Search results for: “buy your salvation”
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Put Your Money to Work – It’s for Your Salvation
Read more: Put Your Money to Work – It’s for Your SalvationAnd I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. (Luk 16:9) I recall a conversation long ago with a young, up-and-coming entrepreneur. He was a new member of the parish I was serving (Anglican). We had been speaking about stewardship – money. His comment to me was straightforward: “You make it sound like a man can buy his way into the Kingdom of God.” My answer was equally clear: “Yes, you can. But the price might be everything you have.” That was many years…
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Overcome Evil by Doing Good
Read more: Overcome Evil by Doing GoodDrawing on the Book of Proverbs, St. Paul offers a simple admonition to his readers: “…if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Romans 12:20) He then adds: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. It is a very simple statement. However, when anyone begins to suggest what that might look like, critics quickly begin to offer egregious examples that would ask us to bear the unbearable, with the inevitable conclusion: “Kill your enemies.” What is…
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The Temptations of Identity
Read more: The Temptations of Identity“Who am I?” The question of who we are is deceptively simple. When we begin to press the question, almost every answer that we can give is something other than the self. When we leave the (ideally) intimate communion of our early years and begin to forge our way into a social setting, an uncertainty begins to be our social companion. This questioning of identity (which is fairly normal) becomes the seedbed of shame as well as a life-long habit of seeking self-made “identities” to mask the nakedness of “who we are.” The dynamics surrounding all of this are ever-present.…
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Over Come Evil By Doing Good
Read more: Over Come Evil By Doing GoodDrawing on the Book of Proverbs, St. Paul offers a simple admonition to his readers: “…if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Romans 12:20) He then adds: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. It is a very simple statement. However, when anyone begins to suggest what that might look like, critics quickly begin to offer egregious examples that would ask us to bear the unbearable, with the inevitable conclusion: “Kill your enemies.” What is…
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What Happens When We Sing to God?
Read more: What Happens When We Sing to God?“God inhabits the praises of Israel.” (Psalm 22:3) The true nature of existence is best expressed as communion. Though we experience much of our life as unique individuals, the experience of all that is around us remains one of communion. In no way do we actually exist as an independent entity, somehow separate from our environment. We breathe the world; we eat the world; we drink the world; every cell of our body is itself composed of elements from the world; the bacteria in our bodies outnumber our cells and make our life possible. It is only through a modern…
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To Have More – Pleonexia
Read more: To Have More – PleonexiaAddictions are strange things. I have a friend who says that the problem with alcohol is that there “simply isn’t enough.” Non-addicts frequently misunderstand. I once heard someone say to an addict, “When you decided to go down that road…” There is very little decision within an addiction. The disease of addiction itself does the choosing. The person involved often watches helplessly as they go through the motions of yet another round, watching everything head in a direction over which they feel powerless. First the man takes a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes the…
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The Unmoral Christian Revisited
Read more: The Unmoral Christian RevisitedMy article, The Un-moral Christian, along with You’re Not Getting Better, have continued to generate conversation around the internet, and within parishes. At least that’s the impression I get from numerous conversations, emails, social media, and even phone calls. Most of those conversations seem to be serious and are engaging the question of how Orthodox Christians should think about the moral life. A recent conversation in my parish has yielded some additional thoughts for me that I think might be helpful to others. At its core is the question of “moral progress.” There is an abiding discomfort for many with…
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The Problem of Goodness
Read more: The Problem of GoodnessThough many struggle with the so-called “Problem of Evil,” the greater moral problem is that of goodness. How do we account for goodness in the world – particularly self-sacrificing heroic goodness? It is not uncommon for a person in a dangerous situation to place their own life at risk in order to save the life of another. It is by no means universal (some act first to save themselves or are paralyzed by fear) but it is not at all uncommon. People also frequently act in a manner that ignores their own self-interest and values the well-being and interest of…
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Knowing God’s Will
Read more: Knowing God’s Will“What is God’s will for my life?” No question is either more poignant nor more misguided on the lips of a Christian. It cuts particularly deep because it is most often spoken by the young or by those who feel they have lost their way. It is misguided because it makes a large number of false assumptions about the nature of our relationship with God as well as false assumptions about our human capacity to know what God wants. It is a question that has been created by a culture of Christian pietism within the context of a secular culture…
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From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ
Read more: From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of ChristMan is mud whom God has commanded to become god. – attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa +++ How do you create a God? How do you create a being that has true freedom, true love and thus, true existence? This is obviously not an entirely rational question – but it is a serious question for Christian thought. For, as St. Gregory of Nyssa notes, the creation of man is more than the story in early Genesis. The creation stories of Genesis are only a prelude to the greater story fulfilled in Christ. In Christ, the mud has become light. Freedom…
After reading your article again, I think I was thinking out loud with my comment and that it was redundant…