Sword in the Fire

City of Philippi: Philippi was originally a Greek city renamed by Alexander the Great’s father, King Philip. It was later made a Roman colony, and was found near the Greek coast near in the Northern Aegean sea. Today if looked on a map it would be in Greece just below the Bulgarian border (north of modern city of Kavala). At the time of Paul it was part of the Roman region of Macedonia. The citizens were proud to be Roman citizens and this came with a tremendous amount of privilege at the time. It was also a wealthy city. There were a lot of natural resources around the area, and it was nice trading community. (the river where they prayed and were probably baptized) Founding of the Church (Acts 16): Paul and his traveling companions had been working in Asia Minor and were intent on ministering further in Asia, yet God stopped them (6). Paul had a vision that a man from Macedonia was calling to him to come help him. Paul and his companions (Silas, Luke, & Timothy) took this as...

If you live near Louisville, KY here are the details regarding the Institute for Orthodox Studies this Friday (Sep 22) and Saturday (Sep 23). The institue will take place at St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church on Hikes Lane. Babysitting will be provided on Saturday and Dinner and Lunch will be free of charge. If you plan on eating please call 454-3378 x6 for reservations. The theme of the Institute is "Why a Crucified Messiah?" Friday, September 22 6-6:30 pm Great Vespers 6:45-7:30 pm Dinner 7:45-9:00 pm Through the Cross Keynote with Q&A Rev. John Behr, Professor of Patristics, St. Vladimir Seminary Saturday, September 23 8-8:30 am Matins in the Chapel 8:30-9:00 am Breakfast 9:00-10:15 am Forgiven Sinners Fr. John Behr 10:15-10:30 am Break 10:30-11:45 am First Response & Discussion ...

This Sunday begins our new Adult Sunday School series. We will be working our way through the books of Ephesians-Philemon. The study text that we will be using is The Prison Epistles by Fr. Lawrence Farley. This book is just one book in the Orthodox Bible Study Companion series. I spoke with Fr. Lawrence and he said that he has completed books for the entire NT, but that Conciliar Press is releasing them one per season. I think currently Romans, Mark, & 1 & 2 Corinthians have been released. I have worked my way through about a quarter of the book and it is excellent. It is simple to read and follow. Fr. Lawrence using his own working translation rather than a currently available modern text. The benefit here is that it allows him to discuss the Greek wording and bring out nuances that many translations may miss. I only have one complaint, but I do understand the shortcoming. I wish he had used more quotes from the Fathers and connected the significant passage...

My last post suggested two excellent internet devotional resources. Let me give you some tips that can also help more meet from these resources. Google provides you the ability to perform searches specific sites. By doing this you can look for words and phrases throughout everything that has been posted. Here's how to do it. As an example let me show you how to perform a search of the Prologue and then you can figure out how to do the same for the Dynamis devotional In the Google search bar type the following: site:www.westsrbdio.org then type the phrase or word you are looking for. For example, if I wanted to search the Prologue for everything St. Nicholai wrote about the book of Philippians then I would type the following: site:www.westsrbdio.org philippians By doing this you would get 6 entries that would take you to the text. You can obviously do this with any site, but this is especially useful if you are doing any personal Bible study. If you have other questions or comments,...

The habit of a Daily prayer rule is essential for the Orthodox Christian. Part of the rule that is essential to spiritual growth is some form of spiritual reading. This can be tougher than the prayer rule, because you may wonder what you need to read. I know that I have made it a goal to read through the Bible and have done so, but there were times that I would start in Genesis and then get bogged down in Leviticus. There are several read-through-the-Bible plans that can help get you through by mixing up the order of books. Another suggestion is to follow the daily readings given in the Church lectionary. If you have a church calendar it will give the daily readings. If all the readings are overwhelming, just pick one and read it daily. There are several resources on the web that are extremely helpful for daily devotions. Let me profile two excellent ones below. 1. Prologue from Ohrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich . The Prologue is the result of the Serbian bishop now known as St. Nic...