Podcasts about athanasius

Join Jacobs Premium: https://www.thenathanjacobspodcast.com/membershipThe book club (use code LEWIS): https://www.thenathanjacobspodcast.com/offers/aLohje7p/checkoutThis is part three of our three-part series on the seven ecumenical councils, focusing on the philosophical commitments embedded in the final five councils from Ephesus to Nicaea II. We examine the Nestorian controversy and Cyril of Alexandria's defense of moderate realism, the doctrine of complex natures, and the distinction between common faculties and idiosyncratic use in the monothelite debate. The episode concludes with the monoenergist controversy's codification of the essence-energies distinction and the ontology of image and archetype in iconography.All the links: Substack: https://nathanajacobs.substack.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenathanjacobspodcastWebsite: https://www.nathanajacobs.com/X: https://x.com/NathanJacobsPodSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0hSskUtCwDT40uFbqTk3QSApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nathan-jacobs-podcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nathanandrewjacobsAcademia: https://vanderbilt.academia.edu/NathanAJacobs00:00:00 - Intro00:05:36 Dogma vs. Kerygma: Basil's Distinction 00:10:26 The Council of Ephesus: Nestorius vs. Cyril 00:14:56 Moderate Realism and Complex Natures00:23:18 Nestorius's Metaphysical Error00:30:14 Why Mary Is Theotokos00:45:02 The Monophysite Controversy After Ephesus00:49:19 The Council of Chalcedon 00:57:00 Common Nature, Idiosyncratic Use01:02:00 The Theandric Operations: John of Damascus's Analogy01:07:56 The Essence-Energies Distinction in the Councils 01:13:34 Against Calling It "Palamite" 01:19:09 Nicaea II and the Ontology of Images Other words for the algorithm… ecumenical councils, Christology, Chalcedon, Council of Ephesus, Nestorius, Cyril of Alexandria, moderate realism, complex natures, theotokos, patristics, church fathers, early Christian philosophy, Byzantine theology, Eastern Orthodox, Orthodox theology, hupóstasis, essence-energies distinction, Gregory Palamas, Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor, monothelite controversy, monoenergist controversy, monophysitism, Apollinarianism, hypostatic union, two natures one person, divine energies, theosis, deification, incarnation, Nicene Creed, Constantinople, Council of Chalcedon, hyalomorphism, Aristotle, Plato, realism, nominalism, universals, particular, form and matter, substance, accidents, common nature, Christian metaphysics, patristic theology, systematic theology, philosophical theology, philosophy of religion, Christian philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, scholasticism, medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, Neoplatonism, divine simplicity, divine freedom, anthropology, theological anthropology, imago dei, image of God, iconography, Nicaea II, body and soul, will, free will, monothelitism, Apollinaris, Athanasius, homoousios, consubstantial, Trinity, divine nature, human nature, rational soul, theandric operations, dogma, kerygma, divine liturgy, anti-Chalcedonian, Council of Constantinople, moderate realist, extreme realism, archetypal ideas, common will, idiosyncratic use, Philippians 2, morphe, kenosis, inflamed blade analogy, David Bradshaw, essence and energies, Aristotle East and West, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, ontology, metaphysics, formal properties, genera and species, specific difference

This holy and beloved Western Saint, the patron of France, was born in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary) in 316, to a pagan military family stationed there. Soon the family returned home to Italy, where Martin grew up. He began to go to church at the age of ten, and became a catechumen. Though he desired to become a monk, he first entered the army in obedience to his parents.   One day, when he was stationed in Amiens in Gaul, he met a poor man shivering for lack of clothing. He had already given all his money as alms, so he drew his sword, cut his soldier's cloak in half, and gave half of it to the poor man. That night Christ appeared to him, clothed in the half-cloak he had given away, and said to His angels, "Martin, though still a catechumen, has clothed me in this garment." Martin was baptised soon afterward. Though he still desired to become a monk, he did not obtain his discharge from the army until many years later, in 356.   He soon became a disciple of St Hilary of Poitiers (commemorated January 13), the "Athanasius of the West." After traveling in Pannonia and Italy (where he converted his mother to faith in Christ), he returned to Gaul, where the Arian heretics were gaining much ground. Not long afterward became Bishop of Tours, where he shone as a shepherd of the Church: bringing pagans to the faith, healing the sick, establishing monastic life throughout Gaul, and battling the Arian heresy so widespread throughout the West. Finding the episcopal residence too grand, he lived in a rude, isolated wooden hut, even while fulfilling all the duties of a Bishop of the Church.   His severity against heresy was always accompanied by love and kindness toward all: he once traveled to plead with the Emperor Maximus to preserve the lives of some Priscillianist heretics whom the Emperor meant to execute.   As the holy Bishop lay dying in 397, the devil appeared to tempt him one last time. The Saint said, "You will find nothing in me that belongs to you. Abraham's bosom is about to receive me." With these words he gave up his soul to God.   He is the first confessor who was not a martyr to be named a Saint in the West. His biographer, Sulpitius Severus, wrote of him: "Martin never let an hour or a moment go by without giving himself to prayer or to reading and, even as he read or was otherwise occupied, he never ceased from prayer to God. He was never seen out of temper or disturbed, distressed or laughing. Always one and the same, his face invariably shining with heavenly joy, he seemed to have surpassed human nature. In his mouth was nothing but the Name of Christ and in his soul nothing but love, peace and mercy."   Note: St Martin is commemorated on this day in the Greek and Slavic Synaxaria; his commemoration in the West, where he is especially honored, is on November 11.

In this episode, I explore why Scripture tells us so little about heaven and why our limited minds couldn't grasp it anyway. Jesus gives us a small glimpse when He tells the Sadducees that life in the resurrection will be entirely new—no longer divided into many families, but united as one family in Christ. We recall Moses at the burning bush, meeting the eternal God who stands outside of time, and we hear Jesus affirm that the resurrection is real and that God is the God of the living. Until that day comes, Paul urges us to stand firm in truth and good works, even as the world burns with doubt and sin. Though we don't yet understand what eternal life will be like, we know Christ will bring us there. And until then, He prepares us at His table, where heaven and earth briefly meet.

 The Post Nicene Church FathersThis engaging podcast episode features Dr. Rachel Chen and Bishop Andy Lewter exploring the profound contributions of seven pivotal Post-Nicene Church Fathers who shaped early Christianity following the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The conversation illuminates how Athanasius defended Nicene orthodoxy against Arianism through multiple exiles, how John Chrysostom's "golden mouth" combined powerful preaching with fearless advocacy for the poor, and how Jerome's Vulgate translation became the standard Latin Bible for over a millennium. The discussion highlights Ambrose of Milan's remarkable journey from unbaptized governor to influential bishop who challenged imperial power, Basil the Great's theological refinement of Trinitarian doctrine alongside his pioneering social welfare work, Eusebius's invaluable preservation of early church history despite his theological ambiguities, and Augustine of Hippo's towering intellectual legacy encompassing everything from spiritual autobiography to political theology and the doctrine of grace. Throughout the conversation, both scholars emphasize how these diverse figures—fighter, preacher, scholar, statesman, organizer, historian, and philosopher—collectively transformed Christianity from a persecuted minority into a dominant religious and intellectual force while acknowledging their human flaws and the ongoing relevance of their insights for contemporary Christian faith and practice.

Message from Troy Martin on November 7, 2025

Message from Troy Martin on November 7, 2025

The Nicene Creed is *the* definitive statement of faith for what Christianity is for most Christians, around the world, throughout most of time. Love it or hate it, the Creed binds us together. And since our entire project at And Also With You is reclaiming an ancient Christian faith for modern Christian life, we thought it time to dive deep into this Creed -- to show how this 1700 year old prayer holds up and how we are following it still today. But the fact that we HAVE a creed (other religions don't really do this) and that is came from these series of big ol' committee meetings is actually a really fascinating thing to unpack, for for our first of twelve episodes exploring the Creed, we're delighted to welcome Dr. Hannah Black, Ph.D. to orient us to the Creed as a historical and spiritual document. More about Dr. Hannah Black, Ph.D.: Dr. Hannah Black earned her PhD in Divinity from the University of Cambridge in 2023, with her doctoral dissertation entitled “Gregory of Nyssa's Soteriological Imaginary as a Resource for Nonviolent Soteriology.” Dr. Black's doctoral research will be published as a book in the near future, which will focus on how Gregory of Nyssa's use of biblical imagery can be used to build upon feminist and womanist critiques of violent atonement theology. Dr. Black is also contracted with St. Vladimir's Press to produce a Popular Patristics Series translation of seven short works by Gregory of Nyssa surrounding the theme of the life of virtue.At the University of Cambridge, Dr. Black was the Decani Scholar of Clare College Chapel, where she served as a lay leader in the Church of England. She was also editor of the divinity graduate journal Noesis and founder Women in Divinity. She currently serves on the leadership teams of Theologia and the Feminist Theology Network.Dr. Black has taught at the University of Cambridge, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, and Yale Divinity School. Her teaching has included the subjects of early Christianity, theology and literature, systematic theology, Greek, and Anglican and Episcopalian history. While at Yale, Dr. Black hosted The Leader's Way podcast for two years, convening conversations about theology, spirituality, and leadership with church leaders and scholars.Beyond teaching and writing, Dr. Black enjoys hiking with her husband Griffin and their dog Nellie and learning new crafts, like knitting. Dr. Hannah Black article for Earth & Altar “Scripture scrapbook”Athanasius' On the Incarnation (Popular Patrictics Series, 44b)https://www.christianbook.com/on-the-incarnation-saint-athanasis/9780881414271/pd/414276?en=google&event=SHOP&kw=academic-0-20%7C414276&p=1179710&utm_source=google&p=1237749&dv=c&cb_src=google&cb_typ=shopping&cb_cmp=21328467087&cb_adg=164336762792&cb_kyw=&utm_medium=shopping&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21328467087&gbraid=0AAAAAD_dTHbGl-v2rkxnnGf4RH6r_V_dy&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnovFBhDnARIsAO4V7mDCyrTi3xWqIAhN5Y8vNVHAvydf9SVCSKz83-WiZNx3zEuQCYWh02MaArrAEALw_wcBBiblical Time Machine episode with Sara Parvis https://www.biblicaltimemachine.com/listen-to-episodes/tnrzrx5darp7hnj-lz388-cw5dc-5zr8e-c98pn-7cd82-3dw4w-pk39b-krhb4-dmpzj-9chdk-ff3f4-rrjnw-wx4zs-2pkb4-6yyxm-saw97-ytnrg-y5w99-brayd-fhhce-f7tc6-7grnw-bmbcl-njl3f-79gbr+++Like what you hear? We are an entirely crowd-sourced, you-funded project. SUPPORT US ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/AndAlsoWithYouPodcastThere's all kinds of perks including un-aired live episodes, Zoom retreats, and mailbag episodes for our Patreons!+++Our Website: https://andalsowithyoupod.comOur Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andalsowithyoupodcast/++++MERCH: https://www.bonfire.com/store/and-also-with-you-the-podcast/++++More about Father Lizzie:BOOK: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762683/god-didnt-make-us-to-hate-us-by-rev-lizzie-mcmanus-dail/RevLizzie.comhttps://www.instagram.com/rev.lizzie/https://www.tiktok.com/@rev.lizzieJubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, TX - JubileeATX.org ++++More about Mother Laura:https://www.instagram.com/laura.peaches/https://www.tiktok.com/@mother_peachesSt. Paul's Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, PA++++Theme music:"On Our Own Again" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).New episodes drop Mondays at 7am EST/6am CST! 

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. 

What if gratitude could actually make you more beautiful from the inside out? In this conversation with Meredith Curtis, we're exploring the transformative power of cultivating gratitude in your homeschool family—and how thanksgiving changes not just your heart, but your entire countenance and home atmosphere.From Thanksgiving traditions that knit families together to miracle stories of God's provision, Meredith shares decades of wisdom on raising grateful children who focus on Jesus instead of consumerism.In this episode:✅How cultivating gratitude transforms you into a more beautiful person (yes, really!)✅Simple Thanksgiving traditions that build faith and family unity✅The crab legs miracle story that reminds us nothing is impossible with God✅Practical activities for the holiday season that shift focus from presents to Jesus✅Why serving others creates grateful hearts in your childrenReady to make gratitude a daily practice? Grab the free 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge mentioned in this episode and join hundreds of families started November 1st!Recommended Resources:30 Days of Gratitude ChallengeGrand Prize GiveawayGod's Girls Beauty Secrets Bible StudyCelebrate ThanksgivingJesus, Fill My Heart & Home Bible StudyChristmas Unit StudiesMeredith "GrandMerey" Curtis, mom of 5 homeschool grads and grandmother of 8, writes, speaks, leads worship, and loves celebrating God's goodness at every opportunity possible, believing that gratitude is the secret to joy. She enjoys creating homeschool curriculum and Bible studies for Christian families, as well as writing Maggie King Mysteries, wholesome cozies. Find her at PowerlineProd.com, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.Show Notes:The Beauty Secret That Changes EverythingMeredith Curtis is here with me today, and we're talking about gratitude. Meredith, y'all know I run the 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge, and I get guest bloggers to come in and post on our blog. I think Meredith has done it every single year I've ever done this. I know that's your heart. I know that's my heart. Gratitude just can do so many things for us.Meredith is a homeschooling mom who graduated her 5 children. Now she's grandmother to 8, so far, and all of them homeschool. She's a pastor's wife, a worship leader, a writer, a speaker, and she loves ministering to homeschool families. She's created a lot of curriculum, and she just started a mystery series called Maggie King Mysteries.Gratitude as a Beauty SecretMeredith, you have actually talked about gratitude as being a beauty secret. Can you sort of explain what you mean by that, and how you've seen gratitude actually transform someone from the inside?Meredith: I've always believed this, and I remember my grandmother used to say to me, beauty is as beauty does. When I was a young woman, teenager, young adult, young wife, I wanted to be beautiful on the inside. From my grandmother, I grasped that principle that beauty on the inside flows to the outside.One of the passages that really stood out to me was 1 Peter 3:1-7, and how God commends Sarah as a beautiful woman because of her gentle and quiet spirit. That got me on the road to thinking about beauty. I actually have a Bible study called God's Girls Beauty Secrets.When you're kind, when you're grateful, it changes your heart. Gratitude changes your focus from self to the Lord. Kindness changes your focus from self to others. When you're grateful and you walk into a home, or you walk into work, or you walk into your homeschool co-op or church, and you're having a conversation with people, it changes the expression on your face.You have more of a smile, you don't have those frowny frown lines. You have a beauty that emanates from you, and I think people want to be around you when you're like that. They want to be around people that are grateful, because it's gonna be raising them up rather than pulling them down.I'm a pastor's wife, and I see all the terrible things that happen to people. Mike and I have gone through so many trials. I think that sometimes the Lord just has to remind me, be grateful, be grateful, be grateful. When I am grateful, I notice the way people respond to me is very different than when I'm complaining and bitter.Beauty isn't just about a symmetrical face. Beauty goes so much beyond that, because it's your poise, it's your confidence. A truly beautiful woman walks into a room, and she's like, God is good, I'm so happy to see all of you, and her focus is completely on other people. That is beautiful.The Physical Impact of Bitterness vs. GratitudeYou know, as you're saying that, I do believe that however you're thinking on the inside is going to come out in your facial expressions, in your gestures, the way that you hold yourself. I also think, unfortunately, the opposite is true. Someone who is bitter—I have friends that are still holding bitterness towards people, and they're the ones that are in the hospital all the time. They've got illness, like, physical illnesses.Bitterness in your heart can actually mess up your insides. But the opposite of bitterness—you're forgiving, and you're grateful, and you're thankful, and you're kind—and that person, I think, God just blesses. When you have that attitude, people are like, oh, I want to be around them. Who wants to be around someone that's just complaining all the time?Passing Down Gratitude to GrandchildrenLet's talk about your grandchildren. Are there some things that you have been doing, or are doing, to pass down these values of gratitude and of your faith as well? Do you have any traditions that you're really cultivating a spirit of gratitude?Meredith: With Thanksgiving coming up this month, the first one I think of is we have a Thanksgiving tradition where before we say the blessing, we all pass around—sometimes I pass around kernels of corn, there's like this Thanksgiving poem about kernels of corn—or sometimes we just share things that we're thankful for.That is really powerful, because there's always tears. There's always something that's bittersweet, where someone's gone through something hard, and yet they're thankful for the things God did through it, or the people that helped them through it. There's just so much knitting together of family as people are thanking one another.Another thing I do with my grandchildren specifically: whenever they come over, I always ask them, what was the best thing that happened today? And then I always say to them, isn't God good? And then they say, yes, he is so good. That's not necessarily a tradition, but it's a habit that I've purposely cultivated with them to focus on the positive and be grateful.That's so interesting. When I'm with my grandkids, especially if I'm taking care of them and their parents are gone somewhere, and we're getting ready for bed, especially when they're younger, like 5 and under, I'm like, okay, we're gonna pray before we go to bed. I want you to think of one thing that you can say thank you to God for.That way, I'm like, we're gonna think. The only thing you have to say is, thank you, God. It does sort of make them think, well, what did happen? What can I be thankful for? That's such a simple way to say thank you, and it's thank you to God for whatever had happened.The Birthday Tradition That Honors PeopleMeredith: On birthdays, we always go around and talk about why we're thankful for the birthday person. Everybody shares, like, I'm so thankful for you because I love the way you do this, I love the way you do that, I appreciate it. My kids have carried it on, so at Cooper, my grandson just turned 9, and we were at the birthday party.They always start all their family birthday parties with just the mom or dad saying what they're thankful for, with all the kids there. They do it with all the kids' friends there. I think not only is it a blessing to the other children, but it's a blessing to the parents that are there.We do that a lot in our church, too, with people on a birthday. I noticed Paul does that in his letters. He'll say, I so appreciate you because of this and this and this. I was talking to someone the other day, and I was like, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, who were the squirreliest church in all of the New Testament, and he starts out thanking the Lord for them. There is no one we can't find something to be thankful for.You know, that's really important, too, because I have heard people say they're in a really difficult marriage, and they're just like, there's nothing good about my husband, there's nothing good. And I'm like, does he go to work every day for your family? Okay, there's one thing. Do you have a house that you live in? There's always, even in the most difficult situations, you can find something to be thankful for.When Gratitude Shifts the AtmosphereIs there anything else? Maybe you're walking through a difficult situation at your home. Has there ever been a time where gratitude sort of shifted the atmosphere during that difficult situation?Meredith: My husband right now is battling cancer, and it's been really hard on my kids. The Lord has been really good, but one of the things that I notice is talking with one of my children, and we'll both be talking about dad, and then we'll both kind of sniff, you know, like, suck back the tears, and then we'll just talk about what we're grateful for, like, what the Lord has done.There's just so much that God always has done. I think because of that psalm that says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise—I always start with thanking God. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I just lay there and start thanking God. I've trained my children to try to find something to be thankful for, so even in the most difficult situations.The Miracle of Crab Legs and Strawberry CakeI remember years ago, this is over a decade ago, we didn't have money. We had enough money to pay some bills, but not all. The whole family, we got in the family room, and we got on our knees, and we were praying. We were desperate for God to come through, but yet our prayers were so filled with thankfulness.We were thanking Him for all the times in the past that He had provided. I remember when we got up as family from our knees, we were fully, fully confident God was gonna come through. I remember Jenny Rose saying, well, I just wonder how God is gonna take care of this. I know He will.There's no testimony without a trial. Sometimes in the middle of a trial, when you can even just thank the Lord—I thank you that there's going to be a testimony in this.One story I can tell you that has to do with thankfulness: my niece came to visit one summer. This is when Mike was in seminary. We had no money. I would make hair bows and sell them, and that was our grocery money. My niece was there, it was her birthday.I said, what would you like for your birthday? And then I thought, wow, why am I asking her this? She said, I would like a strawberry cake with vanilla frosting, and I would like crab legs.I took her hand, and I prayed with her this really simple prayer. She wasn't a believer at the time. I said, Lord, thank you that you're the God who provides, and you hear this little girl what she wants, and I pray that somehow you would do a miracle and provide for that. I was not necessarily full of faith. About 5 minutes later, I was kind of like, what have I done?We had this food pantry, and they would have, like, you could pay a dollar, and you could get a bag full of groceries. That day, never before and never again, they had a strawberry cake mix and a vanilla frosting. We brought it home, I made the cake.It was getting close to dinner, so I thought, okay, I'm just gonna have to tell her, sometimes God says no. We get a knock at the door, and our pastor comes in with a grocery bag, about 4 feet high, filled with crab legs. Can you take these off our hands?I just remember saying, nothing is impossible with God. That filled our hearts with so much thanksgiving, and believe it or not, almost every time we face a difficult situation, we remember that story. God has probably been thanked for that story by my kids that weren't even alive then.When we pray boldly and see God answer, it builds a thankful heart in us even more. When we see God move, it helps us when we face difficult circumstances, because then there's a groundwork that, yes, God is good.Building Faith Through GratitudeJust the fact that y'all—I think it's growing thankfulness with our kids, but also their faith. When they see things like that, they do want to be thankful and continue to look back at that, but that is just another little step of building their faith that, look, God came through for us.It's really important, personally, keeping a gratitude journal. If I had to do it over again, I would keep a family gratitude journal. That way, you can record the things your kids are saying, and when bad things happen, you pull that thing out and read some of them.God wants us to record what He's done, and to be able to remember. Sometimes it's just verbally saying it, but sometimes we forget what He's done. The other idea is that we really believe in miracles. Sometimes we don't ask, because we don't think he's going to come through, and yet you just shared stories. He came through!Practical Activities for the Holiday SeasonWe're going to be sort of in that Thanksgiving-Christmas season. Do you have any practical activities that parents could do, families could do, to really build a habit of gratitude in the hustle and bustle? How can we be intentional during these holiday seasons to build that habit of gratitude in our kids?Meredith: First of all, the 30-day gratitude Challenge. That is a great one. I love that it's geared for children and for teens.The thing that I talked about earlier of going around before Thanksgiving dinner and sharing things that you're thankful for. As we were talking, I just thought, you know what I'm gonna do for our church is put a post at the top of our Facebook group, and just put the word gratitude, and I'm just gonna ask people, would all this month, when things happen, will you just post under that things that the Lord did to come through, or answers to prayer?What I used to do when the kids were little at Thanksgiving is I would put up a poster. Sometimes I did an answered prayer poster, I would write answered prayer, and then I would make columns, and then as God answered prayers, we could list the prayers. Or other times it was just what I'm thankful for.There's a craft that I've done, a thankful tree, where you make leaves and write something you're thankful for and glue that on.Serving Others Creates Grateful HeartsI also think just serving others gives us a grateful heart. There's one thing that it's almost the time will almost be up to turn them in, but it's the Shoebox Franklin Graham's ministry. When the grandkids were really little, like 2 and 3, the oldest ones are 9 and 10, I would take them to the Dollar Tree, and they could fill the box, and then I would just purchase everything, and we would wrap it up, and they would write a note.That just instills thankfulness. It could be serving at a soup kitchen. One year, I remember we adopted a poor family, and I remember it was a really dilapidated part of town, and we climbed up these rickety steps to the apartment on the second floor and delivered presents. I remember my kids, on the way home, they were thinking, wow, we're so blessed. When you see other people struggling, you realize how blessed you are.Christmas Carols and Focusing on JesusAnother thing that we do is we sing Christmas carols and have devotions all through December. On Christmas Day, we have these super long devotions. It's basically Luke 2, with a Christmas carol after every verse. We always sing, like, 3 or 4 verses, so it takes us, like, an hour. Then we sing happy birthday to Jesus.What that has to do with thankfulness is it sets the tone that Christmas isn't about presents. Christmas is a birthday, it's about a king, it's a king's birthday. We're gonna make the main focus of this day, Jesus. When you focus on Jesus, even the fact that he came in the Roman Empire, which was so evil—we think times are evil now, but the Roman Empire was so evil.He was born to a poor family, and he lived a perfect life, and how many times did they try to kill him? Finally, he let them take his life, and he died for sins, and he rose again. The more that we can gaze on that as families, in ways that are fun and relaxing and filled with love, the more children can gaze on Christ, the more they will be thankful.I think Christmas carols—there's something so powerful about the words to Christmas carols, especially if you go beyond verse 1. Even the song, God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen, there's, like, 8 or 9 verses, and every one of them is powerful. I think that there's something about the theology in them and the old hymns, too, but especially at Christmas time, the carols. Focusing on Jesus creates a thankful heart, too. Above all.Oh gosh, it's been 10 or 15 years ago, we were singing O Come All Ye Faithful, and we were singing the third verse. There's a line in there, God of God and Light of Light. We were studying the Roman Empire after Jesus' time period, but the church was growing in our history. Athanasius was standing up to say, no, Jesus was actually God. He was on the run because they wanted to kill this man.That phrase in that O Come All You Faithful verse, God of God and Light of Lights, was exactly what they were saying back in history at that time. We need to expose our kids to the verses. Pick one Christmas carol each year, and just sing it all the time. Go into the verses, use it for copywork, talk about what that means at the dinner table.Serving others—we did the same thing. Steve was head of the Benevolence Fund, and he would pick one of the families that really needed help. We'd go buy a turkey dinner for them with all the fixings for four or five people. The first time I did it, I was at the store, and I was like, they've got kids. We should get some Christmas gifts for them.We did that for 10 or 15 years, and would take it to a family that didn't have much. It really puts your kids in—it gives perspective to what is going on around us. Too often, we see the people that seem to have more than us, and we don't always see the people that have less than us.Resources From MeredithIf people want to reach out to you, Meredith, what would be the best way to find out more about you?Meredith: I do have two resources that I think people would enjoy. One is called Celebrate Thanksgiving, and it has hymns and prayers and poems. It has the entire story of the pilgrims in it from going to Holland, and then coming back, and then going to the New World.It has a lot of different Thanksgiving things, like the Macy's Parade. Then it talks about how to plan Thanksgiving festivities, like a pie breakfast or a praise and prayer brunch, or the big traditional family dinner, or a family football game. It's got a lot of different social things that you can plan. Some are really simple, some are more challenging, and then planner sheets to do it.The other book is called Jesus Fill My Heart and Home, and it's a Bible study. It talks about, first of all, letting Jesus live and abide in our hearts. Then it talks about how to bring the presence of God into your home in a really practical way. It touches on cleaning and all kinds of aspects of homemaking, but it does have a great chapter on holidays.It goes through the different holidays and how to celebrate holidays with a Christ-centered focus. Those are available at PowerlineProd.com. I have a store, lots of resources, lots of curriculum, lots of high school classes, and Christmas unit studies.I also have a blog on the site, PowerlineProd.com, and if you go there, there's links to our Facebook group, Powerline Productions. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and everything else from there. I'd love to hear from you.Final EncouragementAs we close out, is there anything that you would like to leave our audience with?Meredith: Yes, I would like to say this. Life is hard. I'm sure some of you listening are going through challenges, maybe challenges with homeschooling your kids, maybe grown children who've wandered from the faith, maybe health challenges.Jesus promised—the least favorite promise in all of the New Testament is, in this world, you will have trouble. But it doesn't stop there. It goes on and it says, take heart, because I have overcome the world.I just want to remind you that Jesus has overcome the world, that He is for you, not against you, and that if you put your hope in Him and your trust in Him, He will pour out grace and provision for everything you go through in this life. He will open your eyes to see so much beauty, and so many blessings, and so many people who end up coming in and just wrapping their arms around you and loving you that you don't expect.Draw near to Him, He will draw near to you, and eventually, one day, if you know Him and are born again, you will be with Him in heaven forever. It starts with just opening your eyes and being grateful, but there is so much more.Ready to transform your home with thanksgiving? Sign up for the free 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge at HowToHomeschoolMyChild.com/gratitudechallenge. Join hundreds of families cultivating gratitude together starting November 1st!

Opptak fra Missingmyra bedehus med en erfaren skulemann og medarbeider i Norsk Lutters Lekmannsmisjon. Episoden gir historisk bakgrunn om kirkemøtet i Nikea for cirka 1700 år siden, keiser Konstantins rolle, spenningen mellom Arius og biskop Alexander, og den unge Athanasius' betydning. Vi tar for oss Nicensk trosbekjennelse, hva lærdommen om Jesu guddom og menneskenatur betyr, viktigheten av "skriften alene" og hvordan man kjenner Guds ånd i møte med falsk forkynnelse. Ett klart budskap om personlig tro, bekjennelse av Jesus som Kristus og hvorfor denne historien fortsatt utfordrer og veileder oss i dag.

Just as we call loved ones to know they've arrived safely, John's vision in Revelation shows that our loved ones in Christ have reached their true home—safe before the Lamb. They endured the tribulations of life and now rest in the victory Jesus won through His death and resurrection. But John's vision also reminds us that not everyone is there yet. The world still needs the hope and mercy of Christ. As blessed ones, we are called to bring that hope to others—to live as lights in a world of pain, pride, and despair. Even when faith is met with rejection or ridicule, we persist, because Jesus didn't give up on us. All Saints' Day is a glimpse of eternity amid a dying world—a reminder that though we still journey through struggle, we do so with purpose and hope. For one day, by grace, we too will be home—safe, sound, and forever with the Lamb.

Great Story Great Saints: Patrick explores the lives of saints with vivid storytelling and answers questions about Old Testament figures, canonization mysteries, and whether it’s right to seek the prayers of Blesseds, letting sharp details and unexpected dialogue spark curiosity. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (04:34) Robert - My 2 favorites are Fulton Sheen and Romano Guardini. Is there any movement for the canonization of these two individuals? (24:19) Is All Saints Day a Holy Day of Obligation? (28:19) Scott - I believe the Blessed Mother is very powerful and saved this man I was praying for. (29:39) St. Athanasius of Alexandria (36:29) Luke - Are the older prophets in the Bible considered Saints? (46:20) Monica - At my Church we do a Saint and Blessed party. Someone from our group thought it was incorrect to not ask Blessed to pray for them. Is that Correct? (52:32)

Psalm 44Reading 1: Wisdom 7Reading 2: From a discourse Against the Arians by St. Athanasius, bishopSt. Helena Ministries is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit. Your donations may be tax-deductibleSupport us at: sthelenaministries.com/supportPresentation of the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) from The Liturgy of the Hours (Four Volumes) © 1975, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. The texts of Biblical readings are reproduced from the New American Bible © 1975

We're reposting this episode in anticipation of Reformation Day. John Henry Newman once said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Dr. Michael Haykin disagrees — and in this conversation, he shows why Christians today need the wisdom of the early Church Fathers. Join us as we explore: What Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and Clement teach about baptism, communion, and church leadership Common myths about the Church Fathers and why their example of faithful, reflective living matters today How their pursuit of holiness can shape your daily devotion and spiritual growth Fun (and surprising) clarifications: Is John MacArthur a bishop? Are Presbyterians right about infant baptism? Support the Podcast Support us on Patreon Website: thatllpreach.io IG: thatllpreachpodcast YouTube Channel  

When Jesus said, “You will become free,” His listeners protested, claiming they had never been enslaved. But Jesus revealed a deeper truth — all are bound by sin. Every outburst, grudge, and selfish act exposes our captivity to our sinful nature. However hard we try, our efforts to overcome it fail, like a game of Whack-a-Mole where sin always reappears. Christ came to end that bondage. Through His cross and resurrection, He conquered sin and death, freeing us to live as God's children. In baptism, our old selves are drowned, and we rise renewed — no longer slaves, but beloved sons and daughters. The Reformation was not rebellion, but rediscovery: that true freedom comes only through the grace of Jesus Christ, who makes us free indeed.

Para leer la entrevista como se publicó originalmente en inglés, ir al siguiente link:https://www.permariam.com/p/exclusive-schneider-the-church-cannotAyuda a sostener este apostolado. Envía mensaje de WhatsApp al +52 33 2813 6085 diciendo: "Quiero apoyar", y te diremos cómo puedes hacernos llegar tu ayuda. Síguenos en nuestra página web: https://conservandolafe.com/Para recibir aviso de nuevos videos, envía ALTA por WhatsApp al +52 33 2813 6085Ayúdanos a crecer en YouTube dando click al botón que dice "suscribirse" o "suscribirme" (es gratuito, no te cuesta nada); también da un like a este video dando click al icono

“Trust but verify.” President Reagan made the phrase famous, but Jacob lived it long before him—trusting God, yet still hedging his bets. As Jacob prepared to meet his brother Esau, fear led him to rely on his own strength instead of God's promises. That night, God met him in a wrestling match—not to destroy him, but to teach him to trust completely. Like Jacob, we often wrestle with doubt, wanting to believe yet still trying to stay in control. But God has already fought—and won—the real battle for us in Jesus. At the cross, the Son of God wrestled with sin and death and rose victorious. So now, we don't need to “verify” God's faithfulness; the empty tomb is proof enough. Whatever fears we face, He still meets us where we are, blesses us, and holds us fast. The victory is His—and by faith, it's ours too.

St. Athanasios appealed his deposition at the hands of the Arians to Pope St. Julius and the Apostolikos Thronos. What exactly did St. Athanasius believe this appeal entailed as regards the power of the papacy, and what can his appeal tell us about how we Orthodox should think about the rightly ordered authority of St. Peter's heirs?

Finish Faithful - https://finishfaithful.org/ @finishfaithful7807  In this episode, my father, Jeff Tideman, and I discuss our spiritual journeys and the complex world of Christian eschatology. We explore Jeff's religious history, including his experience with The Way International, the early church's premillennial beliefs, and the fascinating history of how the doctrine of the "rapture" developed later in the 19th century. The conversation ultimately centers on the nature of the Kingdom of God—whether it is a purely spiritual reality "within you" or a future, literal, geopolitical restoration of Israel and the earth, and why understanding this is crucial for believers today.We mention The Way International, Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille, John Nelson Darby, Dr. E. W. Bullinger, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Papias of Hierapolis, Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, Julian the Apostate, Chuck Lamatina, Sir Anthony Buzzard, Sean Finnegan. @restitutio8765  , Dr. Beau Branson, Will Barlow. @compasschurchlou  , Antichrist, Eschatology, Kingdom of God, Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, Premillennialism, Amillennialism, Preterism, Chiliasm, Supersessionism, The Rapture, Pre-Tribulation Rapture, Pre-Wrath Rapture, Zionism and more.

Send us a textIn the 4th century AD, two Christian friends - Basil and Gregory - travelled from Cappadocia to Athens to go study Greek literature with Libanius, the leading rhetorician of the time. While there, these two young and wealthy Cappadocians befriended a fellow student named Julian, the nephew of the Emperor Constantine. There in Athens, the three young Christians mastered Greek philosophy and rhetoric at Libanius' feet. Later on, Basil went on to become the bishop of Caesarea, one of the architects of orthodoxy's victory over the Arian heresy, and was later named a "Doctor of the Church." His friend Gregory of Nazianzus rose to become one of the foremost preachers and theologians in church history. And their friend Julian became Emperor - and having repudiated the Christian faith, attempted to turn the newly Christian Roman Empire pagan again. Clearly, as the example of Julian the Apostate shows, pagan mythology and literature pose a danger to Christian faith. But can pagan learning serve Christian faith as well? Jonathan and Ryan are joined, once again, by the Rev. Calvin Goligher to discuss St. Basil of Caesarea's "Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature," in which he answers heartily in the affirmative, and explains how to use Greek poetry, philosophy, and history for the edification of young Christian students. St. Basil's Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/basil_litterature01.htmFrederick Morgan Padelford's Introduction to St. Basil and the Address to Young Men: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/basil_litterature00.htmRichard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnONH episode on Justin Martyr: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/10722142-justin-martyr-s-first-apology-feat-calvin-goligher-episode-xxivNH episode on Athanasius: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/9827740-athanasius-on-the-incarnation-feat-calvin-goligher-episode-xvRobert Louis Wilken's The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300105988New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

[DONATE WITH PAYPAL] This episode in the series "OCIA: The Bridge to Rome" dives into the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as vibrant summaries of the Gospel. Greg shares his journey from a deconstructed Evangelical hipster “fellowship” to embracing the Creeds' role in guarding the apostolic faith against heresies, drawing from the Catechism and early Church fathers like St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius. He contrasts Catholic creedal unity with evangelical “no creed but Christ” and subjective faith statements, highlighting the Nicene Creed's power in Mass. This episode invites OCIA participants and global listeners to see the Creeds as a living roadmap for conversion. Donate with PayPal! Website: https://www.consideringcatholicism.com/ Email: consideringcatholicism@gmail.com  

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION “We have smoothly transitioned from one form of feminine subservience to another, but we pretend that this one is liberation.” “…Western sexual culture in the twenty-first century…promotes the interests of the Hugh Hefners of the world at the expense of the Marilyn Monroes.”~Louise Perry, British journalist in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution “For we were the purpose of [Christ's] embodiment, and for our salvation he so loved human beings as to come to be and appear in a human body.” “He became what we are so that he might make us what he is.”~Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296-373), On the Incarnation “The dignity of human nature, fashioned in the divine image, is such that God can take it for himself—and keep it.”~Nigel Cameron, bioethicist “[The] central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations…. [P]erhaps above all else, Christianity brought a new conception of humanity to a world saturated with capricious cruelty and the vicarious love of death…. [W]hat Christianity gave to its converts was nothing less than their humanity.”~Rodney Stark (1934-2022), Professor of Sociology and Comparative Religion “It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare…. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit….”~C.S. Lewis (1893-1963), The Weight of Glory “Christianity's success is to be found in its inclusiveness. More than any other of its [ancient] competitors it attracted all races and classes…. Christianity, too, was for both sexes…. The Church welcomed both rich and poor…. No other [religion]…took in so many groups and strata of society.”~Kenneth Scott Latourette (1884-1986), historian at Yale UniversitySERMON PASSAGEselected passages (ESV)Genesis 1 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image,    in the image of God he created him;    male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Matthew 22 15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. 16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.... 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 1 Corinthians 6 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Hebrews 2 14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Life often leads us down paths we never planned—ventures whose endings we cannot see. That's true for churches, for families, and for each of us. Yet through every change, setback, or unknown, God's hand still leads and His love still supports. From Naomi's famine and exile, to the lepers healed by Jesus, to Paul's imprisonment for the Gospel, God worked good through what seemed hopeless. The same Lord is at work in our own uncertainty—feeding us in famine, healing us in sin, and guiding us through every peril by grace. So we pray with faith and courage: not knowing where we go, but trusting the One whose hand leads us and whose love never fails.

Visit our website to learn more about The God Centered Concept. The God Centered Concept is designed to bring real discipleship and spreading the Gospel to help spark the Great Harvest, a revival in this generation. www.godcenteredconcept.comKingdom Cross Roads Podcast is a part of The God Centered Concept.In this episode of the Revelation Warning Podcast, Pastor Bob Thibodeau interviews T.S. Wright, who discusses the God-Centered Concepts series and the historical context of the church ages. The conversation covers the transition from the first to the second church age, the impact of the Edict of Milan, the role of persecution in church growth, and the canonization of scripture. T.S. Wright emphasizes the importance of understanding these historical events to deepen one's faith and connection to God.TakeawaysThe church should be viewed as a movement, not an institution.The first church age lasted about a hundred years, ending with the Jewish revolt.Persecution often leads to the growth of Christianity.The Edict of Milan marked a significant acceptance of Christianity in the Roman Empire.Athanasius played a crucial role in the development of church doctrine.The canonization of scripture was a complex and detailed process.Understanding the cultural context of scripture enhances its relevance today.The New Testament writings were addressed to specific audiences and contexts.God's timeline for the church is organized and purposeful.

Today, we're looking at the prophet Habakkuk—a man who saw a world filled with violence, injustice, and corruption, much like our own. Habakkuk cried out to God, asking why He seemed silent. God answered—but not as expected. He would use the ruthless Babylonians to discipline His people, proving that even through chaos, His purposes stand. The lesson? “The righteous shall live by faith.” Faith that trusts when nothing makes sense. Jesus echoes this in today's Gospel, calling us not just to confront sin but to forgive—again and again. It sounds impossible, yet the power doesn't come from us but from Christ, who bore our sin and conquered it on the cross. The same God who once used Babylon for His purpose now uses His people—you and me—to bring His mercy into a broken world. Forgiveness isn't weakness; it's divine strength. The righteous live by faith—faith in the One who died, rose, and now lives through us.

This two-part video series provides a deep historical analysis of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), tracing its ingredients from 19th-century New England intellectual and social revolutions to its status as America's de facto civic religion. We argue that MTD collapsed when the sexual and moral revolutions forced a devastating fracture between its Christian heritage and its core principles of self-actualization and benevolence, leading to the polarized political landscape of today.Moralist Therapeutic Deism Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eHYMzanOvs&t=4679s @triggerpod   @InterestingTimesNYT   @JonathanPageau   @PaulVanderKlay 00:00:00 - Introduction and Recap00:10:07 - MTD, Chicago, and Obama00:13:00 - Cornell as Microcosm00:25:15 - Tim Keller on programatic secularism00:35:55 - Mainline Christianity00:37:45 - Wokeness and MTD00:47:05 - MTD and Partisanship00:49:20 - Arena vs Agent00:51:00 - Donald Trump 00:56:15 - Nationalism vs Globalism01:03:40 - Who killed MTD?01:05:55 - Competing Arenas01:08:25 - The future of Christian NationalismIn this video I mention:Aaron Renn, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Baker, Alfred, Allen C. Guelzo, Amos, Andrew Jackson Davis, Ann Lee, Anagarika Dharmapala, Arthur Conan Doyle, Athanasius, Barack Obama, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Black Lives Matter, Bud, Buddha, Calvin, Cathleen Falsani, Catherine Fox, Charles B. Rosna, Charles Carroll Bonney, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Charlie Kirk, Christian Smith, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Clement of Alexandria, Conrad Grebel, Constantine, David Bentley Hart, Deepak Chopra, Donahoe, Donald Trump, Eddie Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elijah Muhammad, Eliott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Elizabeth Keckley, Ellen Todd, Emilie Todd Helm, Emanuel Swedenborg, Epictetus, Erica Kirk, Ernst Troeltsch, Ezra Klein, Fanny Hayes Platt, Faustus Socinus, Finney, Fox Sisters, Franz Anton Mesmer, Fred Shuttlesworth, Frederick the Wise, Friedrich Nietzsche, Galen, George Barna, George Fox, George W. Bush, Gregory of Nyssa, Henry Clay, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, H. P. Blavatsky, H. Richard Niebuhr, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harold Ockenga, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Helen Schucman, Hosea Ballou, J. Gresham Machen, Jacob Blake, James, James Comey, James Lindsay, James Russell Lowell, Jared Sparks, Jean H. Baker, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Jesus Christ, Jim Lindsay, John, John Adams, John Bunyan, John D. Rockefeller, John Henry Barrows, John Locke, John Milton, John Murray, John Stott, Jonathan Edwards, Jordan Peterson, Joseph Priestly, Joseph Smith, Judith Skutch, Julius Dresser, Kant, Karl Menninger, Karlstadt, Kate Fox, Kenneth Minkema, Koot Hoomi, Kyle Rittenhouse, Lelio Socinus, Leonard Zusne, Lou Malnatis, Luke Thompson (  @WhiteStoneName  ), Lyman Beecher, Madame Blavatsky, Margaretta Fox, Marianne Williamson, Mark Parker (  @MarkDParker  ) , Mark Twain, Mary Baker Eddy, Mary Todd Lincoln, Matt Herman, Meister Eckhart, Melinda Lundquist Denton, Mesmer, Micah, Michael Bronky, Michael Servetus, Monophysite, Morya, Moses, Nancy Pelosi, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nettie Colburn Maynard, Newton, Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicholas of Cusa, Norman Vincent Peale, Oprah, Origen, Paul, Paul Tillich, Paul Vanderlay, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Plotinus, Proclus, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ramakrishna, Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, Robin D'Angelo, Rod Dreher, Ronald Reagan, Ross Douthat, Rowan Williams, Rudolf Steiner, Samuel Johnson, Septimus J. Hanna, Shailer Mathews, Shakers, Shadrach, Socrates, Soyen Shaku, Swami Vivekananda, Tad Lincoln, Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Starr King, Tracy Herman, Virchand Gandhi, Victoria Woodhull, Warren Felt Evans, William Ellery Channing, William James, William Lloyd Garrison, William Newton Clarke, Willie Lincoln, Winthrop, Zwingli.

Exploring C. S. Lewis' 1944 Preface to St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation, "On the Reading of Old Books." Here, Lewis explains why it's not only good advice for people to be well-read, but specifically to be well-read in old books as well as new ones. Lewis then extends the argument to Christians especially, pleading with them to not only become familiar with, but to become immersed in orthodox Christian teaching through the reading of old books.Find more Lesser-Known Lewis — Online: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠pintswithjack.com/lesser-known-lewis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/lesserknownlewis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@lesserknownlewis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesser-Known Lewis Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: lesserknownlewis@gmail.comGraphic Design by Angus Crawford.Intro Music - Written by Jess Syratt, arranged & produced by Angus Crawford and Jordan Duncan.

This week, I'm reflecting on the “war in heaven” — that mysterious battle between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his own. We may not understand how angels fight, but we know the outcome: the good prevailed. Yet the defeated enemy now rages on earth, turning his attacks toward us, using not swords but words — sowing doubt, twisting truth, and tempting us with his favorite word: “but.” Still, we are not defenseless. God's Word and the blood of the Lamb are our weapons; His Word cuts through deception, and His Sacraments heal and strengthen us for the fight. Though we may not see the struggle, it is real — and the victory is already won. Our names are written in heaven, not by our strength, but by Christ's blood, shed on the cross. The angels fought in heaven, but Jesus won the greater war — for us.

When Jesus said, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” it wasn't a rebuke just for the Pharisees—it's a call for us, too. God doesn't delight in rituals for their own sake, but in mercy that mirrors His own heart. Jesus came to bring that mercy to sinners, to touch the broken and bear their sin—even when it killed Him. On the cross, He became both the perfect sacrifice and the perfect mercy. And He still comes to us today—to forgive, heal, and invite us to His table, where mercy flows freely. Then, like Matthew the tax collector, we're sent out to share that same mercy with a world that needs it.

The world measures funerals by size and fame, but Jesus does not. Whether in a stadium or a small chapel, He sees the same need—sinners in need of forgiveness and life. That is what He gave Reinhardt in Baptism, in His Word, and in His Supper: the promise that though he died, he is not dead but alive in Christ. Like the paralyzed man Jesus healed, Reinhardt will rise, not to temporary strength, but to everlasting life when Christ returns. And that same promise is ours. Our worth is not in the world's opinion but in the Savior who died and rose for us, who says even now: “Take heart, your sins are forgiven.”

In this solo episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal tackles the concerning theological trend of "Divine Council Theology" and its recent resurgence within Reformed circles. He offers a critical analysis of Michael Heiser's influential work and its problematic popularization by Reformed figures like Doug Van Dorn and John Moffitt. Tony demonstrates how redefining the biblical term "Elohim" to include both God and created spiritual beings in the same ontological category fundamentally undermines the creator-creature distinction essential to Christian orthodoxy. Through careful examination of systematic theological categories, communicable and incommunicable attributes, and implications for Christology, he reveals why this seemingly academic redefinition poses serious threats to biblical monotheism and classical Reformed theology. Key Takeaways Divine Council Theology, popularized by Michael Heiser and now being promoted within Reformed circles, attempts to redefine "Elohim" as a functional category that includes both God and created spiritual beings. This theological trend commits an etymological fallacy by redefining the predominant usage of "Elohim" (which refers to the God of Israel in ~2,300 of 2,600 occurrences) based on minority usages. The approach dangerously blurs the fundamental creator-creature distinction that is essential to Christian monotheism and orthodox theology. Proponents incorrectly classify divine power as a communicable attribute rather than recognizing omnipotence as an incommunicable attribute that cannot be shared with creatures. The theological system makes problematic analogies to the incarnation, showing a confused understanding of the hypostatic union and potentially opening the door to Arian implications. This theology represents a concerning return to concepts the early church fathers fought against when confronting pagan Greek thought, rather than a retrieval of biblical teaching. Departing from the "pattern of sound words" handed down through church history in favor of novel interpretations should raise significant warning flags. Key Concepts The Creator-Creature Distinction The most fundamental division in Christian theology is not between spiritual and material beings, but between the uncreated Creator and everything else that exists. Divine Council Theology dangerously undermines this distinction by placing God and created spiritual beings in the same category of "Elohim." While proponents acknowledge God as the uncreated Creator, they nevertheless insist on categorizing Him alongside angels, demons, and other spiritual entities based on shared attributes of power or function. This categorization system parallels pagan worldviews more than biblical theology, where God exists in a class of one. By defining "Elohim" as a functional category related to spiritual power rather than an ontological one, this approach inadvertently returns to a hierarchical view of spiritual beings with God merely at the "top of the totem pole" rather than in an entirely separate and unique category of existence. This framework subtly but significantly undermines biblical monotheism by suggesting God shares a fundamental nature with His creatures. Communicable vs. Incommunicable Attributes Divine Council Theology mishandles the traditional theological distinction between God's communicable and incommunicable attributes. In classical Reformed theology, communicable attributes (like love or wisdom) can be shared with creatures in a limited, analogical way, while incommunicable attributes (like omnipotence, eternality, or divine simplicity) belong exclusively to God and cannot be shared without making the creature into God. Proponents of Divine Council Theology erroneously suggest that the power denoted by "Elohim" is a communicable attribute that God shares with spiritual beings, rather than recognizing omnipotence as properly incommunicable. This misclassification creates theological incoherence: if God could truly share His omnipotence with creatures, those creatures would effectively become equal to God in power, creating the logical impossibility of multiple omnipotent beings. This confusion of categories demonstrates how this theological system fails to maintain proper distinctions that are essential for preserving the uniqueness and transcendence of God in Christian theology. Memorable Quotes "Christianity and biblical Judaism—the primary distinction is not between spiritual and matter... The primary distinction when we're talking about the most absolute line is the distinction between the uncreated creator and his creation." "Rather than rely on the safe time-tested words and concepts that have been proven and validated, and attacked and defended and have been victorious for hundreds and thousands of years... Moffitt and Van Dorn think it is smarter and safer to depart from the pattern of sound words rather than to keep the pattern of sound words because they think that they are able to look at the Bible the way basically no one ever has in the 2000 years of the church and find something they haven't." "These teachings are pagan. This is talking about returning to a world populated by spiritual beings, and God is kind of just on the highest part of the totem pole... We're just returning to something that the early church fought hard to get rid of when they came out of their pagan culture." Resources Mentioned Reformed Arsenal article series on Divine Council Theology Full Transcript [00:00:24] Introduction and Episode Setup Tony Arsenal: Welcome to episode 461 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I am Tony, and today it's just me. Hey, brothers and sisters. We had a little bit of a scheduling conflict this week, so Jesse is taking the week off and uh, it gives me an opportunity to talk about something that I've been doing a little bit of research on. [00:00:47] Affirmations and Denials Tony Arsenal: Hopefully the listener has noticed that Jesse and I have been trying to keep our affirmations and denials a little bit tighter so we can get into the meat of the episode a little bit quicker. But occasionally we do run into a denial, usually a denial, but we run into a denial that, uh, we often say this could be an episode of its own. And so today is one of those episodes. So I'm not gonna give you my normal affirmation or denial. I'm just gonna jump into it. Now this is gonna be a little bit off the cuff. I've been doing some research, so I may not have as much of the receipts as the kids say, um, as I normally would. But I am writing a series of articles on this issue over@reformedarsenal.com. I'll make sure to put the link to the first article in the show notes. All of the receipts are there, all of the timestamps for the podcast episodes that I'll be. Discussing your critiquing. Are there citations for research work that I'm doing? All that stuff is there. So if you're interested in digging into the meet and you're the kind of guy who, or girl who likes to nerd out in the footnotes, then head over to uh reformed arsenal.com. You'll find the series pretty quick. [00:01:56] Introduction to Divine Counsel Theology Tony Arsenal: What I wanted to talk about today, and I'm glad we have kind of a whole episode, uh, to talk about it, is a movement, uh, that has some foothold in reformed theology. Uh, it's not new, uh, it didn't start in reformed theology, but for some reason, uh, those who are within our orbits tend to be a little bit enamored by this kind of theology. I'm not exactly sure why. [00:02:19] Michael Heiser's Influence Tony Arsenal: This theology is often called Divine Counsel Theology, and it was really, um, you know, it's not entirely new even with, with this figure, but it was really made popular and sort of, um, spread about and made accessible by the late Michael Heiser. Um, part of this is because he was just a very winsome, uh, guy. He took. Sort of highfalutin academic concepts and was able to bring them down to, uh, to an understandable level, including things like ancient near Eastern context, biblical, you know, ex of Jesus Hebrew language, other ancient near Eastern languages, which of course, that's that kind of stuff is what this podcast is all about, taking difficult, sometimes technical concepts. Talking about them, translating them into kind of the language that everybody else speaks. So that project was fine. The issue is the direction that he goes with a lot of the theology. So Michael Heiser writes a book called Unseen Realms, which is seen as kind of a retrieval of the supernatural mindset and worldview of the Bible. Uh, there's a lot to be commended about that, uh, enterprise, about that intention. I do agree with part of what he has to say when he says that we've lost a lot of the supernatural context of the Bible. Um, but I think where he goes with it is a direction that we really ought not go and we'll dig into it. [00:03:43] Critique of Reformed Fringe Podcast Tony Arsenal: The reason this is coming up now is because recently there's been a series of articles and podcasts put out by a show called The Reformed Fringe. Uh, some if you're in the Telegram chat, which you can join at, uh, t Me slash Reformed Brotherhood. You've already seen some of this stuff. We've already talked about it a little bit. But the Reformed Fringe is a podcast that sort of tries to fill a space that's something like Haunted Cosmos, which we've talked about before. Um, fills sort of looking at the weird fringe kind of things in the world. Ghosts, paranormal activity, trying to explain it through a biblical, uh, lens or worldview. Again, that's a commendable. Effort. There are strange things that happen in our world that are not easily explainable or at all explainable by natural, uh, naturalistic means. And so coming to those things with the Bible as our, uh, rubric to instruct us on how the world works is a commendable thing. But again, this project, which is by and large, um, and we'll get into maybe, but by and large is just an extension of, um, Heiser's project really goes in directions that cause all sorts of problems down the road. So the podcast is, uh, run by a guy named Doug Van Dorn, who most of the audience probably hasn't heard of. I have had run-ins with Doug over the years. Um, the last time I ran into him actually was revolving around similar kinds of issues that I'm gonna be calling out today. Um, and it, it ended up with him kind of having to depart from the reform pub, uh, maybe to put it a little bit politely and, um. You know, he has, he has taken, he's theology, which was not explicitly reformed. Heiser was not a reformed guy. He had no claims to be a Calvinist in many ways. Uh, he was sort of anticon confessional in, in that he opposed not the idea of a faith statement, but he sort of purported to come to the Bible with no biases, with no tradition. He wanted to approach what he called the Naked Bible. That was actually the name of his podcast before he died a few years ago. And so what Doug Van Dorn is, has done who, uh, Doug is a claims to be a 1689 Reformed Baptist. He's a pastor in Colorado, I believe. Um, he has tried to take this divine counsel theology and bring it into the reformed world. So he comes at it with a, a slightly different angle, but for the most part, his conclusions are the same. And in many cases he just straight up steals ER's work and doesn't cite it, doesn't do much to, uh, articulate that this is not his original research. Um, so he's taken that and he's trying to bring it into the reformed world. And Heiser himself was actually quite influential when I was a, an admin in the reform pub. We would run into lots of, lots of young reformed guys. Who were really enamored with this and they really saw, he's project as sort of a return to a pure form of exo Jesus that really got at what the Hebrew was saying. And it tickled, I think, kind of an intellectual, uh, an intellectual itch that a lot of those guys had combined with sort of this desire for the new and novel, um, which is in itself can be pretty dangerous. To sort of make things a little bit more pressing, Heiser has teamed up with John Moffitt, who many of our listeners may know. Uh, he's one of the co-hosts and founders of the podcast, Theo Cast, uh, which otherwise is a perfectly fine podcast. Um, he's also a 1680 or claims to be a 1689 Reform Baptist. He's a pastor. Um, their podcast is sort of what you would get if you had, uh, and I don't mean this to be pejorative, although maybe it is a little pejorative. Theo cast is what you would get if you took r Scott Clark. Uh, you made it much less intellectual and careful, and then made it Baptist. And what I mean by that is Scott's whole project. In large part is to recover and to emphasize the law gospel distinction. Theo cast has taken that and sort of cranked it up to 11. Uh, and they have um, they have sort of moved away from a lot of the classical reform distinctions of the law itself, so they don't full on deny the third use of the law. But in practice they would say that, um, good works is no kind of evidence whatsoever for your, um, for your faith. It's no kind of evidence of your, your salvation, which of course are confessions themselves. Um, say that there is a kind of evidential value to assessing our good works within certain reason and con. So the show is otherwise orthodox. You know, I I, I recall hearing episodes where they were refuting things like EFS, um, but because of that, Moffitt brings with him sort of an air of credibility and an error in orthodoxy that, um, the show itself probably hasn't merited. If Doug just recorded, pushed, play and put it on the. I don't think there would've been too much, uh, too much of a following. He would've probably, you know, grabbed a couple people who heard it and thought it was interesting. But because Moffitt has such a following on Theo cast, he brings with him a large audience, and that makes it particularly dangerous because his name attached to it makes it more widespread. It makes it feel like it's safer. And so I think a lot of people, uh, assume that what he's saying is orthodox and good. And I think what we'll find out is, is that it's not. So I think that's enough ProGo. [00:09:10] Elohim and Its Implications Tony Arsenal: I'm gonna go ahead and, and jump into explaining kind of what the theology that we're talking about is and, and what the problems are. So this all started kicked off, uh, with a series of podcast episodes and the first episode, and again, I don't have the specific titles here. I'll put a bibliography in the show notes on this one just so you have links to all the relevant episodes. Um, this all kind of kicked off with a podcast episode called something like The History of the Word God, or something like that. And, um, basically what Moffitt and Van Dorn want to do is they wanna look at the word Elohim in the Bible, which of course is a plural noun. Uh, in Hebrew, the, the suffix, just like in English, we might add an S or an ES, um, to a word to make it plural. Or in Greek, it's usually, if it's a masculine, uh, noun, it's, it's an oi or an omicron iota that sort of always sound at the end. Um, or when we, we talk about Latin, you have, you have like, um, you add the I at the end, so we say octopi instead of octopuses or something like that. Cacti instead of cactus. Although both of those are kind of pig Latins, um, in, in Hebrew for, uh, for masculine nouns. The suffix that you add to make it plural, is that eam sound. It's a, it's an Im if you transliterate in English. So the word Elohim is a plural of the original noun El which is a proper name for a eury deity. But it came to just be the singular word for, for God. Um, and, and in non-biblical language, we would say in a God. Um, and we do see in English, there are in, in Hebrew, in the Bible, there are places where we see the singular of this. It's kind of an older form, so it doesn't show up as much. Um, but by and large when we see the word Elohim in the Bible. Something like, uh, outta 2,600 references or more than 2,600 references in the Bible. Um, the word Elohim is associated with a single, a singular noun, and it only refers to the God of Israel. What Moffitt and Van Dorn want to do is they want to take this word and they wanna define it based on the abnormal. Uh, use of it. So the vast minority, minority of cases in the Old Testament, the word Elohim refers to the gods or to a non, like what we might say is lower G God, either like the God, Baal, or some sort of collective reference to the gods, the gods of the nation, or something like that. They wanna take the fact that there is this variation in the way the word is used and sort of radically redefine how the Bible uses it. And this, this is what I call and what a lot of people would call an etymological fallacy. So what they're doing is, instead of, uh, looking at the word and defining it based on how it's used in an, in an overwhelming fashion, they're looking at sort of the etymology of the word. And then they're using the fact that there are, uh, some pretty Dr. Dramatically minority cases where the word is used in a different way and they wanna redefine it and say, in, in all or most cases in the Bible actually. This is what the word means. So they look at the word L, which from its root has something to do probably with the, with the word for power or something like that. Um, they wanna look at it. And, you know, if you read someone like Vos in Reformed dogmatics in his volume one, he talks about how when we see the name Elohim for God, it denotes or, or refers to his sort of power, his omnipotence, which is all good and fine, just like we would say Yahweh. Uh, as a proper name refers to God sort of in his covenant role. It's his covenant name, his, his intimate, familial name that he shares, uh, with his people or he reveals to his people. Elohim is a more abstract name and it refers to God's power. Usually we see it in relation to his cre creation. So in Genesis one, um, when it's God created, it's Elohim created, which is also important and relevant for, for later. So what they wanna do is they want to say that Elohim actually. What Act Elohim actually means is it's a reference to a class of beings, spiritual beings, and that that it means sort of any spiritual being that has some type of supernatural power or enhanced power, some sort of spiritual power. They do this by saying that the noun is not an ontological noun, it's actually like a noun of function. Um, so like we would say a, a good example in English would be a painter that's a noun of function. It's a title of function. It any person could be called a painter if they engage in the verbal action of painting. And so what they're saying is that any being that engages in the action of having power. Is, uh, is an Elohim. And so that would include, in narrating at least, it would include angels, demons. Uh, I, you know, I don't know that they've said this explicitly, but I, I think Heiser would've included things like ghosts, disembodied spirits, um, humans in sort of the intermediary state might be considered Elohim humans in the, in the, um, this. Life are called Elohim, uh, in some instances. So, so this is where the Divine Council theology comes from, and that comes from Psalm 82, I think, where there's this council of Elohim that, that Yahweh seems to be speaking to and deliberating with. Or you look at Joe, where the sons of God come and they sort of pulled court in God's heavenly presence. So he would say those are examples where the, the collected Elohim. God being one of the Elohim are somehow gathered in this heavenly divine counsel. Now what this does is just devastating to Christian theology is it takes God who exists in a class of one. The, the, the God of the universe is, is the only uncreated entity in all of of the world. And so when we start to talk, and this is ironic, when we start to talk about the ways to divide up the world, the ancient world, the, the pagan world tended to divide the world between, um. Between spiritual and material. So think of g Gnostics where matter was bad and spirit was good. Or even think of something like, um, the Greek pantheons, the Greek, um, Greek religion, like ancient Greek mythology. You have sort of the spirits and the spiritual world and the gods inhabit a spiritual, have a spiritual existence for the most part. And then you have the physical world where kind of people live, uh, at least while they're alive. Christianity and, and Judaism, at least Biblical Judaism. On the other hand, the, the primary distinction is not between spiritual and matter. There is of course that distinction. There are humans, which are spiritual and material. There are animals which are entirely material, and then there are angels which are entirely spiritual. And so we would say that God is spiritual. So that is a distinction in the world. But the primary distinction when we're talking about the most absolute line is the distinction between the, the uncreated creator and his creation. So what Moffitt, Moffitt and Van Dorn do is instead of observing that biblical distinction, which really all of Christian theology and Christian monotheism rests on, they wanna say that instead, the distinction is between the. Um, is between the Elohim as the sort of spiritual beings and then sort of everything else of the created world, and so they wouldn't deny that God, that Yahweh is. The uncreated creator of all things, but they would say he's an uncreated Elohim and that there is a class of created Elohim. So I don't, I don't think you have to go too far down this road to see what this does. It puts God on the same level as his creatures in at least one way. Um, and I think we'll find out later, uh, as we talk through this, actually it does it in a couple ways that are really, uh, really can be problematic as we go. And so, uh, just let me be clear if all that, if all that Moffitt and Van Dorn were saying, if, if all they said was, um, we can use the word Elohim to describe any creature. Or God that doesn't have a body. Elohim is a synonym for the word spirit. Um, that wouldn't be the wisest way to speak, I don't think. It wouldn't be the, the most, um, felicitous or safe way to talk about the distinction. But it wouldn't be controversial. There'd be nothing wrong with that. It'd just be using a different word. It'd be like if I said, well, instead of the word spirit, I'm gonna use the word bibly bop, you know? So we have. We have God who is bibly bop, and we have the angels who is bibly bop, and humans are biblio bop. And also material, again, not the safest way to talk. There's no reason to use that alternative language when the Bible gives us perfectly legitimate language. Um, but it wouldn't be a problem. But Moffit and Van Dorn go. Way past this and maybe they don't realize it. I've asked them on Twitter, I asked them to clarify. I didn't get a response. So if they are hearing this, which maybe they will, maybe they won't. If they're hearing this, I would really love to get some clarification on some of these questions because I would love nothing more than to be able to say that this was all a big misunderstanding and that actually all they're saying is that there is this spiritual existence. That, um, we can put all things that are spirit without a body or spirit with a body. We can put all those in the same category and call that category Elohim. Again, I don't think that's safe, but if that's all they were doing, that would be fine. But we see in their episodes, and I'm gonna try to grab some quotes, um, from, from some of the articles I've written. But again, go read the articles because this goes way more in depth. It's got timestamps of it. It's got links to their episodes. Don't take my word for it. Go listen to their. Words and, and check, you know, check my math on this. But what they do is they actually start to, in, in an attempt to justify why it's okay to put God in the same category as his creatures. Um, and in at least one way, they start to make some weird statements that have a lot of systematic theology, um, implications that are, are just really, really risky. So, for example, one of the ways that they try to kind of explain this, I'm gonna pull, pull the article that I wrote up here. So, great podcasting. [00:19:34] Communicable vs. Incommunicable Attributes Tony Arsenal: Um, one of the ways they start to try to do this is again, they, they wanna say they use this distinction between incommunicable and communicable attributes, right? So in, in Christian theology, classically speaking, a communicable attribute of God is an attribute that he shares or could share with. A creature and primarily we're talking, you know, we're talking about attributes that he shares with his image bearers. So something like, um, love. Love is a communicable attribute. Our love is different than God's love, but when we say love, we're talking about the same basic category of things God loves differently than we do. But love and in a human sense, and love in a, in a divine sense, are still talking about the same thing. There's a point of contact there. Um, an incommunicable attribute would be something like, um, something like eternity. Right. Eternity is not just an extended infinite sequence of time. If it was, he could share that with us. Um, but eternity or infinity is an entirely different way of existing than a creature could ever, could ever exist in divine Simplicity is another example. Um, God could not make humans simple because simplicity entails all sorts of things like infinity. Um, eternality. Um, you know, omnipresence, omni, potent, all of these things are entailed by simplicity. So God could not make a creature infinite because in order for it to be infinite, it would have to be God. Uh, God could not make a creature simple, uh, in the, in the sense of no composition of parts. Uh, because that would mean that that creature is actually God and has no composer. So, so those would be the classic, uh, incommunicable attributes and omnipotence. Is considered, although it's a little bit weird, it sort of crosses the line in some ways. But omnipotence is considered. An incommunicable attribute. God cannot share his omnipotence with a creature because you can't have two omnipotence. Um, if you have two omnipotence, then those two omnipotence cancel each other out in some sense. If God, and, and, and he has a will, God wills one thing, and then I as a creature, if he shared his omnipotence with me, somehow willed a different thing, then we would no longer be, neither of us would be omnipotent. Where this goes sideways with Moffitt and Vandorn is rather than respect omnipotence as a an incommunicable attribute, they say that the attribute or the word Elohim denotes power or might, and that is a communicable attribute. So God does give us a certain level of power. He allows us a certain level of agency. He grants that to us. Again, I'm not even sure that we would call that an an. A communicable attribute. Um, but in a sense, I guess it is. And so they say here, um, Elohim does not mean omnipotent. It means power. It's not an incommunicable attribute. It's a communicable attribute that all kinds of entities could possess. So they're saying that the word, um, the word Elohim, uh, in the Bible denotes that a. A, an entity possesses a certain kind of power or acts in a certain role of executing a certain kind of power. And that doesn't mean omnipotence. It means it means potence. It means some sort of power. And so that that wielding power attribute that. Uh, being a, being that wields power, that attribute, whatever we want to call it, however we want to phrase it, that is a communicable attribute that God shares. He communicates that attribute to all other beings in the class of Elohim. Now, let's just back that up for a second. Um, this still would mean that God has to be the creator and they don't deny that, but it would still mean that God, prior to creation. Was an Elohim in a category of one, and then somehow he created a class and because he's extended. This attribute of wielding power, say power wielder, to try to make it actually more of an attribute. He's extended this attribute of power wielder to uncreate or to created angels, demons, human spirits, whatever other spiritual entities there might be. They would bring in things like principalities, powers, they have a whole, in other, other contexts, they'll talk about this whole different bifurcation of types of spiritual beings that I think is a little speculative, but not a big deal. He extends this power wielder attribute to these created categories. And instead of this now creating a separate category of power wields who are not God, it now is uh, he expands this category of one to now include all sorts of other things, which again, as you can, you can imagine, just runs into problems. And so the, again, this, this word Elohim appears over 2,600 times, and of these instances, 230 of them refer to the God of Israel. So the idea that that. This word is not used specifically as a reference to the God of Israel, or should not be thought of as uniquely titling or almost exclusively titling God. The God of Israel just doesn't really match the data, but it's also just really poor Exogenic method. So rather than take the predominant usage and look at the context. Understanding that the predominant usage is the predominant usage. Instead, we're gonna go back and say, well, these, these minority, these 300 or so cases outside, and not even all 300 of them are used the same way, but these 300 or so cases of them not referring to the God of Israel, we're gonna use that to redefine the word. Its entirety. It's just poor. It's just poor scholarship. It's overly speculative. Um, I haven't read much of. He's work on this in the primary sources. Um, I, I would venture a guess that Heiser makes a much more robust argument than this. And this is part of the problem. When you take an already speculative, already dangerous theology and you try to pop popularize it when you just don't have the same chops that he did, uh, you end up really making some crass, simplistic arguments that just make you look a little silly. To think we can take 200 or 2,600 instances and redefine 2 20, 300 of them. By the way, it's used 300 of the times Just doesn't make any sense. So it again, if, if all we are saying is that God is spiritual and angels are spiritual and so there is some point of affinity between the two, then that would be okay. That wouldn't be a problem. Again, there's some risk in using the word Elohim in that. Sort of placeholder, but, um, that would be a semantic discussion. What they're doing is far, far deeper and far more problematic than that. [00:26:30] Systematic Theology Concerns Tony Arsenal: And so the, the other thing they do, um, that I think is really dangerous, and I don't have all of the, I haven't finished this article yet, so I don't have all of the timestamps in front of me to, to, to get there, is in attempting to justify this Moffitt, uh, in, in one of the other episodes, he turns to the incarnation as a sort of model. And so he'll say that, you know, the son of God is divine, but he's also human. And the fact that he's human, uh, doesn't therefore mean he's not also uniquely the uncreated creator. I would assume everyone hearing this who listens to this show, uh, which has done many, many episodes on Christology, it's one of our pet projects, is just throwing their listening device across the room because what Moffitt seems to miss entirely is that Christ is not, the sun is not in the category of human. Uh, sort of in a simple sense, Christ is in the category of human because he assumes to himself a second created nature. So what, what the, the analogy he's trying to draw is if the sun can be human without ceasing to be the unique one, uncreated God, then so also can, the whole trinity, I guess, can also be Elohim without ceasing to be the one uncreated God. He even goes so far as to say that there is Uncreated Elohim, and then there is created Elohim, and they're all in the category of Elohim, but because there's this commonality, we should still consider that class. And he draws that distinction or he draws the implication that. Um, there's somehow uncreated humanity in Christ, which is a whole different ball of worms that we won't get into. But in, in drawing this analogy, he sort of shows that he really doesn't understand the hypostatic union. He doesn't understand the incarnation, or if he does, he's really making a poor comparison because in the hypostatic union it's not as though the son, uh, as divinity, the son, as the one uncreated. God simply adds to himself in a raw sense and merges. Uh, he doesn't become part of the category of human without taking on a second nature. And then now we are even getting into some inconsistencies. Is human an ontological category or is that a category of function? Are there other categories of function, uh, other creatures in existence that the category of function human might fit? So I think you can see that this just is not a self consistent. Um, a self-consistent system and it leads to all these weird implications. Um, you know, and then they'll even go on to talk about how the Son is the angel of the Lord. I'm not gonna get into a lot of it here, and I agree with that thesis that the, when we see the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, in the vast majority of cases, we're probably seeing a pre-incarnate appearance of, um, of the second person of the Trinity. They go so far as to say that this is actually a sort of. Incarnation or a sort of hypostatic union of the Elohim nature. So they, they, they draw this distinction, or they draw this parallel between created Elohim and Uncreated Elohim, and they, they argue again, I think implicitly, but in some instances it's almost, it's almost explicit that the son in, in being the angel of the Lord, takes on the uncreated or takes on the created Elohim nature. It's, it's really, um, it's really problematic. So now we have the son who is, uh, sort of hypostatic united to the unc, to the created Elohim nature, and then also is hypostatic united to the human nature. Um, it, it really just gets messy and it confuses categories in a way that is not helpful. And if I'm just being frank, a lot of the younger reformed guys. And when I say younger, I'm talking, maybe I'm projecting back to when I was a younger reform guy, um, I'm talking about people in their mid twenties to maybe early thirties, right? The, the people who were maybe the second or third generation of the young restless reform guys, they didn't necessarily learn, uh, ref young restless reform theology directly from RC Sproul. You know, they weren't the first generation. Um, and, and maybe their pastors weren't the first generation, but, but maybe their pastors were the second generation and now they're learning it from their pastors. So you might think of 'em as like the third generation, to be frank, they don't usually have a great grasp on some of these systematic theology categories as part of why. Jesse and I do this podcast, and part of why we cover the same topic over and over again, part of why we're gonna go through this parable series. But when we're done, we're probably gonna go back and start over with systematic theology. We're gonna go back, we're gonna go through another confession. That's why we spent, we spent like six years going through systematic theology. And almost immediately went back to the Scott's confession and did most of it all over again because these truths need to be taught again and again and again. This is part of what Jude is talking about when he says, we have to contend for the faith. It's not just fighting with people online. It's not just polemics or apologetics. It is reteaching and handing down the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Again, and this is perhaps, and this is the last point I'll make. This is perhaps the most. Telling a reason we should be weary and suspicious of this theology. Paul, in, uh, one of the letters to Timothy, second Timothy, maybe he says, follow the pattern of the sound words that you heard from me. He's not talking about the scriptures. He doesn't say follow the sound words that I'm writing to you. He's referring to a body of doctrine sometimes. The Bible calls it the faith, right? Jude says to contend for the faith. There's this body of doctrine that is the teaching of the apostles, and it is encapsulated in this sort of set pattern of words. Erin A is called it the rule of faith or the regular fide, right? This is where we get things like the Nicean Creed or the Hanian Creed. Why we have creeds and confessions is because we don't need to reinvent the wheel and rather than rely on the safe time-tested words and concepts that have been proven and validated, and attacked and defended and, and um, have been victorious for hundreds and thousands of years, rather than rely on those. Moffitt and Van Doran think it is smarter and safer to depart from the pattern of sound words rather than to keep the pattern of sound words because they think that they are able to look at the Bible the way basically no one ever has in the 2000 years of the church and find something they haven't. I don't wanna be too bombastic. Um, I don't, I don't know either of them. Well, um, from what I can tell, what I've heard of their professions of faith, uh, they're, they're Christian believers. They love the Lord and are very confused. But these teachings are pagan. This is, we're talking about returning to a world of, of populated by spiritual beings. And God is kind of just on the highest part of the totem pole, and maybe there's a firm line between his place on the totem pole and the, the next level down. Maybe there is, um, gets a little bit less firm of a line when we're talking about Jesus, right? So there's some potential Arian implications there that the son, uh, is not the highest deity he is. He's like the father in some ways, but he, you know, in his sort of original form is like creatures in other ways. Um, we're just returning to something that the early church fought hard to get rid of when they came out of their pagan culture. When we started to see Greeks convert to Christianity, they had to figure out how do we come out of our polytheistic culture, and this is where we get the best defenses of monotheism. Jewish Christians didn't have to argue for monotheism because all the Jewish Christians already were monotheists in a biblical sense. The Greek Christians had to fight this stuff. Justin Martyr had to fight this stuff. Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers had to fight this stuff constantly pushing back against the background Greek culture. And Moffitt and Van Dorn wanna point to that and say, see, really, they're just Greeks in disguise and in the reality is Athanasius and the cap oceans, were fighting against the theology that is making a resurgence in this divine council theory. [00:34:55] Conclusion and Call to Action Tony Arsenal: So I think that's enough for now. Please. Again, I'm writing a long series on this. I don't know how long it's gonna take. I think it's gonna be probably 10 or 13, 10 to 13 articles. It's, it's gonna be a pretty extensive project. But go read them. Go look at them, listen to their episodes, read their articles, and then you compare that to the word of God, has what I said made more sense or does what they make more sense. So I'll leave you with that. The dog is losing her mind. And uh, with that honor, everyone love the brotherhood.

How do “covert contracts” with God form in our hearts, often without us realizing?What are the purposes of fasting beyond “giving something up”?How do anger, doubt, or grief fit into a genuine spiritual life?Support this show!! : https://www.bibspeak.com/#donateGrab your free gift: the top 10 most misunderstood Biblical verses: https://info.bibspeak.com/10-verses-clarifiedJoin the newsletter (I only send 2 emails a week): https://www.bibspeak.com/#newsletterShop Dwell L'abel 15% off using the discount code BIBSPEAK15 https://go.dwell-label.com/bibspeakDownload Logos Bible Software for your own personal study: http://logos.com/biblicallyspeakingSign up for Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaig...Use Manychat to automate a quick DM! It's great for sending links fast.https://manychat.partnerlinks.io/nd14879vojabStan.Store—way better than Linktree! It lets me share links, grow my email list, and host all my podcast stuff in one place.https://join.stan.store/biblicallyspeakingSupport this show!! : https://www.bibspeak.com/#donate Rev'd Archpriest Michael Butler has been a priest for 30 years, serving parishes in Michigan and Ohio. He has a BA in archetypal psychology, an MA in theology, and a PhD in church history & patristics. He has taught at university and trained men for the diaconate. He has worked with the Foundation for Research in Economics and the Environment (Bozeman, MT), the Liberty Fund (Indianapolis, IN), and the Acton Institute (Grand Rapids, MI) on interdisciplinary work in environmentalism, economics, religion, literature, philosophy, politics, social justice, and natural law. For 30 years he has been interested in men's work, especially in the areas of rites of passage, masculine archetypes, sacred space/time, and initiation. He is always looking for ways that traditional Orthodox psychology, spirituality, and practice can help everyone today become the best they can be. He is married to Annette, his wife of 40 years, and has two grown sons. When he's not at home, or at church, or in conversation with someone over coffee, he'll likely be at the gym, pumping iron.Recommended reading from Fr. Michael Butler:

This week's tragedies remind us how deeply sin has scarred our world and our own hearts. Violence, hatred, and death are not exceptions but the fruit of our fallen humanity. That is why we need the holy cross. At the cross, Jesus took all sin, guilt, and hatred upon Himself, died in our place, and rose victorious to give us life. There, what looked like defeat became victory, turning death into life and despair into hope. Through Word, Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord's Supper, the cross finds us and gives us forgiveness, strength, and new life in Christ. So in a world bent on destruction, we turn not left or right but to the cross, where we see God's love and victory—and from there, we live in His peace, courage, and hope.

Pastors or Peddlers: How Athanasius Provides the Antidote to Super-Apostles

He was born to a distinguished and pious Christian family in Thessalonika. After acquiring an unusually good education he spent a few years in Constantinople, then returned to his native city. He spoke both Turkish and Arabic well, and often conversed with Muslims. Once, while speaking with an emir, Athanasius pronounced the Muslim confession of faith to illustrate a point. The emir, seeing an opportunity, immediately reported Athanasius to the Islamic judge, claiming that he had converted to Islam. The judge found no merit in the case and would have dismissed Athanasius; but the emir and other officials were insistent, and the judge pressured Athanasius to convert. When Athanasius answered that he knew no truth but that of Christ, he was thrown in prison. When he appeared before the judge several days later, he was still firm in his confession, and was sentenced to death. He was hanged outside the city in 1774, at the age of twenty-five.

Sam and Hank discuss Gregory of Nyssa's "On Not Three Gods". We mention Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Constantine, Ablabius, Peter, James, John, Zeus, Hera, Athena, John the Baptist, Lazarus, Judas, Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, Origen, Athanasius, Hillary, Trip, Theodosius, Paul and more. Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Moses" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YmcS-f9CjA&t=5sGregory of Nyssa's "Human Image of God" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8KYHPgsSJM&t=255s0:00:00 - Intro and Midwestuary Recap00:02:18 - Gregory of Nyssa's Biography and Context00:07:33 - The Defense of the Trinity00:17:59 - Gregory's Arguments for One God00:42:03 - Objections and Unanswered Questions00:52:52 - Conclusion and Future Episodes

Today, I reflected on Jesus' hard words about hating family, bearing the cross, and renouncing all we have. At first, they sound impossible—almost like disqualifications for discipleship. But Jesus isn't telling us how to earn salvation; He's warning us not to let anything stand in the way of following Him. Like those in His parable who made excuses about property and family, we too can let “later” become never. Yet Jesus counted the cost and bore the cross for us, securing our life with Him. So He calls us to keep the end in mind—eternal life with Him—and live wisely now. In Word, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, He strengthens us to bear our crosses, trust His promises, and follow Him all the way home.

Today, I reflected on how Jesus turns the tables on what it means to be honored. At the Pharisee's banquet, people fought for the best seats, but Jesus chose the place of the outcast and welcomed a man with dropsy, healing him and giving him dignity. That is what He does for us, too. Our sin disfigures us, but Jesus opens the door, forgives us, and gives us a seat of honor at His table. In His kingdom, the last are first, the humble are lifted up, and the unworthy are made worthy. His feast is not about status but grace—a joy shared with sinners, saints, and all the company of heaven. And because He has welcomed us, we are now free to welcome and serve others with the same love.

THEMES: - charges brought against the early Christians – the apologists' main lines of defense - the apologists and “apologetics” – the historicity and truthfulness of Christian faith – Greek philosophy and Christian faith – the apologists on the Roman EmpireBIO:Alvyn Pettersen is Canon Theologian Emeritus of Worcester Cathedral, UK, and an Honorary Chaplain at The University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford. He has written widely in the field of patristics, being the author of Athanasius and the Human Body (1990); the volume on Athanasius (1995) in the series, Outstanding Christian Thinkers; and the Cascade Companion, The Second-Century Apologists (2020).PODCAST LINKS:- The Second-Century Apologists (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9781725265356/the-second-century-apologists/NEWSLETTER:Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠. (Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)CONNECT:Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠X/Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/TheologyMill⁠*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast's transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.

Today, I reflected on the disciples' argument about who was the greatest, even after Jesus had given them His Supper. Jesus reminded them—and us—that greatness in His kingdom is not about status, but service. That truth comes alive in the story of St. Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, whose very name means “gift of God.” Though not among the most famous apostles, he shows us that our worth doesn't come from ranking higher than others, but from God's grace. Jesus enters our ruts of sin, dies in them, and raises us to new life in baptism. Like Bartholomew, we are called not to measure ourselves by the world's standards, but to live as God's children—His precious gifts, redeemed and lifted up by Christ.

In the 300s, "the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian", as St Jerome put it. And the brilliant and courageous Athanasius replied, "Is the world against Athanasius? Then Athansius is against the world." Athanasius contra mundum! It's a remarkable story... the secular ruler of the world convening the Church's bishops... a charismatic and influential bad guy rousing half of the Church to his side... indomitable heroes like Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and others defending the Faith at all costs... St Nicholas punching Arias in the face... This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, and Bishop Caggiano dives deeply into the Council on Let Me Be Frank - the history, the theology, the lasting impact on our Faith... I really enjoyed this conversation, and I'm sure you will too! Interestingly, I once read that the phrase "not one iota of difference" comes from the Arian heresy and the Nicene Creed... the Greek letter "i" (iota) is the difference between homoousios (consubstantial) and homoiousios (similar substance)... Email List www.veritascatholic.com Other Veritas Shows The Tangent: https://thetangent.podbean.com/ The Frontline With Joe & Joe: https://thefrontlinewithjoeandjoe.podbean.com/ Restless Catholic Young Adults: https://restlesscatholicmedia.podbean.com Daily Gospel Reflections: https://dailycatholicreflection.podbean.com/ Socials Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veritascatholic/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/veritascatholic  

Today, I reflected on Jesus' hard words about casting fire on the earth. At first, they can sound harsh—even off-putting—but they reveal the truth about a world already burning with sin and brokenness. Jesus doesn't come to ignore the flames but to fight fire with fire, taking the blaze of God's wrath upon Himself at the cross so that we are saved. His work may bring division, even in families, but it also brings true peace—peace in forgiveness and new life. Whether this is your first time in church or you've been here for years, the message is the same: look to Jesus. In Him, the fire that consumes becomes the fire that purifies, and the cross becomes the place where life truly begins.

What's on your reading list? Today, Stephen Nichols introduces On the Incarnation by Athanasius, a timeless book defending the deity of Christ and the hope of the resurrection. Read the transcript: https://ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/ancient-wisdom/ A donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Donate: https://donate.ligonier.org/ Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

What does the Bible really say about eternal life? In Part II of this series (See Episode 541 for Part I), Steve Wood unpacks what happens after the Second Coming—not just souls in heaven, but resurrected bodies on a renewed Earth with Jesus. We explore the often-missed Catholic teaching on divinization—our transformation by God's grace to share in His divine nature. Backed by Scripture (1 John 3:2, 2 Peter 1:4) and the Catechism (CCC 460), this episode also draws from Church Fathers like St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St. Thomas Aquinas. For more resources, visit us online at www.BibleforCatholics.com.

Redemption E9 — So far in the series, we've been talking about how redemption means being reclaimed—freed from slavery and returned to where we belong. But what are we enslaved to, and how does Jesus set us free? In this episode, Jon and Tim explore Romans 8 and Hebrews 2 to trace how Jesus enters our suffering and overcomes death to bring us back to life.CHAPTERSRecap and Setup for Romans 8 (0:00-21:57)The Redemption of Creation in Romans 8 (21:57-33:41)Jesus' Identification With Us in Hebrews 2 (33:41-49:41)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode's official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESDeification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation by Khaled Anatolios“For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.” Quote from Gregory of Nazianzus in his “Epistle 101 to Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius.”“He became what we are so that we might become what he is.” Quote often attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria. It captures his thoughts in his larger work On the Incarnation. The Weight of Glory by C.S. LewisYou can view annotations for this episode—plus our entire library of videos, podcasts, articles, and classes—in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Check out Tim's extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“Cherish ft. PAINT WITH SOUND.” by Lofi Sunday“I See You” by Lofi Sunday, Marc VanparlaBibleProject theme song by TENTSSHOW CREDITSProduction of today's episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today's episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Full Text of ReadingsSaturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 406The Saint of the day is Saint Eusebius of VercelliSaint Eusebius of Vercelli’s Story Someone has said that if there had been no Arian heresy denying Christ's divinity, it would be very difficult to write the lives of many early saints. Eusebius is another of the defenders of the Church during one of its most trying periods. Born on the isle of Sardinia, he became a member of the Roman clergy, and is the first recorded bishop of Vercelli in Piedmont in northwest Italy. Eusebius was also the first to link the monastic life with that of the clergy, establishing a community of his diocesan clergy on the principle that the best way to sanctify his people was to have them see a clergy formed in solid virtue and living in community. He was sent by Pope Liberius to persuade the emperor to call a council to settle Catholic-Arian troubles. When it was called at Milan, Eusebius went reluctantly, sensing that the Arian block would have its way, although the Catholics were more numerous. He refused to go along with the condemnation of Saint Athanasius; instead, he laid the Nicene Creed on the table and insisted that all sign it before taking up any other matter. The emperor put pressure on him, but Eusebius insisted on Athanasius' innocence and reminded the emperor that secular force should not be used to influence Church decisions. At first the emperor threatened to kill him, but later sent him into exile in Palestine. There the Arians dragged him through the streets and shut him up in a little room, releasing him only after his four-day hunger strike. They resumed their harassment shortly after. His exile continued in Asia Minor and Egypt, until the new emperor permitted him to be welcomed back to his see in Vercelli. Eusebius attended the Council of Alexandria with Athanasius and approved the leniency shown to bishops who had wavered. He also worked with Saint Hilary of Poitiers against the Arians. Eusebius died peacefully in his own diocese at what was then considered an advanced age. Reflection Catholics in the U.S. have sometimes felt penalized by an unwarranted interpretation of the principle of separation of Church and state, especially in the matter of Catholic schools. Be that as it may, the Church is happily free today from the tremendous pressure put on it after it became an “established” Church under Constantine. We are happily rid of such things as a pope asking an emperor to call a Church council, Pope John I being sent by the emperor to negotiate in the East, or the pressure of kings on papal elections. The Church cannot be a prophet if it's in someone's pocket. Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Saturday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time Optional Memorial of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, 300-371; refused to consent to the Arian condemnation of St. Athanasius; the emperor exiled him to Palestine, and then to Asia Minor and Egypt; a new emperor allowed him to return to Vercelli, where he was the bishop; died peacefully in his own diocese at what was then considered to be an advanced age Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 8/2/25 Gospel: Matthew 14:1-12

ABOUT THE EPISODEListen in as David Schrock and Stephen Wellum interview Bryan Litfin on his Christ Over All essay: "From Nicaea to the “Nicene Creed”: Sixty Years of Confusion and Controversy"Timestamps00:48 – Intro04:15 – Introducing Dr. Litfin's Book on the Trinity05:30 – What Has Helped Dr. Litfin to be a Good Storyteller?07:18 – What Is10:44 – Why Does the History Around the Nicene Creed Matter?13:08 – Did the Council of Nicaea Anticipate the Fight that was Going to Come?15:10 – The Legend of Saint Nicholas17:13 – The Demise of Arius19:35 – How Did Athanasius Become a Main Figure in the Fight for Orthodoxy?24:38 – Athanasius' Two Volumes Against the Arians26:25 – The Different Theological Groups Around the Time of Nicaea30:26 – How Athanasius Made His Arguments32:20 – History of the Political Influence Between 325-38134:24 – The Cappadocians37:56 – Why Was There Less Participation in the Time of Theodosius?39:57 – What Changes Took Place in the Statements Between 325 and 381?42:38 – Why Was There Not as Much Said about the Holy Spirit?48:14 – The Pneumatomachians50:27 – What Conception Did They Have in Terms of the Spirit's Saving Power?53:08 – The Nicene Fathers' Understanding of the Church and Baptism56:08 – Should We Go Back to the Apostolic Fathers to Clarify Our Doctrine?1:00:57 – A Trinitarian Approach to the Gospel1:03:57 – The Trinity and Salvation1:06:21 – OutroResources to Click“From Nicaea to the “Nicene Creed”: Sixty Years of Confusion and Controversy” – Bryan Litfincom – Bryan LitfinRufinus of Aquileia: Historia Ecclesiastical, Book 10, chs. 1-6 (Excerpt on the First Council of Nicaea)Letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea to a Council – Fourth Century ChristianityThe Death of Arius (Post Nicene Fathers Excerpt) – Philip SchaffThe Dialogue Against the Luciferians – Jerome; Philip SchaffThe Nicene Creed – Book of Common PrayerTheme of the Month: The Nicene Creed: 1700 Years of HomoousiosGive to Support the WorkBooks to ReadThe Story of the Trinity: Controversy, Crisis, and the Creation of the Nicene Creed – Bryan LitfinThe Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia: books 10 and 11 – Rufinus of Aquilea trans. Philip R. AmidonThe Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions – Clyde Pharr

Will we somehow share in God's glory in the age to come? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper draws on Athanasius and Scripture to show how believers will rejoice in the radiance of Christ.