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Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

Fasting A spiritual and physical discipline If you are looking for a Lenten reading plan, make sure to check out my book, 40 Days with the Fathers: A Journey Through Church History, which will take you through the first 400 years of church history in forty days! Lent is upon us once again (according to Western tradition), and so I thought it’d be good to write something on the discipline of fasting, which is often neglected or overlooked in many Protestant churches. And much like any major holiday, there is the usual arguments and accusations about how it's all just pagan festivities with a "Christian mask". Easter is no different, and usually gets hit...

Power Cuts and the Fear of god

The other week we had a series of power cuts in our town. It doesn’t happen very often here where I am, but there was particularly bad weather recently which damaged some cables; but sitting in the dark winter evening, my phone low on battery power, it made me realise just how much we rely on electricity for nearly everything these days. We don’t even have a gas supply so we were completely cut off from doing anything! Now it might sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget how dependent we are on modern conveniences until it’s suddenly taken away and you’re sat in the cold surrounded by tiny little tea-light candles. The following Sunday, the sermon at c...

The Early Concept of the Trinity: Tracing the Roots

The doctrine of the Trinity, which asserts the co-equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has deep roots in the early Christian writings of the first three centuries. While the full articulation of the Trinity developed over time, culminating at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, references to the equality of these three persons can be traced back to influential documents and the teachings of early Church Fathers in the centuries leading up to this pivotal moment in Church History. Early Church Beliefs and Teachings One of the earliest Christian documents, the Didache, believed to have been written in the late first or early second century, pro...

The Gospel of Jeffrey Dahmer

There’s a new Netflix documentary out at the moment which has hit the news recently about the infamous serial killer Jeffery Dahmer. I haven’t watched it, but I knew of him as a serial killer though I didn’t realise just how horrific his crimes were until I read the Wikipedia article about him! Not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. But this post isn’t really about Dahmer, not entirely, but rather the reactions to some recent social media posts about him and the (often vitriol) responses they’ve got. Here’s one example: Dahmer is probably in heaven and experiencing eternal joy. If this bothers you, you don’t know the depths of your o...

On the Feast of the Nativity, a sermon by Leo the Great

In the days leading up to Christmas, I wanted to share a sermon from a man known as Leo the Great (aka Pope Leo I), who was a Pope from 440-61 AD. He was one of the most significant and important men in Christian antiquity, as he tried to combat the heresies which seriously threatened church unity in the West, such as Pelagianism. This sermon of his about the incarnation of Christ and what it means for us has always stuck with me since I first read it last April when writing my own book on the Early Church Fathers. It's not that long, so take the time to read it through and let the words sink in as we prepare for Christmas to remember and celebrate the birth...

Was Jesus worshipped in the New Testament?

often a claim from critics of the faith, and especially Muslims arguing against Christianity, is that Jesus wasn't thought of as god early on and more to the point, wasn't ever worshipped in the accounts of the New Testament. This is a very cursory look at a few places within the Gospels where Jesus was clearly worshipped, either by his followers or others he encountered, and didn't rebuke or correct people for doing something wrong. Worshiping Jesus: 1. Matthew 14:33 - The Proclamation of Divinity And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of god.” In the aftermath of a storm on the Lake of Galilee which Jesus calmed with a...