What to do when you feel overwhelmed about the blurred lines of morality? What to do when you feel grieved over the cross-pollination of good and evil, right and wrong, in our ever-changing culture? There’s been so much media-attention recently concerning the political views and actions of the Right and the Left. There’s a presidential…
If we are to be like Christ, we must know something of self-sacrifice. To think that God will not refine us through the fires of pain and suffering, and melt away our imperfections like the dross of silver is to relegate the tao of Christianity. Let us embrace sufferings that serve to embrace our longing…
one should read the BIBLE as a mystery novel: a story of prideful irony (sin) and ironic pride (salvation) one should peruse its pages for the character development of villain and hero one should be prepared to personally invest into the proverbial love story that takes place between author and reader
A young man about twenty-five years old paddles out to his local surf break in San Clemente, California. The silhouette of something substantial yet sprightly in the murky water startles the surfer with no name. The still sea around him becomes agitated. Moments later, a creature scuffs his leg. He recoils his limbs and lies…
Christ is the ideal soldier: he never leaves a man behind. Even under enemy fire he risks his own life to save the men and women under his authority. He puts the needs of his platoon before his own: they eat and then he eats; they sleep and then he sleeps; they shower and then…
One of my favorite Bible verses is 2 Corinthians 5:17, which claims, “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (NLT) But what does that mean in relation to who we are as a complete human being? Does it mean that everything about…
Love me. Teach me. Guide me in all Your ways. Help me humble myself before You everyday, and if need be, humble me, so my thoughts may be pure and pleasing to You. May my actions never cease to emulate You releasing a sweet smelling fragrance of salvation’s freedom. More than anything, I seek to…
The struggles we encounter are not always elicited by self-destruction and self-dilapidation, but by strategic trials that are necessarily entailed by divine circumstances. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. This is not an appointed suffering by a draconian deity. Look at the life of a “blameless and upright”…
If you have ever heard the term “liberation theology” in conversation but were too embarrassed to ask what it meant or maybe you are already acquainted with the term but you would like a relatively terse description of it, then look no further. In this 10 page paper, you will learn the methodology of one…
“The Holy Theophany (Epiphany) of Our Lord,” in the Greek Orthodox Tradition. Photo taken by Emmanuel Petkas. “The Sea” in the “The Holy Theophany (Epiphany) of Our Lord,” in the Greek Orthodox Tradition. Photo taken by Emmanuel Petkas. I don’t how I came across this picture, but, when I first saw it, I fell in…