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Lent: Day 8 - Ignatius to the Romans

...fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. I began this letter wowed, but leave it feeling a bit stunned. It kind of puts things into perspective, in that we in the West really have it quite easy these days as Christians. the challenges we face today are vastly different from these early Christians (and, indeed, believers in other parts of the world today), but the freedom we have is something which I don't think we always appreciate as much...

Lent Day 36: Ambrose of Milan: Concerning the Mysteries: 5-9

...ess is “the cross of the Lord Jesus alone”. Which I suppose means that they accept the Gospel and reject all other religions and beliefs that they may have. Fire from heaven Ambrose also makes a link between a couple of times in the Old Testament where a sacrifice was consumed with heavenly fire, and the baptism of fire we receive in the New Testament. In Judges 6:21 when Jerubbaal had an angel burn up the sacrifice, and another time in 1 Kings 18:38 when Elijah was battling with the prophets of Baal, fire from the Lord came down to burn it up. “To those [of old] a visible fire was sent that they might believe; for us who believe, the Lord works invis...

Lent Day 39: Leo the Great: Sermon XLIX (On Lent XI)

...ictory on the cross, many people turned to faith, and so Satan was “driven from the hearts of those he once possessed” and was stripped of his power over such people. But as James wrote, “all of us make many mistakes” (James 3:2), so we must all be willing to forgive one another, in order that we don't violate the holy command in the Lord's prayer which we bind ourselves to, where it says, “forgive those who sin against us” (Luke 11:4); if during this time, Satan brings temptations or divisions amongst the Church. Our duties during Lent Leo goes on to say that we must strive to be peacemakers because they will be blessed and “called children of...

John Chau, missionary to the Sentinelese: martyr or madness?

...You've probably seen it in the news lately: John Chau, the American guy who tried to evangelise the secluded Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India. Much of the debate in secular media has centered around the grief of his friends and family; how he could have brought outside disease to the tribespeople and potentially killed them all (despite this not being their first contact with outsiders, with no known ill effect), or that he ventured there completely in ignorance with no preparation or wisdom — something which the missionary agency, All Nations, has recently debunked. But the question I want to look at is this: was Chau's mission total madness or is...

Lent: Day 10 - Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans

...nd die on the cross for us; not, as some were saying, that “He only seemed to suffer”. To these, Ignatius says that they “only seem to be [Christians]” because of their false teaching! He defends the resurrection by telling of how the Apostles ate and drank with, and touched the risen Christ since “He was still possessed of flesh”, but to this he also adds that he believes Jesus is still possessing a body of flesh, whilst being spiritually “united to the Father”. I'm not sure if he means this in the same way we might today when we talk about the glorified/resurrected bodies, since you don't often hear people say they are “flesh”, but it's pr...

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

...ies” on the cross (Col 2:15). there’s a lot of scriptures to cover which mentions all of these themes, but I’ll just list a few here where we find the words for seraphim and serpent translated in various ways: Numbers 21:6; Job 26:13; Isaiah 6:6–7; 14:29; 27:1; 30:6. then the New Testament references to the dragon: Revelation 12:9; 13:1; 20:2. Serpents in the Garden With this in mind, maybe it could change our view on the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Could it be that it wasn’t an actual snake speaking to Eve, but rather a seraphim-angel of some type? It would explain why no one was concerned about a talking animal when none of the others appear t...