I am enjoying the new Four Views on The Apostle Paul, edited by Mike Bird. I’ve found especially interesting the essay by Luke Timothy Johnson, who sums up his essay with this:
In his most sustained reflection on the nature and task of the church, Paul proposes that the role of the church is to be the place in the world where the work of Christ in reconciling humans to God should be realized in practice by the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:1-22) and the harmony between male and female (5:32). The task of the church, he suggests, is to be a sacrament of the world’s possibility (3:10) (p. 96).
Faith Improvised 
S Wu
Great quote, and profound. The embodiment of Christ in the world is such an important task of the church.
Does Johnson say anything about reconciling the cosmos? And what do you think about Doug Campbell’s view?
timgombis
Yes, S., there’s a paragraph I wanted to take from his essay and post, which I still might do. I think that’s the strength of his angle of approach, in my opinion–he starts from the cosmic and works toward the community and then the individual, whereas more modern approaches begin, obviously, with the individual and work outward from there.
I’m not yet into Campbell, though I’m pretty familiar with his work. It’ll be interesting to see what he hits when he has some space constraints!
S Wu
I watched the video review by Chris Tilling on the book and he has high praises on Campbell’s chapter. I wonder what you think of his chapter? Thank you for the new post with another quote from Johnson. I will get the book!