“Thoughts in Christ”

The historian Herodotus claimed that the Magi were Medes, a tribe that tried to conquer the Persians, failed and became priests but more than religious leaders. They were instructors to the royal house of Persia, learned in philosophy, science and medicine. Besides, they were astrologers who looked into the skies to learn God’s ways for the earth.…

The question, “What does Christmas mean?” has as many answers as people in our society. Opportunity for merchants, vacation days for school children, parties and exchange of gifts even for non-Christians, since it has become a national holiday even in a nation that forbids official recognition. All including Christians, even Orthodox Christians,…

Holy means separate, or apart. St. Peter as a Jew considered it normal for Christians to do as the Jews and make themselves distinct from Gentiles. We read in Acts 10 the change of his attitude and what it took to accept non-Jews as authentic Christians. After their return from exile in Babylon, Jews defined themselves as a people apart from all…

“O who loves, Nicholas the saintly?” we sing from a popular hymn to that glorious saint. The answer obviously is the entire Christian world down through the centuries, with various interpretations and understandings related to the era and ethos. He endears himself even for what he was not. Following the age of the apostles, then that of the martyrs…

Prayer and fasting go together. They are two parts of complete self-control, which are necessary for unconditional faith. We fast so that our prayer is free from all that comes between God and ourselves. Food is only part of it. To eat minimally and only a select diet is to practice freedom from craving. Beyond yearning for meat and dairy products,…

Every American is invited to share the experience of the Pilgrims on Thanksgiving Day, albeit vicariously. We recount the fears and tests of faith for those hearty voyagers crossing the Atlantic Ocean in their frail ships, enduring the traumas and perils, celebrating the arrival on dry land and the symbol of their firmness of purpose and trust in…

Imagine you were living in the first or second century, a citizen of one of the above cities called Asia Minor, present-day Turkey. The great apostle to gentiles like yourself, Peter, addresses you as a pilgrim, although you never moved more than a few miles from your birthplace. He means that as one baptized into the Body of Christ, you have been…

The last phrase explains and justifies all that precedes it. “That you may inherit a blessing.” When? When you fall asleep in the Lord and realize the value of blessings. What greater gift can you imagine than to appear before your Lord Jesus Christ as He greets you with a blessing? Why? Because you are one of His flock who had been courteous to all…

“Hallow” is an ancient form of “holy,” and “een-even” means “eve,” thus Halloween is the eve of all saints. As celebrated in America, it recalls an ancient pagan religion brought from England, having originated from the Celtic end-of-harvest festival of the dead. Imagine explaining it to a visitor from another land who never heard of it.

Let us…

The key term is “Word,” which translates as the Greek Logos. The problem for us is that a word is something written and heard—but Logos is a great deal more. More than a sound, it is reason, the ability to think and communicate, which we share with divinity, marking us as different from all other creatures. Beyond even that, the gospel is…

Estimates put nearly one of every six persons on earth as viewers of the rescue of the miners in Chile, trapped under the earth for sixty-nine days. No communication emerged for the first seventeen days. Pessimism prevailed. Few would dare hope that the men were alive. The mountain over and around them was of almost solid stone. They were a half…

If this were happening in our time and we were looking down from an airplane, it would show a pathway between the villages. Two crowds of people are approaching on the pathway, one towards the town, the other leaving. The first are happy, active, milling around a figure ahead of them who is talking and gesturing with His hands. The other is not at…

How does the Lord heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds? He uses the healing myrrh with which the Holy Spirit sealed us at the sacrament of Anointment following baptism. Christ Himself wipes away our tears. Then He mystically snips pieces from our pure and precious baptismal garments, fashioning tourniquets in order to staunch the bleeding.…

God and humanity—eternity and transience. One lifetime is all you get, so enjoy it while it lasts. That is reality, but it is not the whole truth—not all we get, because God planned more for us. He wants us to share life eternal with Him. Modern society’s attitude is to consider death as finality, and they call it wisdom—or maybe…

What an abundance of meditation opportunities is here, in the glorious promise that: “He will wipe away every tear.” Every tear? So many tears have been shed since our infancy from each of us—it’s the way we communicate before we can explain what we require. Is it necessary to count the tears that our kind mothers and even fathers have made to…

The common sense reason for having our Lord’s accusation written in three languages was to make certain whatever the nationality of the people in Jerusalem, they all would be able to understand why it was that Jesus Christ was condemned to the cruel execution of crucifixion as He wended His way to Calvary, the place of death. However, we know that…

After the newly-Chrismated Orthodox Christian is received into the holy Church, I follow him or her to ask what their impressions are regarding the Orthodox Christian faith. Not only for their sake, though I wish for them a simple and complete transition from their former faith or from agnosticism. I want to “pick their brains,” to use the painful…

Here we are near the end of the Bible in the Revelation experience. Is it not odd that one of the angels with the seven bowls with the seven last plagues is here inviting us to witness the glorious marriage of the Lamb whom we know to be our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as the bridegroom? Also to recognize that the bride is none other than the…

Evil incidents become our daily “Breaking News.” Recently in a normal high school two male and three female students had carried on a series of harassments on a colleague who had moved from Ireland, thinking that in America her dreams of a pleasant future would be fulfilled. The gang taunted and teased her, calling her all sorts of vulgarities,…

Anthony Flew is dead. He was a professional philosopher. His book on atheism was required reading for my college course in philosophy. He set forth the logic of atheism, the rationale that nothing can explain the universe other than mere accident. Those who see some plan at work, a deity that has laid out the cosmos according to some complex…