Advent 3: The Gospel for Everyone
Party clothes, reversals of fortune, release of prisoners: the good news for our time
One of the things American Christianity poisons the conversation with is the overly personal application of all of Scripture. Everything in the Bible can be applied to my personal existence, and all too often those of us raised within this sphere--particularly the white evangelical sphere--never learn to read the Bible in a way that lets us see where the texts are actually trying to go. Take for example our text today, the opening salvo of Isaiah 61. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” I heard this passage preached on a number of times growing up in this white, evangelical/charismatic context, and it was always taken in a couple of directions. One, this was talking about Jesus because Jesus quotes this passage in Luke. Two, the oppressed and the …
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