Category: theosis

  • Did Calvin teach unilateral forgiveness?

    John Calvin did not teach unilateral forgiveness (i.e., a completely one-sided, unconditional granting of full relational pardon and reconciliation without any regard to the offender’s response or repentance). Calvin’s teaching on forgiveness aligns closely with the biblical pattern: Christians are commanded to maintain an attitude of love, forbear love, and readiness to forgive even toward…

  • Early Life Abuse

    (Part 1 Therapy for the soul) Most of the saints had very Godly mothers so this doesn’t apply as much to them as it does to us regular folks.. Orthodox Christian “therapy for the soul” (as described in the Patristic tradition and especially in Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos’s Orthodox Psychotherapy) does involve dealing with the deep…

  • Therapy for the soul

    Orthodox Christian “therapy for the soul” (often called Orthodox psychotherapy or the science of spiritual medicine) refers to the entire ancient tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church as a healing system for the human soul, mind, and body, wounded by the Fall, sin, passions, and death. This understanding is most famously articulated in the modern…

  • Orthodox vs Reformed

    Theosis vs Union with God Summary: Both traditions teach an intimate, life-giving union/communion with God through Christ, but the Reformed tradition is extremely cautious about any language that sounds like we become divine in our being, whereas Orthodoxy embraces that language (with careful Palamite qualifications) as the very heart of the gospel. Here’s a clear…

  • Fragrance of Relics

  • Epistle – 2025-01-19

    ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS 3:4-11Brethren, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons…

  • The Jesus Prayer

    Lord Jesus Christ,Son of God.Have mercy on me,A sinner. 1920×1080 screen background. Minimize windows. Pull out prayer rope. Pray. The more I pray the Jesus Prayer, the less busy and distracted my mind gets. From Wikipedia.

  • Taking a Social Media Break

    If Jesus needed to get away and pray, so much more I need to do the same. Luke 5:15-16 But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and…

  • Gospel Reading 2024-12-11

    MARK 8:30-34At that time, Jesus charged his disciples to tell no one about him, that he is the Christ. And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise…

  • Epistle Reading 2024-11-25

    ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS 3:23-29; 4:1-5 Brethren, before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a…

  • Epistle Reading for 2024-11-23

    2 Cor 5:1-10 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being…

  • Experiencing God

    A group of the ladies at our church completed the book Experiencing God this past summer and had good things to say about it. I’ve started a BLOG to document my own journey through the Experiencing God materials. It’s at http://experiencinggodgroup.blogspot.com.