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Lent Day 29: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 81-94

Day Twenty-nine: St. Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 81-94 Who: Bishop of Alexandria; Confessor and Doctor of the Church; born c. 296; died 2 May, 373 AD. He was the main defender of orthodoxy in the 4th-century battle against the Arianism heresy. Certain writers received the title “Doctor” on account of the great advantage their doctrine had on the whole Church, Athanasius especially for his doctrine on the incarnation. What: The biography of Anthony the Great’s life, which helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe. Why: From the letter’s own prologue: “The life and conversation of our holy Father,...

Is it the end of the world as we know it?

September 28th 2015 will be a supermoon and a red moon at that. I last wrote about these four "blood moons" way back in April last year when certain self-styled prophets John Hagee and Mark Blitz's "End Times" teaching gained some popularity (and subsequent book promotions). One thing that I predicted in my previous article was that if nothing else comes from all of this "end is nigh" nonsense, is that these "prophets" would indeed profit from their books – as has been shown to be true in which the "Four Blood Moons" book has been in the top 20 on the New York Times Best-seller List, and has also recently been turned into a docu-drama! Other than th...

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...

Hello

  Hello, this is a blog that I've been intending to create for too long now. So today I finally decided to sit down and do it. I've been compiling notes and thoughts, and have been writing on topics I'm exploring and grappling with for well over a year now - maybe even two. And then I stuff them in a digital folder to gather dust, so to speak. A lot of the discussion and ideas from these notes have come from being active in an Apologetics group on Facebook, which has helped to wrestle out some points and subjects by having about 20+ different opinions thrown into the mix! I'm planning to cover some big topics in small parts over a period of time and post...

An Examination of Conditional Immortality (Part One)

I know that "Conditional Immortality" is quite a divisive topic, and one you may have come across before (sometimes referred to as “Annihilationism”); and have been told outright that it’s “heresy” or false, or that it’s an emotional argument people want to believe because it ‘sounds nicer’ than the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT). Or maybe you’ve never even heard of this before and you didn’t realise there were alternative interpretations and views on hell. If you are new to this, in brief it means that “the wicked” will be removed from existence after judgement and finite torment, rather than living forever in torment. Any...

Coffee With Jesus: Luke 22–23

Brief Thoughts From Daily Devotions I’m going to start a new infrequent sub-series called “Coffee with Jesus”, which will be short blogs based on whatever I’m currently reading in the Bible during my morning devotions (as I drink my coffee, hence the name). They won’t necessarily be in any specific order, unless something particularly strikes me each day as I’m reading through a book of the Bible. Today’s observation comes from Luke 22–23 concerning the Last Supper and the crucifixion of Jesus. Reading Luke 22, something stood out to me that I hadn’t considered before: at the Passover meal, Jesus says he won’t drink wine again until the Ki...