The Blue Parakeet

The fall turned the woman to seek dominance over the man, and the fall turned the man to seek dominance over the woman. A life of struggling for control is the way of life for the fallen. But the good news story of the Bible is that the fall eventually gives way to new creation; the fallen can be reborn and re-created. Sadly, the church has far too often perpetuated the fall as a permanent condition. Perpetuating the fall entails failing to restore creation conditions when it comes to male and female relationships. This is against both Jesus and Paul, who each read the Bible as a story that moves from creation (oneness) to new creation (oneness).
Jesus informed his disciples that although Moses permitted divorce, which annihilates the Creator’s designed union in marriage, divorce was
not God’s original intention. Permanence, love, oneness, and mutuality were God’s intent in original creation. Jesus, then, appeals to Story, to the original creation, to show how God’s people are supposed to live in the new creation. Moses’ permission for divorce pertains, so it seems to me, to a life too deeply marred by the fall. A Jesus community undoes the distortions of the fall because it seeks to live out the fullness of the Story.

The pattern of discernment is simply this: as we read the Bible and locate each item in its place in the Story, as we listen to God speak to us in our world through God’s ancient Word, we discern—through God’s Spirit and in the context of our community of faith—a pattern of how to livein our world. The church of every age is summoned by God to the Bible to listen so we can discern a pattern for living the gospel that is appropriate for our age. Discernment is part of the process we are called to live.

The redemptive plan of the Bible is to restore humans into a oneness relationship with God, self, others, and the world. This otherness problem is what the gospel “fixes,” and the story of the Bible is the story of God’s people struggling with otherness and searching for oneness.