Eight Influential Ideas about Work
As we pass Labor Day and settle into the fall, I want to label a few of the most influential ideas about work in Western thought and invite you, my reader, to see which thoughts might be informing you and…
Tag Christian Living
Gottschalk of Orbais – Bold Witness and Sweet Poet
Few Medieval Christians would profess to be in disagreement with Augustine of Hippo and his writings about grace. Yet, many praised him and contradicted him at the same time. Copyists were in part to blame. Given the high price…
Claudius of Turin – an Iconoclast Bishop
“I found all the churches filled, in defiance of the precept of Truth, with those sluttish abominations – images. Since everyone was worshiping them, I undertook singlehanded to destroy them.” These were not the words of a Protestant Reformer. Their…
In it Together
Ours is an age of rapidly rising social disintegration. Loneliness and isolation are major issues – not just for the elderly, but for every other age group as well. It would be naïve not to see some connection between these…
Ratramnus of Corbie and His Book on the Lord’s Supper
Little is known about Ratramnus. He was a Benedictine monk at Corbie Abbey, in Picardy, France, who had gained an excellent reputation as scholar and writer. Besides his work on the Lord’s Supper (On the Body and Blood of the…
Maximus the Confessor and The Two Wills of Christ
At the beginning of the seventh century, the decision of the Council of Chalcedon that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, indivisible but distinct, was still not universally accepted. Even if the Council had specified that the expression “two…
The one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
Christians have a remarkable ability to skew what the Bible’s teaches about the church. As with so many things in life, we tend to perceive and define it with ourselves as the key reference point. But when this happens it…
How Can I Forgive that Man?
“I know what the Bible says, but how can I forgive that man, after everything he has done? And he isn’t even sorry.” It is a familiar question or comment, and perhaps the second most common and difficult that…
Pierre Durand – Huguenot Martyr
Pierre Durand was born in a turbulent France. In 1685, only 15 years before his birth, France’s king Louis XIV (“Le Roi Soleil”), revoked the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which had been allowing Protestants freedom of worship. Louis’s persecution…
Philip Melanchthon and His Friendship with Luther
Philip Melanchthon was a brilliant scholar (one of the greatest Greek interpreters of his day), an insightful theologian, and Martin Luther’s right-hand man. Today, his memory is often limited to his mention in some of Luther’s most famous quotations. …