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Lent Day 23: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 21-30

...us in the desert, and the demoniacs declared Jesus to be the Son of God), pay no heed since they do not do this to aid our discipline of righteousness, but rather to tire us out and lead us to abandon the principles of the faith out of despair and from feeling burdened. For the demons do all things --they prate, they confuse, they dissemble, they confound--to deceive the simple. They din, laugh madly, and whistle; but if no heed is paid to them forthwith they weep and lament as though vanquished. Though they may attack us with temptations and evil, ungodly thoughts, like fiery darts flung at our minds, we must remember that “the one who is in you is grea...

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

...into the desert; so Anthony travelled with them for three days and three nights until he came to a new mountain with a clear, fresh stream and a plain with some palm trees. Here he decided to settle down to stay. Tomorrow we will see how Anthony gets on at his new home and what the Lord does with him there! I hope you're finding the life of Anthony as interesting as I am and look forward to what comes next.  ...

The Temptations of Jesus: Complacency

...So now we are at the end of the temptations that Jesus endured in the desert, and I wanted to look at what happens at the end. So often I think this aspect is overlooked when we read of this time in Scripture. Let’s take a look at the text: Matthew 4:11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Luke 4:13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. The two Gospel accounts both give us a varying perspective with different details. Afterwards, the devil leaves and angels “suddenly” come. This is almost a temptation in itself; one to think we are all good and safe now we've won the battl...

What are the Seraphim, and was the devil one of them?

...ounder of desert monasticism written around AD 356–362. See links below: https://youtu.be/dY5nIMlSOdg https://patristics.info/page/athanasius-life-of-anthony.html...

An Examination of Conditional Immortality (Part Two)

...desolate desert. This is the backdrop of the passage in Revelation 14: they are utterly destroyed and they have no rest anymore because they are dead and destroyed completely, or an alternative view is that the restlessness is during the outpouring of God’s wrath as it will be unrelenting (“unquenchable”) until it is complete, and then the smoke rises signifying the result of the judgement for all to see. Christopher Date explains the latter view well in his book, Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism: The background to Rev 14:11 is to be found in this picture of Sodom’s destruction and to the oracle of Edom’s destruction in Isa 34...

Lent Day 20: Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church: 19-27

...e “full desert of the crown”, but “it initiates our dignity” which is why Jesus said, “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt 24:13). Everything we do and say during our Christian walk in this life is a “step by which we ascend to the summit of salvation”, and not the summit itself, which is why we need to watch ourselves and keep on the narrow path because every time we repent and confess our sins, “the adversary is more provoked”! “For the Lord chose Judas also among the apostles”, Cyprian points out, even though Judas betrayed the Lord afterwards. This didn’t break the faith of the Apostles, and neither should seeing th...