Christian education

The fifth through tenth of God’s Ten Commandments focus on preserving and protecting persons. Here, the eighth hones in on safeguarding and maintaining a person’s possessions. In the reiteration of the Decalogue for the second generation of the covenant about to enter the Promised Land, Deuteronomy...

On one hand, the 6 th commandment, “you shall not murder”, is probably the most universally accepted of all the ten commandments. By God’s restraining grace, humanity seems to have an innate knowledge that murder is wrong. On the other hand, according to the law of Jesus in Matthew 5, each of us...

Gregory I’s Female Correspondents Some of our best sources of information about specific women in the early centuries of Christianity come from the correspondence of church fathers, particularly Jerome at the turn of the fifth century and Gregory I about two centuries later. Jerome’s letters were...

Honor your father and your mother. That’s the command, the fifth, in God’s Ten Commandments. It’s simple in what it commands and yet profound in its good and necessary implications. It is the only commandment that comes with a promise, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long...

Last night I finished my pilgrimage through Augustine’s City of God . Considering it took Augustine almost a decade to finish book nineteen after starting I would say that I made better time on the reading than he did the writing. I wish that I could say all twenty-two books and eight hundred and...

There’s a bright thread of connection between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the way the sermon on the mount begins. The tree stood as a perpetual sign for Adam and Eve to rely upon and walk submitted under God’s word. God declared all that was good or not good and they, as His...

Augustine of Hippo Against the Slave-Trade When we think of Christians who opposed the slave trade, William Wilberforce or John Newton may come to mind. But they were certainly not the first. Back in the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo reacted strongly to this widespread problem. Slavery is such...

Manche Masemola – An African Teenage Martyr The statue of Manche Masemola is one of the ten in the Modern Martyrs of the 20 th Century collection adorning Westminster Abbey’s Great West Door. The collection, designed by the renowned sculptor Tim Crawley, was unveiled in 1998. Masemola, together...

Antonius Hambroeck’s Sacrifice The moving story of Antonius Hambroeck is well-known in the Netherlands, where he is considered a national hero, and in Taiwan, where he was executed. It was popularized in the 1775 play Anthonius Hambroek, or the Siege of Formosa, by the Dutch author Joannes Nomsz...

Aidan of Lindisfarne – A Seventh-Century Door-to-Door Missionary Thanks to the literary mastery of the Venerable Bede, the history of the Christianization of England is filled with memorable stories of valiant kings, praying queens, and wonder-working saints. But it’s also studded with lesser-known...