The place of the Gospel of John relative to the other three Gospels. Its use in the Orthodox Church in the cycle of readings. Midnight service of Pascha: We begin with Mark 16:1-8 and that amazing conclusion that trails off into the night: εφοβούντο γαρ. But at the Liturgy that follows we read John 1:1-17 …
The Only Proof God Offers
What proof do you want to believe in God? Do you want a scientific proof or a proof by logic? Do you want a big miracle? Like solving climate change, so we can continue our wasteful and polluting life styles? God did a big climate-change thing long ago (Genesis 7), but people still didn’t believe, …
A Sabbath for the whole world
The great Moses mystically prefigured this present day when he wrote: "And God blessed the seventh day." For this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all his works... Except he really didn't rest. Though his body lay in a tomb, in spirit …
The Cross of Holy Friday
Giles Fraser is a brilliant religion commentator for the Guardian newspaper of London, and I've referred to him in a previous post. He is Anglican, but seems to have an immense understanding of all Christian traditions, including our own Eastern tradition. He is also able to communicate the deepest truths of Christianity in our contemporary historical …
The Calm Center
The Palm Sunday narrative is one of the few that is included in all four Gospels. We read the version in John. But there are significant differences. Matthew and John quote Zechariah’s saying about the king of Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey. All of them have the words of praise that greeted …
A Blessed Day
Today is Good Friday for all Christians except for us Orthodox, who, for complicated calendar and moon issues, once again are out of step with everyone else and observe Great and Holy Friday next week. Tonight is also the beginning of Passover, so our Catholic and Protestant brothers and sisters are able to meditate on the …
We need the prophets!
There are still two days left to Lent this year, but this is the end for me. This is the last of my Lenten Reflections for this year, and I'm writing it because of the reading today of Isaiah 58:1-11. We began Lent back Feb 23rd with Isaiah 1:1-20, a reading which included these words …
He goes before us
In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10:32-45) we hear Jesus tell his disciples the third and final prediction of his passion - and the most detailed. But notice what Mark wrote immediately before the start of our reading today: “And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and …
bible blog 1651
I'm taking a break from my daily Lenten reflections. Today's reading of Genesis 22:1-18 is the story of Abraham's "sacrifice" of his son, Isaac. Instead of my own thoughts, I'm re-posting the blog that my friend Mike Mair posted on this passage a month ago. He uses a different translation of the Bible than what …
Theology of the Cross, Part 2
The fourth and final in a short series of Bible Study classes exploring the themes of the Sundays of Lent continued the discussion of the Cross of Jesus Christ, which is venerated on the Third Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church. An audio file of the class is attached, together with the PowerPoint presentation and a PDF version of the PowerPoint …
Ancient Answers 