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Coffee with Jesus: John 1

...e view of Jesus’ divinity or pre-existence etc. but I think the familiarity with the beginning three verses has caused us to miss that the next sixteen verses all point very strongly to the true nature of Jesus, who he is, and that he is also God. John 1:10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. Verse three identifies the “Word” with creator status as “without him nothing was made”. John expands on this more, and then in verse 10 he states that this Word figure was coming into the world which he had also made, and then makes it really clear in verse 14 and 15: John 1:14–15The Word became fles...

The Coming of Jesus: Introduction

...  Will Jesus return in the way most of us have been taught? I suspect that when many people think of the "Second Coming" — that is, the return of Jesus, images of the world ending in a blaze of fire and glory come to mind; or of some super-war called Armageddon where the Anti-Christ battles it out with God's people one last time before the End comes. You may even think of Jesus surfing across the sky on clouds with a bunch of angel in tow, or maybe the Left Behind book and film series frames your view of the "end times." Whichever it is, one thing I can assure you of is that some of that imagery has been embellished and some misunde...

Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

...length of Jesus' fast in the desert. His letters are useful as they show quite clearly that the time of Lent and Easter have been established for many centuries in the Church and are nothing to do with paganism! The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth [Ash Wednesday]; and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi [Palm Sunday], in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings... –Athanasius, Letter III I won't go into much more detail on the history of Lent and Easter...

Fasting: A spiritual and physical discipline

...bedience (Jesus did say when not if – Matthew 6:16-18; Mark 2:20). It’s putting to death the body – killing the flesh in order to live by the Spirit. (Gal 5:17) It’s training you in self-control, discipline and willpower; growing and nurturing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23; 2 Timothy 1:7; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8). For healing and deliverance of others (Mark 9:29; Matthew 17:21). To prepare to hear from God via visions and revelation (Acts 10:30). For preparation for Church leadership (Acts 13:2-3; Acts 14:23) To not be ruled by your desires and cravings – impulse control (1 Corinthians 7:5). To focus on God and not ourselves, in p...

Palm Sunday and the End Times

...It’s not often we read the text of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem as an eschatological text thinking about the return of Christ. Especially as at this point the in the Gospel narratives, Jesus is on earth in his first coming, and still a week away from his crucifixion! While the texts usually read across the world on Palm Sunday may be familiar to us (Luke 19:28–40), we might miss the connection with the preceding parables if we don’t read the whole of Luke 19 together. I won’t quote everything here, as you can read the whole text for yourself, but the pertinent verses come from the Parable of the Ten Minas in verses 11–27: Luke 19:11, 27As the...

Lent Day 37: Leo the Great: Letter XXVIII (called the "Tome")

... part of Jesus. To combat this, Eutyches went too far in the other direction and declared that Christ was "a fusion of human and divine elements" which created a new, single nature in Jesus, rather than a twofold nature which the Creeds declare. This actually led to himself being declared a heretic also for this belief! Now Leo is writing against the teaching of Eutyches because it seems that he was unwilling to accept any correction to his doctrine. “But what more iniquitous”, Leo says,  “than to hold blasphemous opinions, and not to give way to those who are wiser and more learned than ourself?” Leo is quite scathing actually, and doesn’t hold b...