What a motley crew, a seemingly mismatched band of brothers—a red-headed dwarf, a wispy Elfin, a quartet of hairy-toed hobbits and a couple of fumbling and feuding humans. It's a strange and unlikely assembly, especially when arrayed against the overwhelming and foreboding forces of evil that surround them. An odd and rag-tag bunch with the most improbable mission…to save the world! 

It's the "Fellowship of the Ring" in Tolkien's massive narrative, and it's not at all unlike the odd collection of improbable characters who made up John's fledging churches standing over-against the massive power and might of the world's only superpower, the Roman Empire.

St. Paul describes them: 

Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth, but God chose w…