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Power Cuts and the Fear of God

...), which has a wide meaning such as: a (sudden) alarm (properly, the object feared, by implication, the feeling): — dread(-ful), fear, (thing) great (fear, greatly feared), terror. So again, the type of fear is an actual fear!  A little searching through the Old Testament revealed that the word “fear” has a couple of other Hebrew words which lie underneath the English translations, one of which does also mean “reverence” as well (יָרֵא [yârê], found in Gen 22:12 and 1 Sam 12:14). So maybe there is an element of that understanding in the Greek by the time the New Testament writers came along who meant that ‘fear’ as awe and reverence as...

Are There Levels of Sin?

...whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. From this passage, it appears as though those who know what is right, yet do wrong anyway, will be punished more harshly than those who still did wrong, but were ignorant of it. This brings to mind Hebrews 10:26-27, which says "For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment..." If you commit a "lesser sin" you are still guilty just as much as if you commit a "greater sin", much in the same as criminals in a court o...

Lent Day 25: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 41-50

...an”. Unphased by this, Anthony just asks him what he is doing there at his door! Satan then just bemoans that all of the “monks and all other Christians” just blame him “undeservedly” and curse him “hourly”, to which Anthony simply asks him, 'then why do you bother them in the first place if you don't want to be blamed for it?'.  Maybe this is what inspired the Rolling Stones song title Sympathy for the Devil (sorry, couldn't help myself!). Satan then goes on to say that there's no point in cursing him so much since he doesn't have as much power as people think, and then goes on to quote Psalm 9 saying, “I have become weak. Have they not read...

Lent Day 28: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 71-80

...t whoever has “a sound mind hath not need of letters” and at this they marvelled at him since he reasoned so well despite his appearance and lack of education from living in the mountains. Philosophers try to mock the Cross At another time, some more Greek philosophers came and tried to mock the beliefs of the Christians for the preaching of the cross, which as we know from Scripture, is not something unexpected (1 Cor 1:18). On hearing their objections, Anthony answered them by turning their own beliefs against them; Which is more beautiful, to confess the Cross or to attribute to those whom you call gods adultery and the seduction of boys? [...] Next,...

Lent Day 30: Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XIX

...Pharaoh, chased the Hebrews to the sea, and even through it, but was engulfed when it closed in around him now prefigures what happens in baptism: The tyrant of old was drowned in the sea; and this present one disappears in the water of salvation. Personally, I really like that analogy and I’ve never heard it put that way before. The phrases which the converts have to recite remind me of the liturgy which you have to say during a Christening. That in itself shows an interesting link to how this tradition and practice has been preserved in certain churches. I’ll contrast the two just to show the similarities, I’m using the Anglican liturgy since that...

Lent Day 33: Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XXII

...:4). Emphasising the spiritual nature behind the bread and the wine, Cyril then points to the time when Jesus argued with the Jews over his statement that they would need to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (Jn 6:53) if they wanted to have eternal life in them, and how they missed the point of Jesus's words and were offended, not “having heard His saying in a spiritual sense”. This bread was prefigured in the Old Testament also, called the “show bread”, or “the bread of The Presence” (Exodus 35:13; 39:35), which has now come to an end in Christ who is the Bread of Heaven, broken for us so that we may have true life (Jn 6:...