Category: Scripture
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With A Secret Hand
One of the joys of the newly published, Orthodox Study Bible (OSB), containing all the canonical Orthodox books of the Bible, is the fact that the Old Testament was carefully brought into agreement with the text of the Septuagint, long a standard and important liturgical translation for Orthodox Christians. The early Church generally used the…
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The Truth About the End Times
I live in the South – which means plenty of bumper stickers warning, “In case of rapture this car will be unmanned.” I grew up surrounded by preaching on the last days in a context that was decidedly Dispensationalist, Pre-Tribulation, etc. If you are a reader who does not know what all that means then…
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The Passions and the Reading of Scripture
The following comes from Dumitru Staniloae’s Orthodox Spirituality. It underscores the need for the struggle against the passions if we are to read Scripture rightly. “Man,” says St. Maximus, “has the absolute need for these two things, if he wants to keep the right way to God without error: the spiritual understanding of Scripture and…
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The Passion to Consume
I have mentioned the role that the passions play in our consumer culture. I would like to write in greater depth about that phenomenon. It permeates our culture – and yet, strangely, I do not find it to be a dominant concern of people when they think about their sins or when they think of…
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The Scripture in Creation
One of the many endearing stories of St. Seraphim of Sarov was a small act of devotion he engaged in during his years as a hermit. The area around his hermitage was designated by him with Biblical place-names. Thus one place was Jerusalem, another Bethlehem, etc. Thus did the great saint transform the trees and…
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To Hear the Word of God Frequently
I would not want to give a wrong impression that an Orthodox Christian needs less Scripture. We need more – but it should be used in a right manner. Many so-called Bible studies simply increase information in an already information-overloaded world. We need not so much information as the powerful work of the Word of…
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The Warfare of Prayer
A friend relates the story that when as a young, protestant teenager, she approached her pastor to ask about a prayer life, she was met with little or no answer. She had an instinct that there was more to prayer than she knew – but she was living in a tradition that knew little about…
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Scripture and the Church
I recently encountered a use of Scripture in a web posting that was alarming to a degree. The writer (who was not apparently a believer) sought to use Scripture to prove that God was a murderer and that the Bible was an immoral book. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on why certain approaches…
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St. Gregory the Theologian on our Ransom by God
One of the greatest orators of his age, St. Gregory the Theologian (also known as Gregory Nazianzus), is considered among the most central of Church fathers. His work, and that of St. Basil the Great, did much to win the day for the Nicene Creed (by God’s grace) and to secure its completion at the…
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Justice and Mercy – With Thanks to the Pontificator
Fr. Al Kimel has recently posted an article (The Injustice of Grace) on the triumph of God’s mercy that is well worth reading. The following is an excerpt in which he quotes passages from St. Isaac the Syrian and St. Antony the Great: The seventh century ascetical master, St. Isaac the Syrian, boldly challenged the portrayal…
I hope adding these words will be helpful. I’m adding them mainly to flesh out the meaning and use of…