Scripture is derived from tradition, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we must believe it true, that Jesus said what Scriptures quote Jesus as saying. We must Love Scripture as we Love God, burning the words in our heart. […]
What is the Way of Life? You shall Love God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and all of your mind and with all of your strength, and you should love your neighbor as yourself, and you should never do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Thus opens the first paragraph of the Didache, which may be among the most ancient patristic works surviving. […]
Love binds us fast to God. Love casts a veil over sins innumerable. There are no limits to love’s endurance, no end to its patience. Love is without servility, as it is without arrogance. Love knows of no divisions, promotes no discord; all the works of love are done in perfect fellowship. It was in love that all God’s chosen saints were made perfect; for without love nothing is pleasing to Him. It was in love that the Lord drew us to Himself; because of the love He bore us, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the will of God, gave His blood for us, His flesh for our flesh, His life for our lives. […]
Epictetus tells us of someone who stole his lamp one night, he got the better end of the exchange. For Epictetus only lost his lamp, but he kept his faith. The man who stole his lamp, in exchange for the lamp he consented to become a thief, becoming faithless. […]
Agamemnon did much more than rob from Achilles his concubine, that in his hubris he stripped from Achilles not his armor but worse, stripped from him his honor and his glory, making him lose face before his comrade. Indeed, gaining respect and avoiding shame is critical for warriors, and men in any age. […]
The Epistle of Barnabas is a curious epistle that surprisingly has some messages that ring true with modern Christians. This epistle was likely written just after most of the books of the Bible, and was considered by some Christian communities as inspirational. Eusebius in his early History of the Church says the Epistle of Barnabas was “not canonical but disputed, yet familiar to most churchmen,” […]
What is the theological agenda for this third historical Jesus movement? Opposition to fundamentalism. They do not want the fundamentalists to monopolize the airwaves, so they shamelessly promote their views so they fit in thirty second sound bites. They value radical academic independence, and denigrate subservience to tradition, and have no fear for ignoring Scripture they personally do not judge is historical, and for elevating newly discovered gnostic writings over Scripture in their quest for the historical Jesus. Witherington quotes Funk as saying, “methodology is not an indifferent net – it catches what it intends to catch.” […]
Let us vote on each of the sayings on Jesus, a red bead for each truly authentic saying of Jesus, a pink bead when the saying sure sounds like Jesus, gray, maybe, a black bead for a saying Jesus could not have said, although centuries of biblical scholars thought and taught otherwise. Using this voting method, the self-appointed members of the Jesus Seminar in 1985 pronounced that only fifteen sayings were truly said by Jesus, while another seventy-five sayings were probably words of Jesus. […]
To Epictetus, only the good can be truly happy, only the good can truly be free, tyrants may take all you own, but they can never take your most prized possession, your freedom of will; tyrants can throw you in jail, but they can never take away the freedom of your mind; tyrants can take your life, but they can never have your soul. Epictetus, the great philosopher of freedom, was a former slave, a slave to a freed man, and was both poor and a cripple, eking out a living by teaching philosophy. Epictetus was not wealthy like Plato, and although Socrates was executed like Jesus, and is often compared to Jesus, Epictetus was closer to Jesus in social status, and like Jesus many of his teachings teach the common man how to live a godly life. Epictetus lived shortly before St Paul, close enough that it is doubtful they directly influenced each other, but like the Church Fathers Epictetus did not seek to teach original teachings, but rather repeated in his own distinctive fashion the teachings of the stoic philosophers who preceded him. […]
Stoicism is about how to best live a meaningful life of purpose and virtue, stoicism is not about the classroom, stoicism is about how you can better live your life tomorrow in the real world, how you can improve yourself each day, how you can improve your habits, how you can control your emotions, how you can stoically and courageously face all of life’s challenges, how you can control your passions so you never sink to the level of the beasts. As Marconius Rufus tells us, “philosophy is the practice of noble behavior.” […]
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