Podcasts about Epistle

Abram and Melchizedek are interlaced in order to demonstrate God's grace.Monday • 12/15/2025 •Monday of the Third Week of Advent, Year Two  This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Zechariah 1:7–17; Revelation 3:7–13; Matthew 24:15–31 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Notes – https://www.generationword.com/notes/Epistles/19-Second_Corinthians.pdf

A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent Isaiah 35:1-10, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, St. Matthew 11:2-10 by William Klock Many years ago, as we were driving home from church on a Sunday morning, a very young Alexandra asked, “Dad, can Episcopalians cry?”  I thought, “What?  Of course we can. What makes you ask that?”  And she said something to the effect of, “The song said the Baptists cried”  “Ah!  ‘On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry…' and I found myself trying to figure out how to explain plurals and possessives and punctuation to a pre-schooler who couldn't read yet, and in the end I said something like—“No, the song is about John the Baptist, not Baptists, and he wasn't crying because he was sad, he was crying—like yelling out—to the crowds about how, in Jesus, God had come to save his people like he'd promised, so they'd better get ready by getting rid of their sins.” That hymn was written by Charles Coffin in 1736 for the Paris Breviary and was a hymn to be sung at Lauds—more or less what we call Morning Prayer—during Advent.  And it wonderfully blends the account of John the Baptist that we have in the Gospels with Isaiah's prophecies of the coming Messiah, his call to make straight the way of the Lord, and his promises of forgiveness and reconciliation, of healing and new creation.  Maybe it's because we reference the hymn by its first line, but somehow that first line—little Alexandra wasn't the only one—lots of people hear that first line and imagine poor John sobbing on the banks of the Jordan river, when what we're singing about is John, proclaiming with an urgent joy the coming of the Messiah and the fulfilment of Israel's hopes and longings. For thou art our salvation Lord, Our refuge and our great reward: Without thy grace we waste away Like flowers that wither and decay.   To heal the sick stretch out thine hand, And bid the fallen sinner stand; Shine forth, and let thy light restore Earth's own true loveliness once more.   It's certainly an appropriate image for this season of Advent as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of Jesus and are reminded about the vocation he's given us to prepare ourselves and his creation for the day when he returns.  But I still wrestle with this passage and with today's Epistle from 1 Corinthians 11, every time the Third Sunday in Advent rolls around.  Last week's lessons are some of my favourites.  They remind us how important it is that we know and root ourselves in the story of God and his people.  But I always find today's lessons hard.  First we hear Paul rebuking the Corinthian Christians.  They'd rejected his authority and he writes them to say, “Hey, that's not the way I should be treated.  You need to regard me a servant of the Messiah and steward of God's mysteries.  Who are you to judge me?”  If we didn't know better we might think Paul's head was a little swollen.  And then in the Gospel we've got Jesus defending John the Baptist and his calling and ministry. And I know that the reason these lessons were appointed for the Third Sunday in Advent is because this is an ember week, one of those weeks that most people have forgotten about, that come around four times a year—the times when ordinations traditionally took place.  And so the lessons were chosen to remind us of the importance of those who serve as ministers in the church.  We prayed in the Collect, “Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight.”  That's a good thing to pray.  I hope that you pray for me and that you pray for our bishops and for those who lead and teach in our church—and all the churches.  But I get kind of uncomfortable standing at the pulpit and suggesting that I—or any other clergyman, by he a presbyter or a bishop—can talk that way about my ministry the way Paul could speak about his apostolic ministry and authority.  That was a unique authority given to Paul and the other apostles and to no one since.  Our duty—both mine and yours—is simply to faithfully proclaim the faith given to us by those uniquely authoritative apostles.  Ditto for Jesus' defense of John the Baptist.  I hope with all my heart that if a crowd of people were doubting my faithfulness, that Jesus was come to my defense.  But I can't presume to talk as if Jesus' words in today's Gospel mean that you all should see and respect me as a modern-day John the Baptist.  Every year when this set of lessons comes around, I can' help but think of the words of our Declaration of Principles, where it says that “this church condemns and rejects the following erroneous and strange doctrines as contrary to God's word...” And the second of those erroneous and strange doctrines is “That Christian ministers are ‘priests' in another sense than that in which all believers are a ‘royal priesthood'.” Brother and Sisters, together we are the body of Jesus the Messiah.  Some of us are ears or eyes, some hands or feet, some hearts or brains.  I may have pastoral training and authority granted by the church to teach and to administer the sacraments, but that doesn't make me more important.  The church, to be the church, needs all of us.  And the really important thing that we really need—all of us—to do is not to treat our pastors or our bishops as if they carry Paul's apostolic authority.  What we need to do is to see ourselves—all of us—in the same place as the Corinthians and submit ourselves to that apostolic teaching handed down by Paul and Peter and John and the rest of the apostles. Because our witness depends on it.  God's kingdom depends on it.  We are the stewards of the good news and we're stewards of God's Spirit.  We are the stewards of his kingdom and his new creation.  And as Paul writes, “it's required of stewards that they be found trustworthy”.  When Paul writes “steward” he's describing the manager of a household or an estate.  Think of Joseph, Potiphar's steward, put in charge of everything he owned, responsible for how it was all managed, responsible for the profits and losses, responsible for making sure all of Potiphar's assets were put to good and efficient use and not wasted, squandered, or damaged.  That's what Paul saw himself as when it came to the mysteries of God.  And not some highfalutin executive, but as a humble slave, graciously chosen by God to steward the gospel. And because you and I have been entrusted with that same gospel—handed down by Paul and Peter and John and the other apostles—we've become stewards too.  Not with the apostolic authority that Paul had and the ability to announce “Thus saith the Lord.”  But still a people called to work in the Lord's household or in his vineyard, entrusted with his mysteries—with the gospel, with his grace, with his Spirit—and called, each of us in our own way, to steward the Lord's good things faithfully. When we look at First and Second Corinthians, the folks in that church weren't doing a very good job.  Picture them.  A small church—probably a few dozen people at most.  Most of the people in it were converts from paganism.  They used to worship false gods who represented things like sex, knowledge, money, war, power, government.  The Corinthians all had their favourite sins: lying, cheating, anger, pornography, drunkenness, drugs, adultery.  You name it, they'd done it—often as part of their worship.  But then this funny Jewish man showed up preaching a bizarre message about the God of Israel and his son, the Messiah—the anointed king—who had been crucified and then raised from death.  And this man, Paul, he'd been abused, beaten, stoned, left for dead so many times for the sake of this message, this “good news” he was so earnest about.  He was a little frightening to look at, because he literally bore the marks of this gospel, the marks of Jesus on his own body.  But this good news was unlike any news they'd ever heard before.  This God, this Jesus, was unlike any god they'd ever worshiped.  He brought love, mercy, grace, and hope into a world of darkness, greed, selfishness, and brutality.  In Paul they saw and in hearing the good news he announced, they met God's new world and they were won over.  They were baptised into this God who is Father, Son, and Spirit and the new creation begun by Jesus was born in them.  Paul stayed and he taught them and they grew in Jesus and the Spirit.  And they lived as a little pocket of God's new age right there in the midst of brutal, wicked, dark, pagan Corinth.  And then Paul moved on.  And they started to struggle.  The temptations of their old pagan ways came back—as so often happens.  The new life of Jesus and the Spirit—so thrilling at first—became hum-drum and they started seeking after new experiences and new excitements.  That resulted in factions in the church: this group became a fan of that preacher and that group became fans of this preacher.  In the name of Christian liberty they became tolerant of sin—even some that were unspeakable to the pagans.  And that led to further divisions.  They began to use the gifts the Spirit had given them, not to build up the church, but to build up themselves.  Their worship became chaotic and dishonouring to God.  And when Paul heard what was happening and wrote to them.  Think of Advent.  He wrote to them: “Hey, you're living like you're still part of the old evil age, subject to the old false gods and the principalities and powers that Jesus defeated at the cross.  You're supposed to be living as heralds of God's new creation!  You're supposed to be a church full of John the Baptists, crying out, announcing that the Lord is night!”  And they wrote back a nasty letter telling him they were done with him—they didn't want to hear his “correction” anymore.  They had grown beyond his teaching and they were doing well on their own, thank you very much! And I think we tend to read about the Corinthians think, “Wow, what horrible Christians!”  And yet, I don't know that the modern church is all that different.  It's full of quarrelling and divisions.  We're jealous of other pastor's or other church's successes.  We use the gifts God has given to benefit ourselves rather than the body.  We lack holiness.  We're worldly.  We lie, we cheat, we steal, and we exploit in our business.  Our families are often a mess.  Unrepentant divorce is rampant.  Sexual immorality, pornography, drugs and drunkenness, abortion are nearly as prevalent in the church as they are in the world.  Bishops and presbyters abuse and lie and plagiarise and get drunk and engage in sexual immorality.  We say we've given our allegiance to Jesus, but we sell ourselves out to the materialistic and consumeristic and individualistic and political spirits of the age.  We take our cues from advertising and become dissatisfied with what God has given us and where he's placed us.  We take our cues from politicians instead of the Bible.  We see evil in the world, we see injustice in the world and instead of speaking out or doing something about it, we look the other way and refuse to act. Our worship is too often chaotic and man-centred rather than God- and gospel-centred.  We preach self-help instead of sin and grace, the cross and new creation.  Brothers and Sisters, the church is supposed to be the advance guard of God's new creation.  It's supposed to be his temple, the place where God and man, where heaven and earth meet.  We've been entrusted with the mysteries of God.  But we're too much like the old creation.  Our allegiance is half-hearted.  We are unfaithful stewards, squandering the gifts of God.  The principalities and powers of the old age often rule and govern the church more than Jesus and the Spirit do.  I don't think it's any wonder that—to use the analogy of John's vision in Revelation—I don't think it's any great wonder that Jesus seems to be taking away our lampstand here in the post-Christian West. And I know there's little if anything you and I can do about the church on a large scale, but we've been entrusted with our little corner of the church and we can do something about that.  Advent reminds us that as Israel was to listen to men like John the Baptist and prepare for Jesus first coming, the church now needs to listen to the scriptures—to the prophets and apostles—and prepare for Jesus' return.  As Paul warned the Corinthians that they needed to heed his apostolic authority, he might as well be warning us, too.  Hear the apostles and hear the prophets—and don't just hear; do.  Hear the words of Isaiah we read today: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.  The glory of the Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.  They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” Maybe that doesn't mean much to us today, but for people who lived in the desert, those were words of hope.  New creation was coming.  God has promised to come and set the world to rights.  To bring his people back to the garden to live in his presence.  And so Isaiah tells them, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come and save you.” Don't be discouraged.  Don't lose hope.  Don't forget his promises.  Don't forget to whom you belong.  Don't give up on your holy vocation.  Don't forget that you are stewards of the good things of God for the sake of the world.  What he has promised he will do.  He will not let you thirst in the desert forever.  “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.  For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.  And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.  It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.  No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” John the Baptist saw that in Jesus God was beginning to fulfil this promise.  In fact, what John saw in Jesus—preaching good news, healing the sick, casting out demons—looked so much like the fulfilment of God's promises made through Isaiah and the other prophets, that he had confidence to announce to Israel that the kingdom was at hand. It gave him the confidence to preach, not just the joyful part of Isaiah's message, but to also declare the part about God's judgement coming and to call the people to repentance in preparation.  He was confident enough that he even called out King Herod's personal sins.  And that landed him in Herod's dungeon.  But when Jesus didn't break him out, he started to wonder.  I don't know that he really doubted the message, but it seems like he began to wonder and so he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one or should we look for someone else?”  And Jesus reminded them of all the Messiah things he'd been doing.  The blind received their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, even the dead are raised, and the poor are hearing good news for the first time.  And in case the crowds were doubting, Jesus reminded them of the absolute certainty John had shown.  “What did you go out to the wilderness to see?” he asked them.  Not a reed flapping in the wind.  Not some fop dressed in fine clothes.  You can find that in Herod's palace.  No, you went out to see a prophet—to see a man who knows God's faithfulness and wasn't afraid to proclaim both the joy of salvation and the sternness of judgement.  You went out because he was calling you to repentance in preparation for God's coming.  Yes, you went out to hear the one of whom it was written: “Behold, I send my messenger…who will prepare the way before you.”  In other words, Jeus says to them, “You saw what God is doing through me and so you went out to meet John, to listen to his message, to be baptised in the Jordan, because you knew that you need to be prepared for God's coming. And, Brothers and Sisters, we need to hear the same thing.  We've seen the goodness of God, we've seen his faithfulness in Jesus.  We've know the joy of being forgiven our sins and restored to fellowship with God.  We've received his Spirit and have known the beginning of new creation.  We've experienced the fellowship of this redeemed community.  We should be as certain as John was that in Jesus God's salvation has come, that in Jesus new creation has begun.  And we should be as certain as John was of the need to make straight the way of the Lord, to shout to the world with joy and also with earnestness: Repent, because the kingdom of God is here.  But I think we've lost that—or at least a good bit of it.  The joy has faded and we've become complacent. And so Advent is a call to remember the faithfulness of God that we have known, to remember the joy and love and hope we once knew, and to renew our allegiance to King Jesus and to his kingdom…and then to repent in dust and ashes for our sins and failures and betrayals and to commit ourselves as the church, as his temple to truly be the place where heaven and earth meet, the place that confronts the kingdoms of men with the kingdom of God, that confronts the principalities and powers with the victory of the cross, to be the people who know the redemption of sins and who go out into the world to make straight the way of the Lord.  Brothers and Sisters, let Advent remind you of the joy of your salvation; let Advent remind you of the kingdom vocation you've been given; let Advent be a time recommitment as you lay aside everything else and once again give your full attention and your full allegiance and your full self to the coming King. Let's pray: O Lord Jesus, Messiah, who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you: grant that we being faithful ministers and stewards of your mysteries, might so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight; who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

December 13, 2025

Introduction to the Epistle of JamesSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/lets-talk-scripture/donations

.    Job is so committed to his service to God that he declares, “Though he slay me I will hope in him, yet I will argue my ways to his face.  This will be my salvation. That the godless shall not come before him.” [v.15,16]  Yet when God finally reveals himself in conversation and “answered Job out of the whirlwind.” [30 v.1] Job is almost silenced, see v.3-5. Later God speaks of the “friends” and says his “anger burns against” them… for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.” [40 v.7]     Are we speaking of God and his Son “what is right”?  Sadly, many use “whitewash” in their self-confident portrayal of what God is; what many talk of as “faith” has no real substance. This took our thoughts to what we read today in Peter's 1st Epistle, he told the believers “if necessary (in the wisdom of God) you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” [1 v.6,7]      May our faith become really genuine, if it is not that way already. May we not deceive ourselves by using “whitewash” in our thinking and ways of talking.     Have you seen it?  The context of the above statement we read today in the Epistle of James is most interesting – and challenging!  We can say that we have seen the purpose of the Lord in many things, in particular in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but note the particular context in which James makes this statement.. “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.  Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.  You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” [Ch.5 v.10,11]The Lord does nothing without a purpose, but do we always recognize that purpose?  Our reading of Job illustrates God's purpose with him in developing his character.  The prophets all went through a similar development of character, although only in the larger books is this fully apparent. Studies of the lives of Jeremiah and Isaiah are most revealing about this!  Now James was writing when the nation of Israel was soon to be destroyed.  In v. 3 today he calls them “the last days” and he has many thoughts very suitable for these last days of the Gentile era.  Patience and steadfastness were vital qualities. The Greek words could also be translated as endurance. It is God's will and purpose that we go through trial, look at Ch.1 v.2-4. James' life was a huge learning curve.  If we accept that, in all probability his mother was Mary (the mother of Jesus) and that Jesus made a special appearance to him after his resurrection (1 Cor. 15 v.7) we see that James is writing this as he reaches the climax of his life. Historical records indicate fairly clearly that he was martyred in A D 62. So James marvelled at the purpose of the Lord in his life and he is exhorting others to see the same in their lives – and so remain steadfast under trial: “establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” [v.8]   What an appropriate message and example for us as we near the end of 2013 and the events in and, especially around God's Holy Land show seemingly endless conflict, the latter day “purpose of the Lord” is unfolding – and God's purpose will become increasingly clear to those who really know his word..

The Epistle of James is particularly remembered for its message about faith.  Faith is a vital factor in our salvation, but the genuineness of our faith is shown in what it causes us to do. James writes, “If you really fulfil the royal law according to scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself,' you are doing well.” [2 v.8]  It surprises some to realize that this “royal law” is not one of the ten commandments, yet when Jesus was asked by a lawyer, “Teacher which is the great commandment in the Law? … 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.  This is the great and first commandment.  And the second is like it:  You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” [Matt. 22 v.36-40] Do you realize when Moses wrote this commandment? Jesus was quoting from Leviticus 19 v.18; it was one they only applied when it suited them!  Recall the parable of the Good Samaritan that he told to answer the question, “Who is my neighbour?' So James presses home the point, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”[v.14-17]In verse 12 James told his readers to “act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty” – what did he mean?  He had already made the point in Ch.1 v.25 that “the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing”   The point is, they have been liberated, given freedom, from keeping the letter of the Mosaic Law – they now had to keep “the perfect law” that Jesus had spelt out in answering the lawyer. The chapter concludes with examples from the lives of Abraham and Rahab who showed their faith by what they did.   The last verse makes the point, “For as the body apart from the spirit (breath) is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

Notes - https://www.generationword.com/notes/Epistles/18-First_Corinthians_chapters_1-8.pdf

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent Romans 15:4-13 by William Klock In our Epistle, in Romans 15:4, St. Paul writes, “Whatever was written ahead of time, you see, was written for us to learn from, so that through patience and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.” Maybe more than any of our other Advent scripture lessons, that verse sums up what Advent is about.  There's a big story.  The story of God and his people and the world.  And the Christmas story is just one part of it.  A very importantly part, without a doubt, but still just one part.  Pull it out, try to make it stand on all on its own, and it ends up becoming something else.  And that's what secular culture has done.  Contrast how the world prepares us for Christmas and how the church prepares us.  Our commercialistic, materialistic, entertainment focused culture just starts shoving Christmas at us as soon as Halloween is over.  How do you get ready for Christmas?  You buy Christmas stuff.  You start listening to Christmas music.  You start watching all the Christmas movies on TV.  Our culture prepares for Christmas by doing Christmas.  And then Christmas comes and then it's suddenly over in a day…or maybe two, if you count Boxing Day.  And I hear it all the time: people are left wondering what happened, feeling like they missed something. It occurred to me that this is like trying to explain to someone that Die Hard is a Christmas movie by making them watch the scene of Hans Gruber falling from Nakatomi Plaza…over and over and over.  It's an iconic scene.  It says Christmas almost as much as Baby Jesus in the manger.  But your friend will still have no idea what Die Hard is about, let alone why it's a Christmas movie.  He just knows it ends with a bad guy falling off a building into a big explosion.  If you want him to understand, you've got to start at the beginning.  He has to know the story all the way back to the opening with John McClane on the airplane.  Then your friend will get it…and maybe he'll even understand why it's the best Christmas movie ever.  And when the time comes for that scene, the grand crescendo of the movie, and Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Tower, he's gonna cheer, because it's not just a cool scene.  It's not just iconic.   It's the denouement of the story. And that is what the church does with Advent, Brothers and Sisters.  It takes us back into the story of Israel and Israel's God, it shows us the darkness of the world and the fallenness of humanity, it reminds us God's plan and his promises to set it all to rights, to make everything new again.  That's why our daily readings through Advent are taken from Isaiah.  And so, when Christmas comes, it's more than just an orgy of consumerism and it's more than just sentimental feelings about Baby Jesus in a manger, it's more than vague good thoughts about God.  No, when Christmas comes and we've been reading the promises in the scripture and singing the promises and songs of longing during Advent, we recognise the light and life that have been born into the midst of darkness and sin, we see God's saving Messiah, and most of all we're moved to give him glory because Christmas shows that he is faithful to his promises. And for Paul, that was kind of everything.  Because when you know what the story is all about and when you know where it's going, you realise that following Jesus isn't just about sentimental feelings, or about being good until you die so you can go to heaven, it's about the fact that in Jesus, God has sent his king to bring new creation into the midst of the old and to make us a part of it.  In fact, to make us the agents of that new creation and his saving work.  To be the stewards of his good news and his Spirit who carry his light and life into the darkness and death of the world in preparation for the day when Jesus' work is consummated.  When people don't know the story, they too often reduce Christianity to fire insurance, to a “Get out of hell free” card.  Christmas becomes a sentimental holiday about a baby.  But when you know the story, you that Christianity is all about is a vocation—to be the people of God for the sake of the world—and the baby in the manger shows us what our vocation looks like. And this is precisely why Paul writes what he does here in Romans 15.  Because when you forget the story, or when you forget where it's going, and especially when you stop living in hope of God's future, it becomes very, very easy to just go with the flow.  To take the path of least resistance.  To let the world and its values and ideas carry you away back into the darkness.  To give up on the vocation that the gospel and the Spirit have given us.  The big problem Paul saw in the Roman churches was that the Jewish believers in Jesus and the Gentile believers in Jesus were splitting up.  They were letting ethnicity define them instead of Jesus and because of that they were losing their gospel witness and letting the darkness and division of the world define who they were. And Brothers and Sisters, the same thing happens to us.  It still happens with churches dividing up over ethnicity and language and things like that, but it happens all sorts of other ways too.  We lose sight of our hope.  We lose sight of God's future.  And when we do, we lose our vocation and instead of being gospel people of light and life swimming upstream, we end up just going with the worldly flow.  Sometimes it happens without us even realising it.  Other times we knowingly give up because it seems like there's no other option.  I was talking with someone this week about politics in my country and he said, “Well, you have to be a Democrat or a Republican!  There's no other choice!”  And I kept saying, there is another choice.  You commit to doing the right thing, the kingdom thing, to following Jesus and being light and life.  These days that means saying no to the options that everyone else is making.  It means making a deliberate choice to lose, but you do so knowing that God's justice will win in the end—because the story shows us that God is always faithful to do what he's promised and to finish what he starts.  If you understand the cross, this shouldn't be a difficult concept. This is why Paul starts out with some of that scripture that was written in the past, some “Old Testament” as we call it.  In verse 3 he writes, “The Messiah, you see, didn't please himself.  Instead, as it was written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you are fallen on me.'”  In other words, Jesus took on himself a punishment he didn't deserve.  When David wrote that psalm he was thinking of his own situation.  It's Psalm 69.  He cries out to God because the flood waters are rising around him.  Because he feels like he's sinking in the mud with no footing to be found.  His enemies were surrounding him and kicking him when he was down.  But he knew the Lord and he knew his promises and he knew the Lord is faithful, so he cried out for justice and salvation.  And as he closes the psalm, he cries out with hope-filled praise.  God hadn't delivered him yet, but David still praises the Lord for his salvation—what he knows God will do. And this wasn't just David's story and vocation, it was the story and vocation of Israel and that meant that when Jesus came as the faithful Israelite to represent his people, it became his story and his vocation.  David knew, Israel knew, Jesus knew because it had been written, because they had God's word and because of that they had Gods' promises.  The way of God's people is the way of the servant who suffers.  It's the way of unjust suffering for the sake of others and for the sake of the whole world.  But through that suffering God has brought redemption and kingdom and new life. As the Mandalorian says, “This is the way.”  Looking to the good of others instead of our own good is the way of the cross.  Just as it was for Jesus the way to his throne, it is for us the way to his kingdom.  Jesus could have given in to the devil's temptation in the wilderness.  He could have bowed down to him and received his throne.  And he'd be king, but he'd be king of a people still enslaved to sin and death.  The world would still be dark and broken and fallen.  Think of our Gospel last week.  Jesus could have let the Palm Sunday crowd carry him into Jerusalem and seat him on a throne.  But again, he'd have his throne, but the primary mission would have failed.  He'd be king over a dead people.  Instead, he had to come as a humble servant, he had to face the rejection of his people, he had to face their jeers and their mocking, and he had to go to his death in a way so humiliating that polite people wouldn't even discuss it.  But through the cross, by letting all the forces of evil come together to do their worst in one place, Jesus defeated them and brought light and life back to God's good world.  And now, as Jesus said, he calls us to take up our cross and to follow him.  Not when it's expedient.  Not when the cross is light.  The point of a cross is that it's heavy!  It's our calling, no matter what.  But it's a joyful calling in the end, because we know the story and we have the promises of a God who faithful.  The lowly birth, the constant antagonism, the humiliating and painful death make possible the glory and the joy of the resurrection and new creation. So, Paul goes on writing in Romans 15:5, “May the God of patience and encouragement grant you to come to a common mind among yourselves, in accordance with Jesus the Messiah, so that, with one mind and one mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.” That's the mission, Brothers and Sisters: to glorify God.  And not just when we come to church and pray and praise and give thanks.  That's certainly one way we give him glory, but one of the things the story teaches us is that God is glorified when we respond to his faithfulness with faithfulness of our own—and especially when the watching world sees it, especially when it involves humility and even suffering.  God was glorified as the world watched Jesus go to the cross, trusting his Father's promises.  And God is glorified today as, trusting our Father's promises, we take up our crosses and follow him.  As we walk in faith, as we do good, as we live in hope, and as we do it without compromise, even it means trouble or loss.  Think of the apostles.  Think of all the Christians in the first centuries after Jesus who lived in hope of God's future and who trusted in his promises and refused to compromise their gospel life and witness and gave their lives for it.  At first it seemed like a pointless failure, but as the world watched, their gospel witness made a difference and eventually—not in a single generation, but eventually—their witness brought an entire empire to Jesus and taught it grace and mercy and lifted it up out of barbarism and sexual immorality the likes of which—even in light of the world today—we'd be hard-pressed to imagine.  And it happened because Jesus' people were united in him and faithful in hope and witness. That unity part is a major theme of Paul's letter to the Romans, because the unity of the church across the Jew-gentile divide was one of the most significant ways the early church broke with both Jewish and Greco-Roman culture and swam against the current.  We don't think about that nearly as often as we should.  Unity is essential to our Christian vocation.  It reveals that our identity is Jesus the Messiah.  Those early Christians showed the world what it looks like to find your identity, not in your ethnicity or language, not in your customs or biological kin, not in your social class, but in Jesus.  Jews and gentiles, rich and poor, slave and free came together as brothers and sisters in those churches and it shocked the world, Jews and Greeks alike.  It became a powerful witness to God's new creation.  It was that witness coupled with the proclamation that Jesus, crucified and risen, is the world's true lord, that brought the nations—a few at first, but eventually a whole empire—that's what moved them to give glory to the God of Israel.  Something absolutely unthinkable.  Romans giving glory to a loser God of a loser people.  But Jesus changes everything and the faithful witness of a servant church backed that truth up. So, going on in our Epistle, Paul says in verse 7: “Welcome one another!”  Don't let the values, identities, and prejudices of the world divide the church.  Paul says, instead, “Welcome one another as the Messiah has welcomed you, to God's glory.  Let me tell you why: the Messiah became a servant of the circumcised people in order to demonstrate the truthfulness of God—that is, to confirm the promises to the patriarchs, and to bring the nations to praise God for his mercy.” That was the plan all along.  This is the big story.  God called Abraham and through him created a people, a holy nation through whom he would eventually save the whole world.  Jesus was the culmination of that chapter of the story: the perfect, faithful Israelite, the humble Davidic king, who died the death his people deserved in order to deliver them.  In doing that, God fulfilled what he'd promised the patriarchs, what he'd promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, what he'd promised to David. The unity of the church, the bringing in of the gentiles into the covenant family, is a witness to the faithfulness of God, so Paul keeps hammering away at it.  These are the things, the scriptures, that were written in the past and that tell us the story.  And so Psalm 18:49.  It's the Psalmist celebrating the victory that the God of Israel has given him as he declares that he will praise him not just in Israel, but in the midst of the nations so that they hear of the glory of God, too.  He sings: “That is why I will praise you among the nations, and will sing to your name.”  And then, in verse 10 Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32:43: “Rejoice, you nations, with his people!”  This was the song of Moses celebrating God's victory over and just judgement on both rebellious Israel and the gentile nations and Moses calls those pagan nations, having seen the victory of Israel's God, to join in his praises.  And then, verse 11, Paul is back to the Psalms, to Psalm 117:1: “Praise the Lord, all nations, and let all the peoples sing his praise.”  Again, the Psalmist calls to the nations to come and praise the God of Israel with him.  And then, finally, the Prophet Isaiah: “There shall be the root of Jesse, the one who rises up to rule the nations; the nations shall hope in him.” The bit from Isaiah is important.  Because Paul's showing the Roman Christians (and he's showing us), that it was God's plan all along for the nations to join Israel in praising and glorifying Israel's God.  And in the days of Moses and the days of David, that was crazy talk.  People didn't glorify other people's gods.  The gods were the strength of their respective nations, so not only was it unpatriotic to give glory to a foreign god, it was sort of like inviting the defeat of your nation and your king.  But this was God's plan all along.  To bring the nations to him in faith.  And Paul's reminding the Roman Christians that this is exactly what's happened to them.  Pagan Romans heard the gospel and they saw the uncompromising witness of the believers there—probably mostly Jews—who believed Jesus was truly the Messiah.  And those pagans were moved to faith.  And in the early days of the church there, Jewish and Gentile believers were doing the unthinkable: they were worshipping the God of Israel side by side.  And that only served to witness the power of the gospel even more powerfully.  But things happened and those Christians started to go with the flow and the unity began to fall apart: Jews worshipping in that house and Gentiles in this one over here.  And so Paul reminds them how God has fulfilled his promises in Jesus.  The root of Jesse promised by Isaiah has come and he was raised up on the cross to the glory of God, and the nations have begun to come to him.  And Paul's saying: don't lose that that or you risk losing the whole gospel.  I know it's hard.  The gentile believers will be mocked by their friends and family for worshipping the God of the weirdo Jews, with weirdo Jews at their side, no less.  And the Jewish believers, they were going to be hassled by their Jewish family and friends for worshipping beside those unclean gentiles.  And Paul's saying, “Don't give in to the pressure from the world.  Keep witnessing the power of the gospel.  Remember that you worship the God who was born in humility as one of us and who went humble to a cross for our sake.  Live humbly for the sake of each other—and live humbly for the sake of the world.  Romans, you show your people that the God of Israel is faithful and full of mercy and grace and unlike any god your people have ever known.  And Jews, you show your people that in Jesus, your God has purified the gentiles and is fulfilling his promises.  And he wraps it up exhorting them, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Paul knew that persecution was coming and the temptation to fragment would be even strong, but the hope-filled joy that began with the birth of Jesus and that carries through the story to the cross, burst out of the tomb with joy on Easter—and that resurrection hope, that light and life, would keep them faithful to their calling.  Will keep us faithful to our calling. A people overflowing with hope.  Hope in the fulfilment of what God has promised and what he's revealed in Jesus: hope for a world where the darkness is gone, hope for a final end to sin and death, hope for the day when heaven and earth are brough back together and men and women live and serve in the presence of God as he created us in the beginning. And here's the thing, Brothers and Sisters, it's that gospel- and Spirit-filled hope that will make us the gospel force Jesus calls us to be.  It's that hope that makes us heaven-on-earth people even when it means swimming upstream, even when it means choosing the option that no one else will choose, even when it means that the world is angry with us, even when it means rejection—and in some cases even martyrdom.  It's that hope that will drive us to proclaim the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection; it's that hope that will give us the hearts of servants ready to humbly teach the world mercy and grace; it's that hope that will move us to love our enemies and even to die for them; it's that hope that will move us to take uncompromising stands against what is wrong and for what is right, even if it means losing in the short term.  Because our hope is sure and certain—that what God began in humility at the manger, he will surely one day bring to completion in an all-consuming burst of glory.  Let's close with our collect.  Think on that prayer and how it calls us, not just to read the scriptures, but to so immerse ourselves in them that they become a part of us. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Advent is a season that the global Church has recognized for nearly 2000 years. The word, “Advent” means “coming” and is a time of looking back as we look forward. We look back in commemoration of God coming in the flesh through the person of Jesus and we look forward to His promise of coming again. This year, we will be looking at one of the earliest creeds of the Christian Church found in poetic form in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians. We invite Missio Dei Church to memorize vv 15-20 as we study it throughout the next four weeks.

December 6, 2025

Jude and Peter are spiritual soulmates, almost identical twins in the faith.Friday • 12/5/2025 •Friday of the First Week of Advent  This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; Amos 5:1–17; Jude 1–25 (includes Saturday); Matthew 22:1–14 I plan to treat Matthew 22:1–14 in a DDD this coming January.  This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

…believers have kept a vigilant eye on the distant horizon.Thursday • 12/4/2025 •Thursday of the First Week of Advent This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 18; Amos 4:6–13; 2 Peter 3:11–18; Matthew 21:33–46 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Eternity keeps time differently than we do. Wednesday • 12/3/2025 •Wednesday of the First Week of Advent This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1–24; Amos 3:12–4:5; 2 Peter 3:1–10; Matthew 21:23–32 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

Advent reminds us that we can choose wisely.  Tuesday • 12/2/2025 •Tuesday of the First Week of Advent  This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Amos 3:1–11; 2 Peter 1:12–21; Matthew 21:12–22 For observations on 2 Peter 1:12–21 from 12/15/2020, see https://tinyurl.com/4rvk9yxh This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

This episode is a study from the book of 2 Corinthians, with Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel Chino Valley. This message was taught on November 30th, 2025. Support us by checking out our other social media platforms! Youtube: ⁠⁠www.youtube.com/@CCChinoValley⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠www.calvaryccv.org⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠www.facebook.com/CalvaryChapelChinoValley⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠www.instagram.com/calvaryccv⁠⁠

Notes – https://www.generationword.com/notes/Epistles/18-First_Corinthians_chapters_1-8.pdf

I Corinthians 4:9-16 St. John 1:35-51 In this homily for the Feast of St. Andrew, Fr. Anthony contrasts the world's definition of success with the apostolic witness of sacrifice, humility, and courageous love. Drawing on St. Paul's admonition to the Corinthians, he calls Christians to recover the reverence due to bishops and spiritual fathers, to reject the corrosive logic of social media, and to return to the ascetical path that forms us for theosis. St. Andrew and St. Paul's lives reveals that true honor is found not in comfort or acclaim but in following Christ wherever He leads — even into suffering and martyrdom.  Enjoy the show! ---- St. Andrew Day, 2025 The Orthodox Church takes apostolic succession very seriously; the preservation of "the faith passed on to the apostles" is maintained by the physicality of the ordination of bishops by bishops, all of who can trace the history of the ordination of the bishops who ordained them back to one or more of the apostles themselves.  You probably already new that.  But there is another part of that respect for the apostles that you may not know of: the ranking of autocephalist (i.e. independent) national Churches.  The Canons (especially those of the Council of Trullo) give prominence to the five ancient patriarchates of Rome (Sts. Peter and Paul), Constantinople (St. Andrew), Alexandria (St. Mark), Antioch (St. Paul), and Jerusalem (St. James).   St. Andrew travelled into dangerous barbarian lands to spread the Gospel, to include the Middle East, and, most notably, then North to the lands around the Black Sea; Ankara and Edessa to the south of the Black Sea in what is now Turkey, to the East of the Black Sea into the Caucuses, and up to the North of the Black Sea to the Scythian lands into what is now Ukraine.  That was his first journey.  After this, he returned to Jerusalem and then went on his second journey to Antioch, back up into the Caucasus, out to the land of the dog-headed people in Central Asia, down through what is now Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, and then back up through Persia and finally into Greece, where he was martyred. He sacrificed so much for the Gospel and brought so many souls to salvation through the Christ he himself knew, both before and after His glorious Resurrection.  His virtue and sacrificial service allow God's grace to flow into the world and he serves as the patron of several countries, cities, and all Christians who bear variations of His name such as Andrew, Andrei, and Andrea. As Orthodox Christians, we should know his story, ask for his intercession, and imitate his witness.  And everyone, whether Christian or not, should respect his virtue.  But does it?  Does it even respect virtue?  Do we? As Saint Paul points out in today's Epistle, many of us do not.  And don't think the problem was just in Corinth; St. John Chrysostom's homilies on this epistle show that the people there were at least as guilty.  And that was in the center of Eastern Orthodoxy, during the time of alleged symphonia between the Church and State.  Should there be any doubt that we, too, allow the world to define the sorts of worldly things we should prioritize? After all … What is it that the world respects in a man?  What is it that the world respects in a woman?  Think for a second what it is that impresses you the most about the people you admire – perhaps even makes you jealous, wishing that you had managed to obtain the same things. I cannot read your minds, but if you are like most Americans, the list would certainly include: A long, healthy life, without chronic pain or major physical injury A life free of indictment, arrest, or imprisonment The respect, admiration, and popularity of their peers Money, a big house, a vacation house, and the ability to retire comfortably (and early) These are some of the things that many of you are either pleased to enjoy, regret not having obtained, or, if you are young, are currently striving for. The Apostles Andrew and Paul, gave up the possibility for all these things to follow Christ.  Not because they wanted to; not because God made them; they gave up the life of worldly comfort and respect because – in a culture and time as messed up as theirs was – this is the only Way to live a life of grace and to grow in love and perfection. A long, healthy life, without chronic pain or major physical injury? Nope – gave it up. A life free of indictment, arrest, or imprisonment? Nope – gave it up. The respect, admiration, and popularity of their peers? No again. Money, a big house, a vacation house, and the ability to retire comfortably (and early) I don't think so (unless a prison in Rome and martyrdom count!). Because St. Paul is writing as an Apostle, instructing a parish that he was called to lead, it is tempting to put his sacrifices into the category of "things that clergy do".  And clergy certainly should follow their example.  While my example is not so bright, you may know that I gave up a life of wealth, admiration, and the possibility of a comfortable retirement so that I could serve as a priest.  God has blessed that and protected me from harm, but the opportunity costs are real, nonetheless.   And while I am a pale shadow of him (and he of Christ), I, like the Apostle Paul, did these things not because I wanted to (I liked my life then!) and not because God made me, but because in a culture and time as messed up as ours is, such a life of simplicity and complete service to others is the only Way I can live a life of grace and to grow in love and towards perfection in Christ. I have made some sacrifices, but I know other clergymen who – in our time – have given up more.  Their entire lives given over to sacrificial servce to Christ.  Who have become experts in both academic theology and the real theology of constant prayer.  Who have and continue to lead their dioceses and Churches through such difficult times.  And yet, who, like St. Paul, are not only reviled by the world, but even by Orthodox Christians.  Yes, to paraphrase St. Paul, we are so smart and educated that we can criticize and heap piles of coal on their heads because we know so much more than they do – because they, like St. Paul, are fools.  We can trash-talk them on social media and applaud others who lead the charge against them because they are so weak and we are so strong. How long does it take for a Patriarch's priestly ministry to make him respectable in our sight?  For us to respect him, or at least to forebear him? It must be more than 55 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about Patriarch Kyrril who has been leading his Church and people through an incredibly difficult time, as he believes the West works to undermine his people's faith and traditional Christianity everywhere. It must also be more than 55 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about Patriarch Bartholomew, as he works amidst the persecution of the government in the place he lives to bring Christians and Christians who have long been divided into and towards the unity for which we pray daily and which our God desires us to work towards. It must be more than 42 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about our own Patriach John, who has seen his people and Church crucified and persecuted and who seeks to encourage the local authorities to protect the weak and the Church and people he serves (while leading the people he serves in the West to avoid the excesses of liberty).   I hope you feel the shame, if not your own personal shame for having participated in slandering and judging our bishops and patriarchs, then feel shame for seeing the world and those Orthodox Christians who are living by its rules attacking them and questioning their virtue. This is the same shame that St. Paul was trying to elicit in Corinth.  Do you feel the shame?  If not, then the world, probably through social media, has deadened your noetic senses.  It is time for repentance.   And like St. Paul, I have to tell you that – while few of you may be called to priestly or monastic service – all of us are called to reject those things that the world has led us to value, because all of these things are like barrier between us and the eternal joy and perfection we were called to enjoy. Listen to me, my brothers and sisters, as I repeat the words of St. Paul we so desperately need to hear:   "For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.  Therefore I urge you, imitate me."   We do not have St. Paul as our father, but we have one of his successors, Patriarch John, and those whom he has assigned to us, such as Metropolitan Saba, Bishop John, and even this, your unworthy servant.  Let's stop giving attention to those who attack Orthodox clerics and thereby sow division within the Church and undermine its witness to others. Let's give up our attachment to this world and its ways.  Let's give up everything worldly we love, follow Christ, and gain the things that are really worth our love, admiration, and sacrifice.

Who knew a Galilean fisherman could be so elegant?Monday • 12/1/2025 •Monday of the First Week of Advent, Year Two  This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Amos 2:6–16; 2 Peter 1:1–11; Matthew 21:1–11 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Epistle of Jeremiah; Psalm 118:113·128; Proverbs 26:18·23; 2 Peter 1

Epistle of Jeremiah; Psalm 118:113·128; Proverbs 26:18·23; 2 Peter 1

A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent St. Matthew 21:1-13 by William Klock The Gospel we read on Christmas Day is the introduction to St. John's Gospel.  Those familiar words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” The light, God's Messiah, Jesus has come into the world.  He's brought light into the darkness.  He's brought life into the middle of death.  In him, God has become present to the world.  But between us and Christmas, between us and the coming of the light, stands Advent—to remind us what the world was like before light and life came into the midst of darkness and death—so that we might appreciate more the gift that God has given us in Jesus, so that we might appreciate more his love, his mercy, and his grace; so that we might appreciate more his faithfulness as we see his promises fulfilled in the Christmas story.  So that we might better live out the story he's given us in preparation for the day when he comes again. And so Advent begins with Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed king, on the Sunday before his crucifixion.  Palm Sunday.  Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  Today we have St. Matthew's telling of that day.  He writes—at the beginning of Chapter 21: “When they came near to Jerusalem and arrived at Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of the disciples on ahead.” The road from Jericho up to Jerusalem made its final approach to the city around the southern slope of the Mount of Olives. As the road came over the ridge, there was Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley, a mass of great walls and rooftops, and above it all on Mount Zion, was the temple—the place where earth and heaven were supposed to overlap, the place where men and women could draw near to the presence of God, the shekinah, the cloud of glory that sat on the ark in the holy of holies.  A cloud of smoke went up perpetually from the altar in the temple court where the burnt offerings were made.  This was the scene that met Jesus as the road took him over the Mount of Olives: the city, bustling with crowds of visitors for the Passover, the temple in all its beautiful glory standing above the city, and that column of smoke going up, an aroma to the Lord. A Jewish man or woman, walking over that ridge and seeing this scene ahead, might be overcome.  It was heaven on earth—or the closest you could get to it.  It was a scene of glory.  It was a scene that would make your heart swell with pride, knowing that you were the people who lived with the living God in your midst.  And it was exciting for all these people travelling from the outlying regions of Judea and Galilee—like they were arriving at the centre of the universe.  I think of the description Victorian travellers gave of arriving in London, to the heart of the British Empire.  To the way I've heard New Yorkers talk of flying home from other parts of the world and seeing the skyscrapers or the Statue of Liberty out the window and knowing that you're home and swelling with pride because their home is—today—the centre of the universe.  This past March, Veronica I drove down Highway 101 to the central California Coast.  Between Sausalito and the Marin Headlands, you pass through the Waldo Tunnel and when you come out the south end of the tunnel, you're greeted with a stunning panoramic vista of the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco's skyscrapers in the background.  That's where I was born.  And when we drove out of the tunnel and saw that view, I think I felt something very much like the Jews would have felt coming round the Mount of Olives and seeing Jerusalem and the temple in the distance.  Jesus' disciples—a bunch of bumpkins from Galilee, way up in the north—must have felt that way.  But not Jesus.  Matthew leaves this part out, but St. Luke tells us that Jesus, seeing that beautiful and glorious view, stopped and began to sob.  The beauty, the glory wasn't lost on him, but he sobbed because he knew that it masked a people with no heart for God.  The city and temple were like a whitewashed tomb—beautiful, but full of dead men's bones.  He knew—as everyone knew, but dared not admit—the glory, the presence of God was not there.  The smoke my have risen from the altar, but the holy holies was bare and empty—just like the heart of the people.  Jesus saw the coming judgement of God on a faithless people.  He saw the city and the temple as they would be in a generation: a smoking ruin. Matthew puts our attention on Jesus' acted out prophecy.  He sends two of his disciples ahead into the village of Bethphage, “‘Go into the village,' he said, ‘and at once you'll find a donkey tied up and a foal beside it.  Untie them and bring them to me.  And if anyone says anything to you, say, “The lord needs them, and he'll send them back straightaway.”'  He sent them off at once….So the disciples went off and did as Jesus had told them.  They brought the donkey and its foal and put their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.”  Why?  Well, says Matthew, “This happened so that the prophet's words might be fulfilled: ‘Tell this to Zion's daughter: Behold!  Here comes your king; humble and riding on a donkey, yes, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Matthew quotes from the Prophet Zechariah.  Matthew could see what Jesus was doing here.  Jesus never did anything randomly or without reason.  The location, the donkey, the colt—they're all important.  Jesus could have taken a different route to Jerusalem, but he picked this one so that he'd be standing on the Mount of Olives when all this happened.  This was the spot were Zechariah said that the Lord would stand when he came in judgement on faithless Jerusalem.  And Zechariah explains the strange command to the disciples about the donkey.  This was not how kings made their triumphal processions.  At least, not ordinary kings.  They were carried by their servants or they rode on horseback or in a chariot.  But Zechariah, hundreds of years before, had highlighted the humble nature of the coming Messiah.  He was the one who would ride to his coronation on the back of a humble donkey. Jesus' acted out prophecy reveals who he is and it exposes all the wrong ideas his people had about the Lord and his Messiah—and it probably exposes some of our wrong ideas, too.  To the people who longed for the Lord to come in judgement on the nations, Jesus comes in judgement to his own people.  To the people who imagined the Messiah coming in a chariot with a great army to liberate Jerusalem and to reign over his people like a greater David, Jesus comes riding on a donkey with an army of ordinary pilgrims.  To the people who imagined God coming in merciless, vengeful, pitiless wrath to bring judgement on sin, Jesus comes in humility, weeping over the coming judgement.  Jesus is coming to take his throne, to fulfil what the Prophets—like Zechariah—had spoken, to show the Lord's faithfulness, but not in the way anyone expected. I think of our Epistle today from Romans, where St. Paul writes those words: “Owe no one anything, but to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the torah.”  I don't think Paul could have written those words before he met the risen Jesus.  He certainly knew what the greatest commandments were: to love God and to love his neighbour.  But he didn't understand.  He was part of that Jerusalem Jesus wept over.  A city that talked about love of God and love of neighbour, but a city—a nation—of people at each other's throats, a people longing eagerly for fire and brimstone to rain down on their enemies, a people with little if any thought for those in their midst most in need, a people ready to cry out in demonic rage for the crucifixion of their own Messiah.  And a people who did all these things with an absolute and devoted passion for a God they utterly misunderstood.  And this was why what should have been the beating heart of Jerusalem—the presence of the living God in the temple—this is why it, why he was missing.  The people had returned from their Babylonian exile, they had rebuilt the temple, but the heart of the people was still far from God.  They were impure.  Their salt had lost its savour.  Their light had turned to darkness.  They were false witnesses of their God.  And so his presence, the cloud of glory, had never returned. The road to Jerusalem was jammed with people who say Jesus sobbing.  They probably thought his tears were tears of joy to see the holy city.  Little did they know.  They were just excited to see him.  They'd heard the stories.  Word was no doubt spread through about the healing of blind Bartimaeus in Jericho.  Pilgrims from Galilee told others of the amazing things Jesus had done and taught there.  And as the disciples places their coats on the donkey and Jesus took his place, word was going through the crowd: “That's him!” So, says Matthew, “the great crowd spread their coats on the road.  Others cut branches from the trees and scattered them on the road.  The crowds went on ahead of him and those who were following behind shouted: ‘Hosanna to the son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest!” The crowd surrounds Jesus. All the way to Jerusalem they'd been singing the psalms of ascent and the royal psalms.  Songs full of hope.  Psalms about that recalled the glory days of David, psalms about God coming to his people, psalms about God finally setting this broken world to rights.  Psalms that looked forward to the coming Messiah.  And now—maybe, they hoped—here he was.  Not like anyone expected, but they'd heard the stories.  Maybe they'd heard him preaching.  Maybe they'd seen his miracles.  And that was enough.  So they parade him down the Mount of Olives, across the valley, and back up and into the gates of Jerusalem. Along the way they, Matthew says, they laid their coats and palm branches on the ground.  Now it's the people acting out prophetically even if they didn't know it. Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience makes sure that as they read this, they're reminded of a scene or two from their own history.  In 2 Kings 9 we read about Jehoram.  He was King of Israel, the son of the wicked King Ahab.  And in Jehoram, the apple had not fallen far from the tree.  He was as wicked as his father, so the prophet Elisha ordered that Jehu, instead, was to be anointed King in his place.  He announced that Jehu would bring the Lord's judgement on the wicked house of Ahab.  As Jehu was anointed by the prophet, the men who were gathered cast their coats on the ground before him and blew a trumpet. And then there's Judas Maccabeus.  2 Maccabees 10:7 describes the people hailing Judas as king by laying wreathes and palm branches at his feet.  Judas had not only defeated Israel's enemies and liberated the nation, but he had purified the temple from its defilement by the Greeks.  He was a national hero—particularly for the Pharisees and the Zealots.  Judas' kingdom inspired hope. But Jehu was not the saviour the people hoped for.  As a king he was a mixed bag.  He put an end to the more outrageous form of idolatry in Judah.  He got rid of the altars to Baal.  But he never removed the golden calves that Jeroboam has set up at Bethel and Dan.  He failed to dig out the root of Judah's idolatry and faithlessness to the Lord.  In the end, the Lord still allowed the people to be exiled for their faithlessness.  And Judas Maccabeus.  He was a national hero.  But his kingdom was short-lived.  The shekinah never returned to the temple, despite his zealousness for torah.  The hope he'd brought to the people was quickly crushed.  But this time, looking at Jesus, the people hoped, it would be different.  And so they sing to him.  They acclaim him as the Messiah, the anointed king.  “Hosanna—save us—O son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  O Hosanna—save us—we cry to heaven!” Matthew gives us a sense of the longing and hope of the people.  They're desperate for the Lord to come and set their broken world to rights.  Jesus sees it too and I expect it made him weep all the more, because he knew that God's new world was not going to come the way they wanted it to, he knew that he would not going to his messianic throne the way they wanted him to, because he knew that to set everything to rights would mean judging the sin and corruption of his people and the city and even the temple.  And he knew the only way to his throne was through their rejection and death on Roman cross. But on he went into the city.  Acting out the prophecy.  Matthew writes that “When they came into Jerusalem, the whole city was gripped with excitement.  ‘Who is this?' they were saying.  ‘This is the prophet, Jesus,' replied the crowds, ‘from Nazareth in Galilee!”  This is the Prophet.  They weren't saying that Jesus was just another prophet.  He was the Prophet.  The one the people hailed Jesus as in our Gospel last Sunday, after he fed the multitude.  He was the one promised to come, like another Moses, to save the people and lead them out of bondage.  In other words, “This is the Messiah, Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” He had come to take his throne.  And so from the gate of the city, Jesus led the triumphal parade of cheering people through the winding streets—the same route he would take in reverse, bearing a cross, just five days later.  He made his way up and up through the city to the temple and through the gate.  And when he got there, Matthew says, “Jesus threw out all the people who were buying and selling in the temple.  He flipped over the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove-sellers.  ‘It is written,' he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a lair of bandits!” Jehu and Judas Maccabeus had cleansed the temple.  That was the expectation of the Messiah.  But not like this.  I think we often focus too much on Jesus' actions as a condemnation of the commerce going on in the temple—probably because we're aware of the evils of our own overly materialistic and commercialistic culture.  I don't think Jesus was angered by the commerce itself.  People needed animals for the sacrifices and not everyone was a farmer.  A lot of people were travelling from far away and it wasn't easy or realistic to bring the animals with them.  And the money changers, well, since the temple only used its own coinage, they were at least a necessary evil.  Nevertheless when you think of Mary and Joseph going to the temple for her purification after the birth of Jesus and offering two turtledoves, it says something about how poor they were.  When you think about the words of her Magnificat, singing about filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty, when you think of the widow offering her “mite” in the offering box, you certainly get the sense that the system was privileging the rich and making access to the temple a burden for the poor—and in that this whole system was emblematic of the way in which Israel had lost the heart of God and was desperately in need of judgment…or renewal…or as it would happen: both.   But the really important thing about Jesus flipping tables and driving out the merchants is something I think we're prone to missing.  Again, this is another acted out prophecy.  The really important thing is that what Jesus did brought the work of the priests and the whole sacrificial system that day to a grinding halt.  It goes along with everything else he said about the temple—like announcing that he would tear it down and rebuild it in three day—and it goes right along with all the times that he bypassed the temple, the priests, and the sacrificial system by offering forgiveness apart from them.  That, far more than everything else, is what had angered the Pharisees.  That was what got him arrested and crucified. So what Jesus is getting at here is that the Messiah has come, not just to purify the temple, but to establish a new and better one.  To really inaugurate the work of new creation that the old temple had always pointed to.  The people had forgotten this.  The temple was never meant to be an end in itself.  The temple pointed to God's future—to the day when sin is gone, to the day when creation is made new and the garden restored, and to the day when men and women are made new as well, to the day when a renewed humanity once again lives in God's presence and serves in his temple as priests. And, Brothers and Sisters, that's what Jesus inaugurated through his crucifixion and resurrection.  He shed his blood, not for a building, not for an altar made of stone, but for a people: a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for their sins.  At the cross, Jesus washed his people clean and he's washed them—he's washed us clean—so that we can be God's temple.  And so Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to the right hand of his Father, the perfect man, the new Adam, to take up his vocation as high priest.  And as high priest, he's poured God's Spirit into his people, purified by his blood.  He's made us his temple and called us to join in the vocation we were originally created for: to be God's priests and stewards serving beside our saviour. So Advent comes as a forced pause.  We're racing towards Christmas and to the joy it represents.  And the church says, “Hold on.  Slow down.  You need to stop and think about what it all means.  You need to stop and think about why Jesus came, why he was born, why it was necessary for light and life to be born into the world.  You need to reflect on the darkness of this fallen and broken world.  You need to reflect on the awfulness of sin and of death and of our slavery to them so that you can fully appreciate the gift in the manger with more than mushy holiday sentimentalism.  This is the Messiah, this is the saviour—Israel's saviour and now our saviour.  Come not just to make us feel good, but come to deliver us from sin and death, come to set God's creation to rights.  Come to purify us with his blood, to dwell in the midst of the people, to fill us with Gods' Spirit, and to sweep us up into his messianic mission.  Brothers and Sisters, to make us the people in whom the world encounters the glory of the living God and meets the humble saviour whose kingdom has come, not by a sword, but by the cross.  To make us stewards of the Gospel that, empowered by the Spirit, we might prepare the world for Jesus' return. Let's pray: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Advent is a season that the global Church has recognized for nearly 2000 years. The word, “Advent” means “coming” and is a time of looking back as we look forward. We look back in commemoration of God coming in the flesh through the person of Jesus and we look forward to His promise of coming again. This year, we will be looking at one of the earliest creeds of the Christian Church found in poetic form in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians. We invite Missio Dei Church to memorize vv 15-20 as we study it throughout the next four weeks.

November 29, 2025

Our baptism plunges us symbolically into a death-by-drowning.Friday • 11/28/2025 •Friday of the Twenty-Fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; Isaiah 24:14–23; 1 Peter 3:13–4:6; Matthew 20:17–28 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

“Nobody can tell me what to do!” is a slogan of our time.Thursday • 11/27/2025 •Thursday of the Twenty-Fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Zephaniah 3:1–13; 1 Peter 2:11–25; Matthew 20:1–16 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

The anchor of Bob's soul was Jesus ChristWednesday • 11/26/2025 •Wednesday of the Twenty-Fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145–176; Obadiah 15–21; 1 Peter 2:1–10; Matthew 19:23–30 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

As allegiance to Jesus Christ spread across the Roman Empire in the second century, writings, practices, and ideas erupted in a creative maelstrom. Many of the patterns of practice and belief that later become normative emerged, in the midst of debate and argument with neighbours who shared or who rejected that allegiance. Authoritative texts, principles of argument, attitudes to received authority, the demands of allegiance in the face of opposition, identifying who belonged and who did not, all demanded attention. These essays explore those divergent voices, and the no-less diverse and lively debates they have inspired in recent scholarship. Judith M. Lieu is the author of Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices (Brill, 2025). She was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 2007-2018. She studied at Durham and Birmingham Universities and previously taught at The Queen's College, Birmingham, King's College London (where she was Professor of New Testament Studies, 1999-2006), and Macquarie University, Sydney. From January 2020–June 2021 she was Frothingham Visiting Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She is on the editorial board of a number of journals and series and was previously Editor of New Testament Studies. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (2014) and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019). Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The way I (wrongly) eliminate those temptations is to consume them!Tuesday • 11/25/2025 •Tuesday of the Twenty-Fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Nahum 1:1–13; 1 Peter 1:13–25; Matthew 19:13–22 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

As allegiance to Jesus Christ spread across the Roman Empire in the second century, writings, practices, and ideas erupted in a creative maelstrom. Many of the patterns of practice and belief that later become normative emerged, in the midst of debate and argument with neighbours who shared or who rejected that allegiance. Authoritative texts, principles of argument, attitudes to received authority, the demands of allegiance in the face of opposition, identifying who belonged and who did not, all demanded attention. These essays explore those divergent voices, and the no-less diverse and lively debates they have inspired in recent scholarship. Judith M. Lieu is the author of Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices (Brill, 2025). She was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 2007-2018. She studied at Durham and Birmingham Universities and previously taught at The Queen's College, Birmingham, King's College London (where she was Professor of New Testament Studies, 1999-2006), and Macquarie University, Sydney. From January 2020–June 2021 she was Frothingham Visiting Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She is on the editorial board of a number of journals and series and was previously Editor of New Testament Studies. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (2014) and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019). Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

We dive into Seneca's Epistle 107, where he promises that by forcing ourselves to "reflect upon all the possible evils," we can actually "shorten all its trouble by endurance." This isn't morbid dwelling; it's mental immunization. Learn from the ultimate practitioners of this method: the Roman Legionaries, who trained for catastrophic failure so they would never panic on the battlefield. Tune in to discover how paying the psychological price in advance frees you from fear and leaves you ready—and unbroken—for anything. ALL ABOUT THIS WEEK'S SERIES Welcome to "The Unbroken Mind: A 7-Day Guide to Ancient Strategies for Modern Trauma" In the modern world, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, not by barbarian invasions, but by endless notifications, political noise, and the constant pressure to be "on." Resilience isn't a talent you're born with, or something you buy in a self-help book. What if the antidote to our modern anxiety was perfected two thousand years ago, written on wax tablets and sent across the Roman Empire? This series is your essential training manual for mental resilience, drawn from the deepest well of ancient wisdom: Stoicism. Over the next seven days, you're going to build a mental foundation that can withstand anything. This is your Unbroken Mind, and it's structured around one of the greatest resilience coaches in history: the Roman philosopher and statesman, Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Every single episode is a workshop to make this ancient philosophy immediately actionable today. This is day 2 of a 7-day meditation series, "The Unbroken Mind: A 7-Day Guide to Ancient Strategies for Modern Trauma," episodes 3423-3429. YOUR WEEKLY CHALLENGE: "The Acceptance Code" Your mission this week: practice Cognitive Separation, isolating facts from your emotional judgments about them. Whenever you feel stress, pause and list only the neutral facts of the situation (Katalepsis), then discard the "externals" you cannot change. This prepares your Inner Citadel to respond strategically, rather than reactively, to uncertainty and daily irritations. THIS WEEK'S MEDITATION JOURNEY  Day 1:  Inner Citadel Meditation Day 2:  Affirmation: "My peace is governed only by my internal response, not by external events." Day 3:  Kumbhaka (Retention Breath) Day 4:  Dhyana mudra for self-awareness Day 5:  Fifth chakra for inner truth Day 6:  Courage Flow meditation, combining the week's techniques Day 7:  Weekly review meditation and closure SHARE YOUR MEDITATION JOURNEY WITH YOUR FELLOW MEDITATORS Let's connect and inspire each other! Please share a little about how meditation has helped you by reaching out to me at Mary@SipandOm.com or better yet -- direct message me on https://www.instagram.com/sip.and.om. We'd love to hear about your meditation ritual!  WAYS TO SUPPORT THE DAILY MEDITATION PODCAST SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss a single episode. Consistency is the KEY to a successful meditation ritual. SHARE the podcast with someone who could use a little extra support. I'd be honored if you left me a podcast review. If you do, please email me at Mary@sipandom.com and let me know a little about yourself and how meditation has helped you. I'd love to share your journey to inspire fellow meditators on the podcast! All meditations are created by Mary Meckley and are her original content. Please request permission to use any of Mary's content by sending an email to Mary@sipandom.com. FOR DAILY EXTRA SUPPORT OUTSIDE THE PODCAST Each day's meditation techniques are shared at: sip.and.om Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sip.and.om/ sip and om Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SipandOm/ SIP AND OM MEDITATION APP Looking for a little more support? If you're ready for a more in-depth meditation experience, allow Mary to guide you in daily 30-minute guided meditations on the Sip and Om meditation app. Give it a whirl for 7-days free! Receive access to 2,000+ 30-minute guided meditations customized around a weekly theme to help you manage emotions. Receive a Clarity Journal and a Slow Down Guide customized for each weekly theme.  2-Week's Free Access on iOS https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sip-and-om/id1216664612?platform=iphone&preserveScrollPosition=true#platform/iphone All meditations are created by Mary Meckley and are her original content. Please request permission to use any of Mary's content by sending an email to Mary@sipandom.com.Let go of repetitive negative thoughts. The beach waves were composed by Mike Koenig. Music composed by Christopher Lloyd Clark licensed by RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, and also by musician Greg Keller.

A penultimate 7th chord carries exquisite tones of poignant memory and eager expectation.Monday • 11/24/2025 •Monday of the Twenty-Fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Joel 3:1–2,9–17; 1 Peter 1:1–12; Matthew 19:1–12 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Join us as we study through the Epistle to the Galatians in our sermon series, "The Gospel of Grace."In today's podcast, we will be focusing on Galatians 2:17-21.If you have any questions or would like to leave a comment, please feel free to email us at info@ravenswoodbaptist.org

November 22, 2025

Today we will be talking to Yehudah Halper about his new book, Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge (Academic Studies Press, 2025). The twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher Averroes sought to understand the divine in a way independent of religious theology, by turning to the philosophical works of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Plato. In doing so, he established standards of scientific inquiry into God that were and remain highly influential on Jewish and Christian thought. Averroes, however, does not provide much in the way of demonstrative knowledge of God, and most of his arguments remain dialectical, rhetorical, or political. This volume explores the various pathways towards attaining divine knowledge that we find in Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, and on Plato's Republic, along with Averroes' Epistle on Divine Knowledge, Decisive Treatise, and more. Yehuda Halper is Professor in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. He is currently a aisiting professor at University of Chicago Divinity School. His first monograph, Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato (Brill, 2021) won the Goldstein-Goren Book Award for the best book in Jewish Thought in 2019-2021. He is currently directing the ISF grant (#622/22) "Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms and the Foundations of Philosophy in Hebrew." Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid. His latest book is Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today we will be talking to Yehudah Halper about his new book, Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge (Academic Studies Press, 2025). The twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher Averroes sought to understand the divine in a way independent of religious theology, by turning to the philosophical works of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Plato. In doing so, he established standards of scientific inquiry into God that were and remain highly influential on Jewish and Christian thought. Averroes, however, does not provide much in the way of demonstrative knowledge of God, and most of his arguments remain dialectical, rhetorical, or political. This volume explores the various pathways towards attaining divine knowledge that we find in Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, and on Plato's Republic, along with Averroes' Epistle on Divine Knowledge, Decisive Treatise, and more. Yehuda Halper is Professor in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. He is currently a aisiting professor at University of Chicago Divinity School. His first monograph, Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato (Brill, 2021) won the Goldstein-Goren Book Award for the best book in Jewish Thought in 2019-2021. He is currently directing the ISF grant (#622/22) "Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms and the Foundations of Philosophy in Hebrew." Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid. His latest book is Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Today we will be talking to Yehudah Halper about his new book, Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge (Academic Studies Press, 2025). The twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher Averroes sought to understand the divine in a way independent of religious theology, by turning to the philosophical works of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Plato. In doing so, he established standards of scientific inquiry into God that were and remain highly influential on Jewish and Christian thought. Averroes, however, does not provide much in the way of demonstrative knowledge of God, and most of his arguments remain dialectical, rhetorical, or political. This volume explores the various pathways towards attaining divine knowledge that we find in Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, and on Plato's Republic, along with Averroes' Epistle on Divine Knowledge, Decisive Treatise, and more. Yehuda Halper is Professor in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. He is currently a aisiting professor at University of Chicago Divinity School. His first monograph, Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato (Brill, 2021) won the Goldstein-Goren Book Award for the best book in Jewish Thought in 2019-2021. He is currently directing the ISF grant (#622/22) "Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms and the Foundations of Philosophy in Hebrew." Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid. His latest book is Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In today's poem (sometimes printed alternatively as “Letter to a Young Friend”), Scotland's national poet gives life advice with his characteristic blend of sincerity and levity. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.

Textual study of the daily section of Tanya, the foundational text of Chassidic philosophy.