end of Revelation as a bit of first century copyright language, theologically aggressive as it may be…and if we set aside that rather than being like a single book, the Bible is more like a library of books, representing a tradition that evolves over a period of several thousand years, now bound together under one cover that we might consider how we carry forward this evolving tradition in our time…If we can go with those parameters, then the Bible does indeed begin in a garden, and end in a city.
From garden to city does make for an intriguing narrative arc.
The garden, of course,...