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Losing a Loved One: A Few Ways to Find Solace

This is a guest post by Lucille Rosetti from thebereaved.org. The views are that of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of That Ancient Faith. This week I have a guest post by Lucille Rosetti from thebereaved.org looking at the hard topic of death. As Christians we shouldn't fear death, and ought to look on it with a paradoxical hope, since we know that through Christ death has lost its "sting" (1 Cor 15:55-57) and that we look forward to the Resurrection and life to come. But even with that in mind, the physical and earthly loss is still hard and something we need to process and deal with, and the following guest post aims to help with the...

Christians and the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

We currently live in troubled times lately with a lot of uncertainty around us, both locally and globally. But even now as I write this and think on the topic of the virus, one verse in particular springs to mind: Psalm 23:4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of deathI fear no evil;for you are with me;your rod and your staff — they comfort me. It does feel a little bit like we are all walking through “the valley of the shadow of death” at the moment! But as the Psalmist says, “I fear no evil” for God is with us and comforts us. That doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t get sick (or die), but that no matter what is happening aroun...

Did the Early Church invent the Trinity?

The doctrine and concept of the Trinity is encapsulated in Matthew 28:19, where Jesus instructs the apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. John, who was very close to Jesus and obviously kNew him well, alludes to this teaching frequently in his Gospel, too. For example: John 1:1; John 8:58; John 10:30; and John 10:38. Yet, despite this, and numerous other examples throughout the New Testament which point towards the threefold nature of God, plenty of myths and legends abound online and in books which state that the divinity of Jesus (and therefore the Trinit...

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...

My New book, available now! Take a journey through the first 400 years of Church History in only 40 days!

Take a journey through the first 400 years of Church History in only 40 days! "40 Days with the Fathers" is a daily reading plan/devotional spread out over forty days; and over the course of this reading plan you will read extracts and commentary on 23 different early Church texts from a selection of some of the most influential Church Fathers, such as: Didache, Diognetus, Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, and Leo the Great. These people who came before us, those great men of faith, many of whom suffered persecution and martyrdom to preserve the Church and Christ's mission, bridge the gap between th...

Jesus, Mithras and Ancient Roman Cults: Separating Fact from Fiction

Welcome to the next instalment of my series looking at the ancient mythological gods and how they compare to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Mithras is yet another popular ancient god that people like to compare with Jesus and make wild claims about, proposing that they are the same deities with different names. But is this even remotely true? This article has ended up being a bit longer than anticipated as it’s one of the few ancient religions that was contemporary to the birth of Christianity which was seen as somewhat of a rival belief system, so there’s a lot of interesting things to cover! The Origins Mithras has his roots in ancient Persi...