What do you think, everyone—let’s not ever settle in to these screen-mediated pseudo-gatherings as if this arrangement could ever be described as “normal.” Right? God decides what is normal. We should always remember that. So far, it is only the resurrection of the crucified Christ that has ever ushered in a situation that can properly be described as “the new normal.” From the moment his death-defeating foot touched the ground, everything changed. Since then, normative humanity defeats sin and death, and anything else will be found to fall short, its days numbered. Search the scriptures–Christ is the “second man” and the “last Adam,” which means that, in him, the new humanity is born. Nothing is more progressive than rooting our hopes and anchoring our decisions in the kingdom that still lies ahead—his coming kingdom. Nothing is more “safe” than these words:
“Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.”
Ultimately Zoom can’t fulfill Christ’s command for his followers to gather, or satisfy the need of the human soul. That said–I’ve enjoyed our times together on screen, and I think the Lord has been pleased to use them, as if we were together in the flesh—since as of now we have no other choice.
We’re still trying to tweak how we use the platform. (May we have very few more chances to improve!) For this coming week (meeting details will follow), the plan is to keep the scripture up on screen, and I’ll still highlight and note things right in the text, but we’ll take it in shorter chunks. This time around, I’ll make a few observations on five or six verses, then pause to discuss with the teaching group, and you can type in your thoughts or questions in the chat box then. We’ll pace it based on how the discussion flows. Perhaps we’ll cycle through that process a few times and cover the whole chapter, up to 4:1. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll all get caught up in a deep discussion of one point and not get very “far” at all. We’ll try to let the Spirit direct our discussion.
To help you participate, I’m posting the passage of scripture here this time around:
Philippians 3 Passage for Zoom Study
This document matches what I’ll have up on screen. If you’d like, you can download it and print it out, and make your own mark-ups to organize your thoughts before the study. Or you can just follow along with what’s on screen.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, until we meet again.