Remembering the Saints: Saint Bartholomew

Nicene Creed (homoousian creed)

Christianity is Triune (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost) and therefore must express the Word, Sacraments and Creation and it must include a homoousian creed. (The spelling must be right!)

The implications build Christianity, the Gospel message. It gives hope and a purpose for our justification (or Christ's death and ressurection is for nothing but a fire and life insurance scam). Salvation is physical as well as spiritual and eminates out of ones core and touches everything and everyone around. If the Spirit dwells in a place there is liberty.  The implications are far reaching not limited. "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. "  St Luke 11:32-36

Verse 1Joy to the world! the Lord is come;Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare him room,And heaven and nature sing,And heaven and nature sing,And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.Verse 2Joy to the Earth! the Saviour reigns;Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.Verse 3No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flowFar as the curse is found,Far as the curse is found,Far as, far as, the curse is found.Verse 4He rules the world with truth and grace,And makes the nations proveThe glories of His righteousness,And wonders of His love,And wonders of His love,And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Apostles' Creed

Book of Common Prayer

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholick Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.
Amen.

Wiki:  Apostles' Creed

Witsunday Sermon

This is a great homily on our comforter, the Holy Ghost:
MP3 AUDIO SERMON: The Sunday after the Ascension, 2008: The Comforter Recorded on May 4, AD 2008 at Christ Church Cathedral

Today's Scripture Readings

Fourth Sunday after Easter: God gives life!

Job 19:21-27a
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

 Ezekiel 37:1-14

    The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off from our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.

The Collect for the Day
The Fourth Sunday After Easter

    O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Changing humanistic laws... but God does not change...

and neither does his Law.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For theft and property damage, full restitution or compensation is the standard of punishment (e.g. Exo. 21:22; Lev. 24:21). An insolvent debtor would not be thrown into prison (a punishment extraneous to biblical law), for that serves no dictate of justice; instead the man would be allowed to work off his debt.
Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 439 (1977 [1984]).

If a person intentionally steals or destroys his neighbor's property, he must restore what is taken plus some multiple of it as punishment for his wicked intent (Exo. 22:1).
- E. Calvin Beisner, Justice and Poverty: Two Views Contrasted, 6, at http://www.ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/Justpoor.pdf.

Maundy Thursday

Interactive Bible

I found this site and thought I'd pass it on.  They claim not to be traditional.  I think that is foolish.  However, their site is good and full of tradition and great tools in the grammar of theology.  Curious to hear what your thoughts are on these Bible studies and more.

Creedalism

This word seems to have been introduced by the use of the Latin credo, "I believe"....That which is believed; any system of principles which are believed or professed; as a political creed.

1828 Webster's Dictionary  

WIKI:  Creed

A creed is more than a church's standard.  It is personal, "I believe".  It has vast implications on one's life in every sphere of life.  It's declaration spans history, ethics, morals, politics, and all laws.  When there is no declarative creed there is no direction in life and there is no justice.

The Blind Side

The Blind Side is a story about Charity:

Understanding the architechture of the church building:

Anglican Church Building Worksheet
Furnishings in a church building Worsheet


The rebuilding of the Dresdener Frauenkirche

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Wiki:  (also known as Theophorus from Greek Θεοφόρος "God-bearer") (ca. 35 or 50-between 98 and 117)^[1] was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop and Patriarch of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these letters include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
Epistles attributed to St. Ignatius report his arrest by the authorities and travel to Rome:

“

From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated. —Ignatius to the Romans, 5.

”

Along the route he wrote six letters to the churches in the region and one to a fellow bishop.
He was sentenced to die in the Colosseum, to be eaten by lions.^[5]
In his Chronicle, Eusebius gives the date of his death as AA 2124 (2124 years after Adam), which would amount to the 11th year of Trajan, i.e. 108 AD.^[6] His body lies entombed under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

 
The seven letters considered to be authentic are:
To the Ephesians
To the Magnesians
To the Philadelphians
To the Romans
To the Smyrnaeans
To the Trallians
To Polycarp

The martyrdom of Ignatius

Faith and liberty: the economic thought of the late scholastics By Alejandro Antonio Chafuen

Online book link is HERE.

Vic Lockman: God's Law For Modern Man

Vic Lockman God's Law For Modern Man

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Natural Law vs. God's Law

"As Christians we cannot believe in natural law, because we believe that nature is fallen. We have to see supernatural law as normative; nature is non-normative. Incidentally, the medieval usage of the term "natural law" really means the "law over nature", because it is defined by the medieval scholars as the word of God - because they identify it with God's law."  RJ Rushdoony



WIKI: Natural law or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere.^[1] The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law (which is man-made) of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a standard by which to criticize that law.^[2] In natural law jurisprudence, on the other hand, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to the natural law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale), although most contemporary political and legal theorists separate the two.
Natural law theories have exercised a profound influence on the development of English common law,^[3] and have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke and Emmerich de Vattel. Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
...
The 613 Mitzvot (Hebrew: תרי"ג מצוות‎: Taryag Mitzvot, "613 commandments") are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments (mitzvot) or collectively as the "Law of Moses" (Torat Moshe, תורת משה), "Mosaic Law", or simply "the Law" (though these terms are ambiguous and also applied to the Torah itself).
Although there have been many attempts to codify and enumerate the commandments contained in the Torah, the traditional view is based on Maimonides' enumeration. The 613 commandments are either "positive commandments" to perform an act (mitzvot aseh) or "negative commandments" to abstain from certain acts (mitzvot lo taaseh). There are 365 negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days in a solar year, and 248 positive commandments, ascribed to the number of bones and significant organs in the human body.^[1] Though the number 613 is mentioned in the Talmud, its real significance increased in later medieval rabbinic literature, including many works listing or arranged by the mitzvot.
Three categories of negative commandments fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor, meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it". These are murder, idolatry, and forbidden sexual relations.^[2]
Many of the mitzvot cannot be observed following the destruction of the Second Temple, though they still retain religious significance. According to one standard reckoning, ^[3] there are 77 negative and 194 positive commandments that can be observed today. There are 26 commands that apply only within the Land of Israel.^[4] Furthermore, there are some time-based commandments from which women are exempt (examples include shofar, sukkah, lulav, tzitzit and tefillin).^[5] Some depend on the special status of a person in Judaism (such as kohanim), while others apply only to men and others only to women.