Freddy Lam’s Reviews > Becoming God's Family: Why the Church Still Matters > Status Update

In dealing with community trauma, honesty before God through lament and praise reminds us of who we are. The former, a rebellious people who was exiled because of our silence to the plights of the poor and vulnerable. The latter, a subversive, rebellious, and political declaration that despite surrounded by so many gods, principalities and powers, rulers, government and nation states, the King and his kingdom reign!

Rehoboam, the prophet, the man of God, finally the mystery is solved! But more importantly, Israel (the Northern Kingdom) is a cautionary tale of shaping a community in our own image, idolatry, and how truth-telling is critical to the flourishing. We need prophets of Yahweh to warn us from relying on our own strength against three armies, and demonstrate our complete dependence as does Josiah before all community.

Bear witness and wait for God to act, from individuality to collective dependence and God yielding allegiance, to live into the reality of our image as witness in a world determine to offer pseudo-alternatives, we are siblings stronger than marriage and blood in Christ.