Blog Search Results

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...

How Polycarp (And Others) Show The Early Use of The New Testament

Polycarp is one of the most important people in early church history. He was a disciple of John the Evangelist, and later became the bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was born around 69 A.D. in Smyrna, which is now modern-day Turkey. He grew up during a time when christians were being persecuted for their beliefs, and he himself became a christian at a young age. Polycarp is regarded as one of the earliest church fathers because he had a significant impact on christianity as it spread throughout Asia Minor and Europe, and he also played an important role in shaping biblical canon for centuries to come. We don’t know a great deal about his life, apart from t...

Did the Qumran community predict the coming of Jesus?

I'm going to start a new category here for "General Interest" which will be for things I see or read about that I think are interesting or informative about the Bible, christianity or the Faith in general; but which aren't necessarily topics I could, or would need to, write a full blog post about. I'll kick off this new venture with an brief look at something I read the other day from the Dead Sea scrolls which is very interesting – Qumran text 4Q521. It gives us a glimpse of early Jewish expectations of the coming Messiah from the time before Jesus arrived, and shows just how Jesus did actually meet those expectations. For example, when John asks his disci...

God before ages becomes an infant!

I saw a beautifully sung a capella song the other day of Facebook. It was about the Nativity, the incarnation of christ. One of the lines in the song really struck me, the profound nature of what God did summed up in a single sentence: Glorify, with the angels and the shepherds, Him who by His own will has become a newborn child, yet is our God before all ages.   Let that sink in for a moment before reading this excerpt from one of John Chrysostom's sermons on christmas (something else I saw shared on Facebook which I think sums up this day in better words than I could muster): "What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wo...

Immanuel, God with us

I had been thinking about what to write this coming christmas time, when I came across this quote the other day. I thought it sufficient enough, rather than go into a long theological treatise! So without further ado, here is a quote/excerpt by David H. Petersen, author of God With Us: “The Savior is born unto you in Bethlehem, the house of bread, on earth. It is no coincidence that He lacked a crib and was placed instead into a feeding trough. He was born unto you to be bread: bread for beasts, bread for wolves, and bread for sheep. He comes in His body to feed you into life, to slake your thirst, to satisfy your soul. He is put into a manger, not only b...

Lent: Day 4 - Polycarp to the Philippians

Day Four: Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians (full text) Who: Polycarp of Smyrna, who was a direct disciple of the apostle John. We also have some information about Polycarp via Irenaeus (who knew Polycarp) in his book, Adv. Haer., III.3.4: “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna”. What: Lots of exhortations are contained in this letter, and is also referenced by Irenaeus as being for “those who wish to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his (Polycarp's) faith, and the preachin...