Reflections in Christ

by Fr. Lawrence Farley

Thinking about the Atonement:  the New Testament

In my last piece I discussed the Old Testament view of the atonement.  Here I would examine the New Testament understanding of the atonement. 

As with the Old Testament, there is in the New Testament no clear and detailed elaboration of how the atonement “works”, which of course accounts for the current debate about it.  But all Christians…

Thinking about the Atonement:  the Old Testament

It is perhaps significant that there is no obvious and complete explanation of atonement and how it functioned in the Bible.  My guess is that this was because it was too obvious to the ancients to require stating.  People just knew instinctively that they were in need of help and closer union with the gods/ God and that offering sacrifice was the…

Patience and Reception

Recently I was asked a very important and perceptive question by a very smart catechumen, a man converting from Roman Catholicism.  He knew that at the Council of Nicea (325 A. D.) the assembled bishops voted for the homoousios teaching of Christ’s full divinity by an overwhelming majority of something like 318 to 2.  He also knew that at the…

Is Christianity on the Decline in the West?

This question is often asked by concerned Church people, especially those in the “mainline” churches here in Canada such as the United Church, the Anglican Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.  Church statisticians, usually with long faces and bass voices, solemnly announce that Christianity is on the decline and has been for decades.  One…

Angels in our Life

Having looked at the development of angelology in the Scriptures and the figure of the Angel of the Lord, we conclude this series by talking about the role of angels in the life of the Christian.  Their importance can be gauged by their presence in our liturgical tradition.

First, a word of cultural clarification:  the angels in the Orthodox…

The Angel of the Lord

In our last post we looked at the long process whereby angelology developed in the Bible.  Now we will look at one particular aspect of this:  the mal’ak Yahweh, “Yahweh’s messenger”, usually translated “the Angel of the Lord”.

We have seen that the Hebrew word mal’ak could mean several things.  In Genesis 32:3 it meant the human…

Angels: A Long Development

In order to fully understand angels in the Bible it helps to embrace a bit of temporary amnesia and forget most of what we know about angels.  That is because angelology has undergone a long development from its ancient Near Eastern pre-history before the days of the Bible to its final formulation at the hands of Saint John of Damascus (d. ca. 749…

A Christianity of the Catacombs

I begin with a quote from an article that is almost 60 years old, but which has lost none of its timeliness:  “Since the Byzantine era, Orthodoxy was always brought to and accepted by whole nations.  The only familiar pattern of the past, therefore, is not the creation of mere local churches, but a total integration and incarnation of Orthodoxy in…

The Church and Apocalypticism

Second Temple Judaism was a many-splendoured thing.  That is, it included many different elements—so many elements in fact that some people talk not just of Judaism, but Judaisms (in the plural). While the use of the plural might be a bit of a stretch, there is no denying that Second Temple Judaism was more diverse than the Rabbinic Judaism you…

Snoopy’s Christmas:  A Seasonal Meditation

Each year one of my favourite Christmas songs is an old novelty song called Snoopy’s Christmas, released in 1967 by the Royal Guardsmen as a follow-up to their previous hit Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.  The song was inspired by actual events. During the First World War troops on either side of the front line crossed over into No Man’s Land on…

Understanding the Bible: Recognizing Christ

In earlier posts we spoke of the challenges to be faced in understanding the Bible in all its rich complexity.  We spoke of the necessity of recognizing that the Bible contains many literary genres and that it is a very old book.  We conclude this series by suggesting that to fully grasp the Bible’s meaning, we need to recognize Christ there when…

Understanding the Bible: Recognizing Antiquity

In an earlier post we spoke of the necessity of recognizing literary genre as one of the essential keys to understanding the Bible.  A second key to understanding the Bible is recognizing its antiquity—that is, acknowledging that the Bible is a very old book—and therefore very different than our modern books.

This would seem to be too obvious…

Understanding the Bible: Recognizing Genre

Odd as it sounds, the first step to understanding the Bible is to realize that there is no such thing as The Bible.  Or, to state it somewhat less paradoxically, we must realize that the Bible is not a single book written by a single author, but a library of books written over a number of centuries by many authors.  The word “bible”, though…

Biblical Women:  The Prophetess

There is one woman in the Bible who is consistently ignored.  That is perhaps not unexpected, since her name is not given.  Her presence can be first detected by the exegetically keen-sighted in Isaiah 7.  On the eve of an expected invasion of Judah by a northern coalition of Israel and Syria, the prophet Isaiah went to visit his king, Ahaz, who was…

Biblical Women:  Judith

The Book of Judith is a war story.  It may be difficult for us to appreciate it fully, since most of us have never experienced the danger and horrors attending the invasion of one’s country—especially the dangers and horrors for women during such invasion.  My own nation Canada has never really been invaded.  The last time America was invaded,…

Biblical Women: Rahab

Rahab has the distinction of being one of the few Biblical figures who was the object of an attempted moral make-over—or, more bluntly, of a well-intentioned white-wash.  In Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 she is referred to as “Rahab the porne”—in quaint English, “Rahab the harlot”, in more common English “Rahab the prostitute”—and…

Biblical Women: Ruth

The Book of Ruth, a little tale of only four chapters, is arguably the sweetest book of the Bible and perhaps in all literature.  Its sweetness is accentuated by its position within order of the books of the Septuagint and of the Christian versions dependent upon it, for there it comes immediately after the Book of Judges and immediately before the…

Biblical Women: Esther

If ever a Biblical story cried out to be made into a Hollywood movie, it would be the story of Esther.  The story has everything that Hollywood values in a movie:  rags-to-riches, gorgeous scenery, sex, intrigue, a creepy villain, attempted murder, violence, plot twists, a cast of thousands, and a happy ending.  It even centers upon a strong female…

Be Thou My Battle Shield

One of my favourite hymns from my old Anglican days is Be Thou My Vision. Based on a sixth century Irish poem attributed to Saint Dallan Forgaill, it was translated by Mary Byrne in 1905, and versified by Eleanor Hull in 1912.  I was trying to find a version of the hymn to download, but had trouble finding the entire version which I used to sing…

Of Giants and Grasshoppers

When the spies that Joshua sent out to reconnoitre the land returned to camp, they came with bad news:  “The people who live in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.  We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”  The spies were quite…