Casas da Nova Aliança: chaves antropológicas, apelos ecológicos

The “house” appears frequently in the landscape of the New Testament. Seen from many perspectives, it attracts many facets of human life: anthropological, sociological, psychological and even ecological. Here we look at the life of houses, both within and without: at how Jesus in his public ministry gave them priority and how private houses were placed at the service of the spread of the Gospel at the beginning and development of the early apostolic churches. We can then observe that the word and the reality “house” were also used in a metaphorical sense, referring to realities of a higher order. Extending its metaphorical sense further, planet Earth has been recently seen as the “common house” of humans and of all living creatures and the natural world. The metaphor of the “common house” refers to the human, animal, vegetal and natural kingdom, and invites humans to live together harmoniously and respectfully in a house that belongs to them but also to all other beings.