Blog entries - September 2008

Do I Believe God's Promises?

Jason Barker — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Click here to listen to this week's episode of Jason's Get Wisdom podcast, and click here for the free study guide for this episode.

------------------------------------

Have you ever become impatient waiting on God to act to help you in a situation? Perhaps you have struggled in school, and prayed that God would help you with your studies. Perhaps a friend or a family member has been sick, and you’ve become discouraged when, despite your prayers, that personRead More...

Weekly Orthodox Study Class - 9/28/2008

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Join Father Chris at St. Demetrios for the weekly Orthodox Study Class. This class is part of the series, "So You Think You Are Going to Heaven?"

Watch Now>>> Click here to get the study guide that accompanies it!

How Can I Control What I Say?

Jason Barker — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

You can listen to this week's episode of Jason's Get Wisdom podcast by clicking here , and you can click here for the free study guide for this episode.

------------------------------

Have you ever said something that deeply hurt another person? Have you ever told a story about someone, and learned later that the story had spread around the school? Have you ever been caught lying, or had someone tell you that you complain too much?

If you think about it, your mouthRead More...

Wedded to Christ - A Parable of the Kingdom of Heaven

Priest Matthew Jackson — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This morning we hear our Lord's parable of a wedding. The parable is told as a word about the kingdom of heaven-the parable begins, "the kingdom of heaven is like..." (v2). This image Christ uses in the parable becomes one of the most prominent images for the kingdom of heaven in all of Scripture. The wedding of a Son to His Bride. A beautiful image used extensively in the Church to illustrate the joining of Christ with His Holy Church, the Head with the Body, the Bride with thRead More...

Am I Judgmental?

Jason Barker — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Click here to listen to this week's episode of Jason's GET WISDOM! podcast on Romans chapter two, and click here to download the free study guide for this episode.

--------------------------------

Have you ever expressed disagreement with a person’s position, or disapproval of a particular type of behavior, and one of your friends responded, “How can you be so judgmental? Didn’t Jesus say you shouldn’t judge people?”

Many people are Read More...

Orthodox TV: A New Documentary On The Environmental Work of the Ecumenical Patriarch

Seraphim Dankaert — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This nicely produced documentary, entitled Living Waters: Saving our Seas and Rivers, looks at the environmental work of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It's now available from goarch.org.

Watch Now »

Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross

Priest Matthew Jackson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross of our Lord. We enter the Church this morning and we fall on our faces in veneration before the Holy Cross, and in worship before our Saviour who was nailed to the tree and died for our salvation. Everything in the Christian Church points to Christ, and the defining moment in the life of Christ is the Cross. As St. Paul writes, "We preach Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

This is ouRead More...

The Problem of Evil: Natural Disasters

Priest Matthew Jackson — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

One of the greatest arguments, in the secular world, against the existence of God is the so-called "problem of evil." This problem asks the question "with a God Who is good and loving, how can evil exist in the world?" Why does a God who is love allow evil? And to be very timely, the specific question of natural disasters-why does God's creation cause such evil (death from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes)? In another phrasing, where was God as people died in HurricaneRead More...

How Do I Pray for Others?

Jason Barker — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Click here to listen to this week's episode of Jason's GET WISDOM! podcast on Romans chapter one, and click here to download the free study guide for this episode.

----------------------------

Orthodox Christian worship involves praying to God; in fact, as Vasili Rozanov writes, “The soul of Orthodoxy consists in the gift of prayer.”

According to St Luke, the point of the Parable of the Persistent Widow is “that men always ought to pray andRead More...

Nativity of the Theotokos

Priest Matthew Jackson — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

As we strive to surrender our wills more and more to God, as we struggle to trust in God and to lean not on our own understandings (Proverbs 3:5-6), it's important for us to be reminded of how God has cared for His people throughout human history. We can see this fact in so many places in the Holy Scriptures, but perhaps no more beautifully than in the person of the Mother of God. She is for us a part of the fulfillment of God's plan for His people, and a magnificent image to us of howRead More...

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Fr John Parker — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On Sunday, Sept 7, I am going on a journey across time and geography. As you read this column, I ask your prayers as I make my way from Charleston to Newark to Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In July I received the most amazing gift: a two week pilgrimage to the Holy Land, led by the most well-known Orthodox Christian Bishop in the English-speaking world-His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. We are not going on a tour, though we are traveling from place to place following Jesus&Read More...