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Advent Week 2: The Way of the Wilderness, Day 4

What portion of these instructions challenge you? How much of an alternative community is VPC?

by David Joynt on December 07, 2016


ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE

LUKE 3:10-14

Real repentance is deeply emotional and fiercely practical. The genuinely repentant heart leads to the genuinely different life. Fruits worthy of repentance result from moments of conviction worthy of attention. John doesn't just ask people to feel sorry for their misdeeds; he wants them to embrace new deeds. Jesus intends converts to join communities that display an alternative lifestyle. He wants people who are light in the darkness, and who follow his example, obeying his commandments. His Sermon on the Mount and teaching, taken seriously, form a lifestyle rooted in simplicity, honesty, generosity, justice, and love. John, in our passage, instructs us in compassion and care for the needy, instituting the first coat drive! He calls for integrity in business and accounting for tax-people, careful and fair use of power by soldiers. 

What portion of these instructions challenge you?

How much of an alternative community is VPC?

FAMILY TIME: What makes your family special and different? Do any of these differences root in your faith?

Tags: advent, wilderness

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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