{"id":1737,"date":"2006-01-08T08:53:34","date_gmt":"2006-01-08T08:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1737"},"modified":"2017-09-06T23:40:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T17:40:30","slug":"exhortation-first-sunday-after-epiphany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2006\/01\/exhortation-first-sunday-after-epiphany\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhortation, First Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\">\n<\/head><body><p><\/p><p> God\u2019s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church.  God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel\u2019s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission.  Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead her idolatries and sins caused the Lord\u2019s name to be blasphemed. <\/p>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <br> God\u2019s people are a missionary people because God is a missionary God.  In the eternal life of the Trinity, the Son eternally goes out from the Father in the Spirit, and the Spirit is sent out by the Father and Son.  As the Trinity unfolds in time, the Father sends the Son, and the ascended Son sends the Spirit He received from the Father. <\/p>\n<p> The church is the climax of this series of sendings.  As the body of Christ and people born of the Spirit, the church is brought into this double mission.  When He breathes the Spirit on His disciples, Jesus says: As the Father as sent Me, so I send you.  The church\u2019s mission is not a merely human activity.  The church is a missionary church because we have been caught through the Spirit into the mission of the Triune God. <\/p>\n<p> Epiphany, which began on January 6, means \u201cmanifestation,\u201d and the season commemorates the appearance of Jesus to the magi, the firstfruits of the gathering of the Gentiles.  Epiphany reminds us that Jesus came as the Lght of the world, and that we are sent to call the nations to that Light.  It reminds us that mission is not a program of the church, but the very essence of the church.  Epiphany season is an exhortation to be what we confess ourselves to be, an \u201capostolic\u201d church, a sent people.   <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel\u2019s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission. Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead her idolatries and sins caused [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-ecclesiology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Exhortation, First Sunday after Epiphany<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"God&#8217;s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. 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