Category: Theology

Word of the Week: w/c 16/11/15 - Covenant

15/11/2015

Literally, a contract. In the Bible, an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them. In the Old Testament, God made agreements with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

Image: Pixabay

The story of Abraham and his descendants is found in the book of Genesis. We first meet him in Genesis chapter 11, although at this stage his name is Abram. There is very little detail about him apart from the fact that he was a shepherd and came from Ur in Mesopotamia - modern day Iraq - after which he and his family moved, with his father Terah, to Haran.

Abram and his family journeyed from Ur in modern-day Iraq to Israel via Syria

This was a polytheistic age, an age when people believed in and worshipped many gods. Yet within this atmosphere, Abram answers the call of God and it is because of this that he accepts and realises the reality of there being only one true God.

Abraham was the first person to recognise and worship the one God. And so, monotheism was born.

At the beginning of Genesis chapter 12, God asked Abram to leave his home and country and he makes Abram three promises: the promise of a relationship with God, numerous descendants and land (Genesis 12: 1-3).

"I will make you a great nation
And I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
And you will be a blessing
I will bless those who bless you,
And whoever curses you I will curse;
And all the peoples of the earth
Will be blessed through you"

Abraham and his family Image: Wikipedia

The only problem is that both Abram and his wife, Sarai (later called Sarah) are old people and childless. They will have to leave their homeland and they don't even know who this God is! They seem to be an almost impossible set of promises for God to keep. But the amazing fact about Abram is that he does what he is asked. Abram has to place his trust in this nameless God. Consequently, Abram has gone down in history as a man of tremendous faith. As a result of his obedience, God changes his name to Abraham, meaning father of the people, and they solemnly promise each other that God will give them a land, many descendents and special care. Abraham for his part promises that he will be obedient to God, worship him and circumcise his offspring as a sign of the covenant (a practice carried out by Jews to this day)

The important thing to learn here is the uniqueness of the Covenant relationship between God and Abraham. For the first time, we see the beginning of a 2-way relationship: God is doing something for Abraham, and Abraham is doing something for God. The blessings of God are passed on from one generation to another.

Word of the Week: W/C 21/09/15 - Messiah

19/9/2015

The Hebrew word meaning “anointed one” and used to refer to the king or leader who would be God’s servant. Jesus was called the Messiah by his followers.

Life for the Jews in first century Palestine was pretty tough, in fact it had never been easy! They had been conquered by the Romans in 63 BC by Pompey; but this was only the last in a line of foreign rulers including the Greeks, the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians. The problem for Israel is that it lies at a very important crossroads between the Mediterranean, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Far East. Spices, silks and food-stuff were constantly being traded across its borders and this made it a profitable and well as strategically important land to hold. It is no wonder that by 30AD the people of Israel had begun to rather fed up of all this foreign rule and yearned for the golden age of David and Solomon, the great kings of Israel to return.

Israel's important strategic position. Image: Wikipedia Creative Commons

Into this cauldron came a man, called Jesus of Nazareth, who was soon being hailed by some to be The Messiah, the redeemer of Israel. I do not want to get into a debate here about who Jesus really was. The options are various and have been hotly contested over the centuries: from God incarnate, to liberal Rabbi and from political dissident to strict Jewish reformer. The “quest for the historical Jesus” has long generated a great deal of heat and not much light. One thing that cannot be disputed is that the different Jewish groups who lived in Palestine at the time of Jesus certainly had different ideas about whether a Messiah was going to come and if he did, what sort of a leader he was going to be.

The Sadducee: The Sadducee were the upper class who held power in the temple and held the majority of seats on the council of elders at Jerusalem (the Sanhedrin). They often tried to work with the Romans to ensure peace. Religiously, they believed that the Torah (the first five books of the bible) was the only part of Judaism with any authority - they therefore did not believe in the Messiah asthe he was not predicted in the Torah.

Image: Wikipedia Creative Commons

The Pharisees: This group were middle class Jews who were mainly businessmen and they dominated the Synagogues, the small meeting places of ordinary Jews throughout the country. They did take the rest of the Jewish Bible (the Tanakh) seriously and so were expecting a Messiah, but they took the Law so seriously that they were obsessed by it and following it closely. Laws about cleanliness, food and professions were taken extremely seriously and so they come across as uncompassionate in the New Testament. The Messiah for them would be a prophet like Moses, a Priest and a King like David. He certainly would not be “the son of God” and they did not believe that God could become man.

The Essenes: The Essenes were a small sect of Judaism that were very like the Pharisees with a few key differences: They were extremely secretive and they were expecting an imminent catastrophe that would end the world and they believed the Messiah would usher in this end time. They seem to have not accepted Jesus as Messiah, although there are some scholars who think that John the Baptist might have been an Essene.

The Zealots: These were a group of political dissidents who wanted to rebel against Roman rule - they would have looked for a Messiah who was a political leader. It is interesting to note that amongst Jesus’ disciples was a man called “Simon the Zealot”. In fact they did eventually cause a revolt in 66 AD after Jesus’ death which eventually led to the Jewish expulsion from Palestine in 70AD and the destruction of the Temple.

Image: Flickr/Freestone Wilson

In the end Jesus seems to have been rather different to what these final three groups wanted: He was not a military man as he showed when he arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday riding on the colt of a Donkey so the Zealots rejected him. He was not pure enough for the Pharisees as he mixed with Romans, tax-collectors and sinners. And finally he did not bring about the end of the world as the Essenes wanted. Perhaps it was this, added to the fact that the Sadducees did not believe in a Messiah at all that lead to him being arrested and handed over for crucifixion. Of course for Christians today this is not an issue, as we saw last week it was all part of God’s plan for salvation that Jesus would be despised and rejected to unite God and Humans.

Word of the Week: W/C 30/03/15 - Atonement

29/3/2015

An action that makes Amends for a wrong.

christian Theology: the reconciliation of God and man through Jesus christ.

This week Christians across the world will join together to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ with the events of Holy week and Easter Sunday. A large focus of the language and theological themes in these services will be around the idea of Atonement. So what does this important idea mean?

The word itself literally means “at-one-ment” and is about being at harmony or equal with someone. Christianity and Judaism are based on the idea that the relationship between God and Man is broken - this is seen in the Genesis 2-3 narrative when Adam and Eve sin against God by eating from the tree and so Fall from God’s presence. The Old Testament is the story of God’s chosen people continuously failing to live up to God’s commandments and needing to be rescued only to fall away again. These stories are seen by many Christians as symbolic of our own relationship with God - we often fail live up to our own expectations or the expectations of others.

So what was to be done? Christians teach that the only way that this relationship could be properly fixed was by God himself - he was the only one with the power to truly reconcile God and Man. There are a number of theories about how this happened; Alister McGrath summed these up in his book Christian Theology: An Introduction in this way:

The cross as sacrifice
The cross as a victory
The cross and forgiveness
The cross as a moral example

The Cross as Sacrifice:

The image of God as sacrifice has, over history, been a very popular idea. The New Testament uses the Old Testament image of the suffering servant (Isaiah 53:5) and applies it to Christ. This image is picked up by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews; “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” - Hebrews 10.10. - the Sacrifice of Christ was the perfect sacrifice.

In the Old Testament, the tradition was that regular sacrifice was needed to mend and maintain the relationship between God and Man - this was the focus of Temple worship and the Jewish day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Jesus is seen as the ultimate sacrifice who fixes the relationship perfectly. John the Baptist says of Jesus: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1.29)

As Augustine says in City of God:

By his death, which is indeed the one and most true sacrifice offered for us, he purged, abolished and extinguished whatever guilt there was by which the principalities and powers lawfully detained us to pay the penalty...He offered sacrifice for our sins. And where did he find that offering, the pure victim that he would offer? He offered himself, in that he could find no other.

Cross as Victory:

The New Testament frequently describes Jesus’ death as a victory over sin and Evil as represented by the Devil. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus describes himself as the “ransom for many” - somehow paying off evil, so restoring the relationship between God and Man.

Cross and forgiveness:

Some thinkers, such as Anselm, argued that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penatly for our sin in order to right the relationship between God and Man. Jesus’ death is a “Satisfaction for sin” - a “satisfaction” was an idea used in the early church to describe the public actions - such as pilgrimage, giving to charity etc. - that people can undertake to show that they are grateful to God. Only Jesus could make total satisfaction as only he is without sin.

The Cross as moral example:

This final type, and probably the most popular idea in Christian thinking today, is the notion that Jesus’ death expresses God’s love for his people - Jesus by accepting a difficult and undeserved death shows the world the best way to act and so reunites us with God. This idea was around in the early Church but was brought to the fore by Peter Abelard in the twelfth century:

“The Son of God took our nature, and in it took upon himself to teach us by both word and example even to the point of death, thus binding us to himself through love.”

Jesus influenced us through his actions and teaching when he was alive - but most strongly through his martyrdom and resurrection. A death for others “which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater can be found.” (Abelard)

So this week, as you listen to the language of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter day, I hope you will think about these ideas of Atonement and question which one is the best model.

Which model for atonement do you think is the most coherent? Can you believe more than one or all of them at once? Or do you think that they all fail in some way?

Word Of The Week: W/C 09/03/15 - Apophatic

8/3/2015

Apophatic theology - Aka the Via Negativa - is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation; to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said

How can you describe something you have never seen? How can you talk about someone you have never met?

This is the fundamental idea behind the Via Negativa, otherwise know at the Apophatic Way. This is the concpet that because God is so beyond our experience and understanding we cannot hope to talk about him in any meaningful way - and so we should not try. We can only say what God is not: God is not a body, God is not finite, God is immortal etc.

The idea has very deep roots in Philosophy going back to Plato, Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas (who, in his Summa Theologica, quotes Pseudo-Dionysius 1,760 times!)

One way of trying to get your head around how different God is to us is laid out by the contemporary philosopher Peter Vardy. He uses the thought experiment of a philosophical fish - this fish is considering what created the fish pond in which he lives. The fish cannot logically conclude that the pond was made by a “super-fish” who is like him in any way - the creator of the pond must be utterly different to the pond. How else would he be able to dig it and fill it with the contents needed? So it is, Vardy argues with the cosmos - all we can say for certain is that God is NOT like us - or indeed like anything within the cosmos.

The Apohatic way is to accept this total difference between us and God, embrace it and wonder at the nature of God as a result. As Aquinas put it in his work Mystical Theology:

The higher we soar in contemplation, the more limited become our expressions of that which is purely intelligible; even as now, when plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence, of thought as well as of words … and, according to the degree of transcendence, so our speech is restrained until, the entire ascent is accomplished, we become wholly voiceless, inasmuch as we are absorbed in Him who is totally ineffable.

I think this is a really wonderful quote, not least because this is a quote that looks back in philosophical history as well as forward. It is no coincidence that Aquinas uses the term ascent; this is a reference to the Allegory of the cave by Plato (Republic 514a–520a). It also uses the term ineffable which was to be used later by William James when discussing the qualities of religious experiences in his famous work The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature published in 1902. So it is that Aquinas is at the crux of a very important notion in Philosophy - that God is beyond our knowledge and not knowable. This is the Apophatic Way.

Aquinas felt this sense of ineffability keenly - so keenly in fact that a few months before his death in 1274 he stopped writing, refused to continue and declared that all his previous attempts at writing about God were “but straw”. This does not necessarily mean "rubbish" but rather, according the philosopher Mark Vernon, rough and basic rather than refined and accurate. So it was that he had entered into the Via Negativa.

Of course we are still left with a huge amount of his Cataphatic Theology to consider. But to find out what this means you are going to have to wait for a future word of the week!

Do you know what the word Cataphatic means? Do you think the Via Negativa is a good way of considering the divine? Or are there serious weakness that mean that this is a fruitless exercise?

Dig Deeper: MOOCs, edX and The Ethics of Eating

26/2/2015

Want to be able to explore new subject areas? Perhaps you want to find out what a course might be at University? Want to study in your own time, at your own pace and wherever you want? If the answers to these questions are “yes” then MOOCs might be for you!

A MOOC stands for Massive, Open, Online Course. They are massive in that a huge number of people can sign up to them; open in that anyone can join in and they are free (to an extent); and online so available pretty much any time anywhere. This video from @davecormier explains it very well!

There are a huge number of providers of MOOCs online (find them here https://www.mooc-list.com/) but three sites dominate the market; Coursera, Udacity and edX. I have no idea what Udacity is like because it is all programming and tech subjects. Coursera is a very good platform and there are a good number of courses that readers of this blog might be interested such as “Introduction to Philosophy”, “Logic, Language and information” and “Moral Foundations and Politics” - the problem is that some of these courses (e.g. that last two I mentioned) cost money to complete - £30 or so - however some can be done for free.

The platform that I have used the most is edX and I love it! All the courses are free to audit - but if you wanted a certificate to show an employer or university you can pay for this. In total they offer 434 courses on a huge range of subjects. When it comes to Philosophy and Ethics there are some great ones to take up. The great thing is you follow them assiduously (watch every video and read every text) or you can dip in and out, selecting what you want to access.

Here are a few courses you might be interested in:

Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness - a great introduction to lots of the topics we study at A-level (Ontological, Cosmological etc) but at degree level. Lots of primary texts and videos to explain it.

Justice (with Michael J. Sandel) - This course explores a huge range of ethical approaches to justice including utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Kantianism and Virtue Theory.

Jesus in Scripture and Tradition - This course has not started yet but promises to explore the figure of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, Gospels and Early-Church writers. This should be great course for anyone thinking about a degree in Theology.

The Divine Comedy: Dante's Journey to Freedom, Part 1 - A very good course for those interested in English Literature and Philosophy; exploring concepts such as human freedom, responsibility and identity through the writings of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

The Science of Everyday Thinking - A course which challenges us to “Think better, argue better and choose better”. It is a great course with really innovative ideas and some brilliant interviews with scholars from all over the world.

The Ethics of Eating - Finally this really exciting new course which starts soon hopes to explore the ethics of eating and purchasing food. The course promises it will consult with a diverse group of philosophers, food scientists, activists, industry specialists and farmers. This course deals with an area of ethics that is not really very well covered at A-level and so this could be great to show that you are interested in Ethics and its application to the real world. I will definitely be doing this course!

So I hope this has whet your appetite for MOOCs and that you will now go on to explore them and benefit from their learning opportunities.

Dig Deeper: Philosvids - University of Gloustershire

10/2/2015

Click here to go to the Philosvids Website

Last week on Friday I took a group of students to a Candle Conference (http://candleconferences.com/ @puzzlevardy) run by Peter and Charlotte Vardy. The event also included a guest speaker - Dr David Webster (@davidwebster) who gave an excellent talk about Buddhist Ethics. Since then I have found that he contributes to this very good website which is run by the Religion, Philosophy and Ethics Department of the University of Gloucestershire (@RPEatGlos). The other contributors include Dr Roy Jackson, Dr William Large and Professor Melissa Raphael.

Between them they deliver various vodcasts about topics that A-level students will find relevant to their Philosophy and Ethics courses, and those considering Theology or Religious Studies at university can enjoy.

I have chosen to feature three videos here but if you go to their website you will find lots more, helpfully indexed on the right-hand side of the page. Just click on the button above to go to the website or find it here.

Word of the Week - 09/02/15 - Prophet

8/2/2015

An individual who is claimed to have been contacted by God to speak for the divine, serving as an intermediary with Humans. The message that a prophet conveys is a prophecy

Many people today tend to think of Prophets as being those who see into the future and predict what will occur. Certainly this has often been a feature of prophets - but a prophet is far more that just this.

A prophet is basically a spokesman for God chosen to preach his message to the people. They were examples of holiness, role models, scholars and often set the standard of behaviour that those they spoke to were failing to meet. In the Old Testament there are 55 prophets and these are not all men; Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Abigail are all female prophets.

Queen Esther Read more of her inspiring story at: http://ope.nr/2A5

Interestingly not all prophets in the Old Testament are Jewish - most notably the prophet Balaam in Numbers 22 - and some of the prophets are not sent to the Jews such as Jonah whose message is delivered to the Gentiles of Nineva.

Often prophets have a very rough time of it and are often not accepted by the people they are sent to (as Jesus says in Matthew 13.57 - "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."). Elijah was described by King Ahab as “the troubler of Israel” is never really listened to throughout his career. Jonah was swallowed and then spat out of a fish and forced to go to Nineveh where he did not want to go. Ezekiel was made to lie on his Left side for 390 days and then his right for 40 days - this was to make up for the rebellion of Jewish people! Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman, divorce her and when she had sold herself into slavery re-marry her - their children are given symbolic names such as “unloved” and “not my people”. These names are representative of the people of Israel and their broken relationship with God.

Hosea - not so lucky in love

Elijah - the "Troubler of Israel"

The key to understanding what is going on here is that Prophets often live out God’s message in their real lives - they don’t just speak the word, they act the word, they suffer for the word.

For Christians the culmination of all the Old Testament prophecies was the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - the Messiah predicted as the “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9.6). That he would be born of a virgin (Jeremiah 31.22) and that he would be both God and Man (Jeremiah 23.5-6). And finally that he would die for the sins of the world and by doing so put an end to sin and reconcile us with God (Daniel 9). This is what Philip says in the Gospel of John, who told Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).

Jesus as he is "Transfigured" - To either side of him are Moses and Elijah representing the prophets who predict him in the Old Testament. The Disciples are terrified and fall face down (Matthew 17)

Obviously this claim needs the faith of Christianity to be seen as true and many would deny these prophecies - Jews in that that they have yet to come about and Atheists that they are just wishful thinking. Either way the prophets represent a rich vein of Philosophical and Theological material that have inspired the generations and impacted upon our literature, music and culture.

How has our modern culture been influenced by the Prophets of the Old Testament?
Who would you say are modern day prophets?

Word of the Week: 19/01/15 - Eucharist

17/1/2015

The celebration of the “Lord’s Supper” at which Christians remember Jesus' death and resurrection. It features a re-telling of the events of Maundy Thursday and the sharing of the bread and wine. From the Greek, εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), meaning "thanksgiving".

A few months ago the WotW was Sacrament and this week we turn our attention to the most commonly practised of the sacraments; The Eucharist. Otherwise known as The Mass, Holy Communion and The Lord’s Supper Christians believe it was instituted by Jesus on the night before he was crucified. In all four gospel accounts (and Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians) he shares the Passover meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest and during the meal he commands them to remember what He was about to do on behalf of all mankind: shed His blood on the cross thereby paying the debt of humanity's sins (Luke 22:19). This is why so many denominations remember this event and re-enact the last supper.

That said, the importance of the Eucharist varies a great deal; from Roman Catholics who celebrate it daily in their churches to Free Churches who might only share the Lord’s Supper on rare occasions.

For Catholics the last supper was the summit of Jesus’ ministry on earth and is so important now because a mystery occurs every time that it is performed; transubstantiation. This is the turning of the bread into the literal body and blood of Christ. This is not to say that it changes form and that you would be able tell the difference with your senses but the reality of it has changed.

For most denominations the act is symbolic and the sharing of the bread and wine is an opportunity to gather as a community and worship together. Jesus’ command “do this in remembrance of me” is seen as a command to meet together and share a meal – this is certainly how the early Christians interpreted the commandment. In the book of acts it records how the Apostles met "Day by day, attending the Temple together and breaking bread in their homes” (2.46) and how St Paul shared the Eucharist with other early Christians (Acts 20:7). As such it is an act which links modern-day Christians with their fore-fathers in a long line of succession back to Jesus’ death.

So no matter what Christians believe happens at the Eucharist and how they “dress it up” (or indeed dress it down) it is a central point of reference for all Christians and, along with Baptism, is something that you can almost guarantee that a practising Christian has participated in.

If you are a practising Christian comment below to give your insight on the importance of the Eucharist.

Word of the Week: w/c: 5/1/15 - Epiphany

1/1/2015

Epiphany, held on the 6th January, is a Christian festival which celebrates the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God and the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus

This week is the festival of Epiphany; celebrated in the West on January 6th. It commemorates the arrival of the Magi who came to worship the infant Jesus. I don’t really want to get into a discussion about the likelihood of this event or who the Magi were but I do think It is interesting to think a little more deeply about the gifts that Magi offered and what this tells us about the person of Jesus. At the very least this can tell us what the only gospel writer who records their visit, Matthew (chapter 2), wanted to convey about the Messiah.

Gold is an expression of kingship on Earth, Gold was a highly valued metal and worn by rulers in crowns or other jewellery. Christians believe that Christ is the true king who now reigns in heaven. Jesus was also descended from the line of David, the greatest King of Israel who the Jews of Jesus' day yearned to see return and free them from oppression at the hands of the Romans (although Jesus is ultimately not this kind of Messiah)

Frankincense is an aromatic resin that is burned to give a sweet smell at times of prayer and worship. It was burned in the Temple to cover the smell of blood from sacrifices there is also a sense that the smoke rising carries prayer to God. This therefore is symbolic of Jesus’ role as deity - God made incarnate.

Finally the myrrh is an embalming ointment that was used for anointing the dead. This therefore is representative of Jesus’ future suffering and death. Jesus' resurrection was indeed discovered by women coming to anoint his body - however there is no mention that this myrrh is what they intended to use.

One of my favourite Christmas carols that considers the symbolism of these three gifts is Bethlehem Down composed by Peter Warlock and written by Bruce Blunt. It picks up wonderfully on the duality of Jesus’ life - “gold for a crown” becomes “wood for a crown” and myrrh is given both for its “sweetness” and “embalming”. The juxtaposition of the first two major verses against the minor tonality of the last two works wonderfully. The last verse never fails to bring a lump to my throat. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

When He is King we will give Him a King's gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
Beautiful robes", said the young girl to Joseph,
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Bethlehem Down is full of the starlight,
Winds for the spices, and stars for the gold,
Mary for sleep, and for lullaby music,
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

When He is King they will clothe Him in grave-sheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary,
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close-huddled oxen to keep him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music,
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem Down.

Word of the Week: w/c 15/12/14 - Gaudete

14/12/2014

The third Sunday in Advent: so named from the first word of the introit of the mass of that day, Gaudete, “Rejoice ye.”

As we are more than half way through Advent it is time to have a bit of celebration and to rejoice! Gaudete Sunday is traditionally the third Sunday in Advent, so named because the first line of the Latin introit today is "Gaudete in Domino semper" ("Rejoice in the Lord always") from Phillipians 4:4,5.

This is a moment in the penitential season of advent to take a break and relax for a moment before preparing for Christmas. In the Catholic Church priests change their liturgical dress from purple to rose vestments.

Pope Francis today visited the Roman parish of San Giuseppe all’Aurelio, in the suburb of Monte Spaccato - wearing rose vestments.

It seems fitting that this also is my final word for the week for 2014. Many schools up and down the land will be breaking up this week and so now really is a time for rejoicing! And for many also a time for revising...

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Word of the Week: w/c 16/11/15 - Covenant

Literally, a contract. In the Bible, an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them. In the Old Testament, God made agreements with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

Word of the Week: W/C 21/09/15 - Messiah

The Hebrew word meaning “anointed one” and used to refer to the king or leader who would be God’s servant. Jesus was called the Messiah by his followers.

Word of the Week: W/C 30/03/15 - Atonement

An action that makes Amends for a wrong.

christian Theology: the reconciliation of God and man through Jesus christ.

Word Of The Week: W/C 09/03/15 - Apophatic

Apophatic theology - Aka the Via Negativa - is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation; to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said

Dig Deeper: MOOCs, edX and The Ethics of Eating

Dig Deeper: Philosvids - University of Gloustershire

Word of the Week - 09/02/15 - Prophet

An individual who is claimed to have been contacted by God to speak for the divine, serving as an intermediary with Humans. The message that a prophet conveys is a prophecy

Word of the Week: 19/01/15 - Eucharist

Word of the Week: w/c: 5/1/15 - Epiphany

Word of the Week: w/c 15/12/14 - Gaudete

The third Sunday in Advent: so named from the first word of the introit of the mass of that day, Gaudete, “Rejoice ye.”

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Literally, a contract. In the Bible, an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them. In the Old Testament, God made agreements with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

The Hebrew word meaning “anointed one” and used to refer to the king or leader who would be God’s servant. Jesus was called the Messiah by his followers.

An action that makes Amends for a wrong. christian Theology: the reconciliation of God and man through Jesus christ.

Apophatic theology - Aka the Via Negativa - is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation; to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said

An individual who is claimed to have been contacted by God to speak for the divine, serving as an intermediary with Humans. The message that a prophet conveys is a prophecy

The third Sunday in Advent: so named from the first word of the introit of the mass of that day, Gaudete, “Rejoice ye.”

Archives

Categories

An action that makes Amends for a wrong.

christian Theology: the reconciliation of God and man through Jesus christ.