Judaism

Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaism: Which Is True
christianity

Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaism: Which Is True?

01/30/2026 Bruce Strom 1

We agree with CS Lewis when, in his Preface to Mere Christianity, he states that “the reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian denominations. You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic.” CS Lewis compares his Mere Christianity to a central hall opening up to many rooms, representative of the various denominations, saying that this hall is a place to wait while you try the different doors.
CS Lewis continues: “There is no mystery of my own position. I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially high, nor especially low, nor especially anything else.” […]

The Decalogue in the Torah and the Book of Legends, Do Not Steal
Command 7 Do Not Steal

The Decalogue in the Torah and the Book of Legends, Do Not Steal

11/06/2025 Bruce Strom 0

The rabbis in the Book of Legends, which are moral excerpts from the Talmud, teach that there are four kinds of men:
The average man, like those in Sodom, who says, “Mine is mine, and your is yours.”
The ignorant man who says, “Mine is yours, and yours is mine.”
The pious man who says, “Mine is yours, and yours is yours.”
The wicked man who says, “Yours is mine, and mine is mine.” […]

St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching and JD Vance, Order of Love
Politics

St Augustine’s On Christian Teaching and JD Vance, Order of Love

07/05/2025 Bruce Strom 0

St Augustine clearly teaches us: “All people should be loved equally. But you cannot do good to all people equally, so you should take particular thought for those who, as if by lot, happen to be particularly close to you in terms of place, time, or any other circumstances.”
St Augustine explains further: “Suppose you have plenty of something which had to be given to someone in need but could not be given to two people, and you met two people,” you could flip a coin for who would receive it. But if one of them was a relative, Jesus would not object if you benefited him. In other words, if your children are starving, you need not share what little food you have with strangers.
Should we love everyone, even our enemies? Definitely, Christians are exhorted to love their enemies. As St Augustine teaches us: “We do not fear our enemies, for they do not take away from us what we love, but we pity them, for they hate us all the more because they are separated from the one we love,” since they are separated from God. […]

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2
Judaism

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2

12/29/2023 Bruce Strom 2

When studying the rabbinical commentaries on Deuteronomy, I was struck by the number of times the commandment to Love God was repeated in various forms, including the commandment to Fear God, which is roughly equivalent, so I decided to count them, there are about twenty repetitions. This was surprising to me as a Christian, for as St Paul exhorts, “the letter” of the law “kills, but the Spirit gives life.” […]

Medieval Jewish and Christian Commentators, My Gentile Defense of Judaism, Part 1
Judaism

Medieval Jewish and Christian Commentators, My Gentile Defense of Judaism, Part 1

12/23/2023 Bruce Strom 2

At roughly the time of Jesus, an inquirer requested of both Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel, “Convert me to Judaism on condition that you will teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai pushed the man away with the building rod he was holding. Undeterred, the man then came before Hillel with the same request. Hillel responded, “That which is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Now, go and study.” […]

Q & A on Topic: Why Did You Leave Your Religion?
Biblical Interpretation

Q & A on Topic: Why Did You Leave Your Religion?

09/08/2023 Bruce Strom 1

To the ancients who lived in a warrior culture, Stoic philosophy is very appealing. The Stoics don’t ask the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Instead, they admit that good and bad things happen to everyone, that the rain falls on both the bad and the good. Bad things happen to good people, that is part of life. The real question is: How can God help us endure and prevail over our suffering? […]

St Neilos the Ascetic, Philokalia
Morality

St Neilos on Ascetic Discourses in the Philokalia

08/16/2023 Bruce Strom 0

St Neilos contrasts the holy men “who live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants,” the holy men who have no need to flatter the wealthy because they live simply, to those of us who, “instead of courageously struggling against our difficulties, come fawning to the wealthy, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we can them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked.” […]

Phaedrus Part Two on Divine Love
Philosophy

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Divine Love and the Heavenly Chariot, Part 2

03/24/2023 Bruce Strom 7

In his memorable metaphor for the nature of the soul, Socrates describes “a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.” […]

Phaedrus Platonic Dialogue On Love
Philosophy

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Carnal Love and Rhetoric, Part 1

03/22/2023 Bruce Strom 5

Although Socrates does not condemn homosexual love in either dialogue, he is also depicted as being above carnal love, only capable of a philosophical divine love that is only concerned with the goodness of the soul. In the Symposium, the rowdy Alcibiades crashes the dinner party quite drunk, proclaiming how though he and Socrates were the best of friends, even saving his life in the thick of battle, in the end Socrates refused to become his lover. […]

Book Reviews and Miscellaneous

Book Reviews, Commentaries of Torah and Talmud, Medieval Rabbis and Modern Rabbis and Scholars

03/14/2022 Bruce Strom 3

We encourage Christians to study the moral lessons of the Torah, we do not hold to the dual-covenant belief that the laws in the Torah have been superseded. St Irenaeus in his influential work, On Heresies, teaches us that the moral laws of the Torah are still binding on Christians, and that the dietary and festival laws that have been superseded can be read as teaching moral lessons allegorically. […]