Month: October 2015

Symbolism: Simon’s Grapes

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So a couple of weeks ago at Matins, I looked up into the dome of our church and saw the icon of Simon the Zealot. In the icon, you can see that he’s holding some grapes. Why is this symbol associated with this Apostle?
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Fortunately, I recently spent some time with an iconographer and I asked him about their significance. He pointed out that Simon “the Zealot” is also known as Simon “the Canaanite” and that there is a tradition in the East that this Simon was the groom at the wedding in Cana towards the beginning of John’s Gospel. The grapes are a reference to the miracle the Lord performed there, turning water into wine.

With more probability, Baronius, following Nicephorus (Hist. l. 8. c. 30), thinks that the bridegroom at this marriage was the Apostle Simon, who was surnamed the Cananite from Cana.

– Cornelius La pide

The commentator Cornelius then goes on to make a very interesting comment which I think has some interesting implications:

As soon as Simon had seen this miracle of Christ at his wedding, he bade farewell to his bride and the world, and followed Him, and was chosen to be one of His twelve Apostles. This was the reason why Christ came to this wedding; and by coming, indeed, honoured marriage; but by calling him to Himself, He showed that celibacy and the apostolate were better than marriage.

– Cornelius La pide

Friday Frivolity: Why I quit attending sports events

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12 Reasons Why a Pastor Quit Attending Sports Events

1. The coach never came to visit me.

2. Every time I went, they asked me for money.

3. The people sitting in my row didn’t seem very friendly.

4. The seats were very hard.

5. The referees made a decision I didn’t agree with.

6. I was sitting with hypocrites—they only came to see what others were wearing!

7. Some games went into overtime and I was late getting home.

8. The band played some songs I had never heard before.

9. The games are scheduled on my only day to sleep in and run errands.

10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.

11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches, anyway.

12. I don’t want to take my children because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

Sports

Quitting the Mormon Church

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I recently saw a post shared on Facebook concerning the subject of Mormonism. Several years ago, a local newspaper in Utah had been publishing a series of apologetic articles encouraging people to leave the Mormonism, the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). This drew a response from an LDS member named Thomas Clark, who penned a letter entitled “Quitting the Mormon Church”. In his response, Mr. Clark explained the conditions under which he’d leave the Mormon Church and go elsewhere.

Temple

Since the Mr. Clark’s letter is rather long, I’ve provided an abridged version of it below, with the entire text at the bottom of this post for those who are interested. After the abridged version I will share a few thoughts concerning Mr Clark’s response and why, in my opinion, Mr Clark should in fact quit the LDS and join the Catholic Church…

Quitting the Mormon Church (Abridged)

I have been thinking of quitting the Mormon Church. Yes, if I can, I am going to get even with that church. As soon as I can find another church that teaches about the Gathering of the House of Israel; the return of the Ten Tribes and their mission; the return of the Jews to Palestine and why, and how they are going to build the temple; the building of temples and what to do with them; …the origin of the American Indian; …

Yes sir, as soon as I can find another church that teaches all that, or even half as much, I will say good-bye to this Mormon Church… It must be able to call, on a frosty day, some 5 or 6 thousand professors, students, lawyers, doctors, judges, policemen, businessmen, housewives and children to go and pick apples at 6 am…

Mr. Editor, could you help me find a church that teaches all that and more than hundreds of other doctrines and principles, which I have no room to mention here…

So, I repeat, if any one of the kind readers of this imperfect letter knows about another church that teaches and does as much for mankind as the Mormon Church, please let me know. And please do it soon, because my turn to go to the cannery is coming up… Do you think you can help me to find another church?

Thomas D. Clark

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Remembering the Jewish Feasts

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WeirdSometimes I forget I’m a bit weird…

Do you have habits which have been part of you for years? Do you have personal traditions which you’ve been following for so long that you forget that they’re not universally shared by the rest of the world?

Well, last month I was chatting with a friend online and he highlighted for me one of my personal eccentricities. Our discussion prompted me to write this post so as to share my weirdness with the world, and in the faint hope of discovering others out there who have similar quirks…

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Music Monday: Touch the sky

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The song today is “Touch the sky” by Hillsong United:

What fortune lies beyond the stars
Those dazzling heights too vast to climb
I got so high to fall so far
But I found heaven as love swept low

My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground

What treasure waits within Your scars
This gift of freedom gold can’t buy
I bought the world and sold my heart
You traded heaven to have me again

Find me here at Your feet again
Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender
Come sweep me up in Your love again
And my soul will dance
On the wings of forever

Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky
When my knees hit the ground

Speaking of suffering

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Yesterday I shared a quotation on the subject of suffering from a book I recently finished, Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias.

In that post, we saw that even to talk about good and evil we need an objective moral law, something which is rather difficult to explain while denying the existence of an eternal, transcendent God.

Today I’d like to offer a few more quotations from Zacharias’ book. For those of us who are involved in apologetics (which is, of course, every Christian!), he reminds us of a truth which we must keep forever at the front of our mind when speaking about the very difficult subject of pain and suffering.

How does a good God allow so much suffering? Immediately we enter into a very serious dilemma. How do you respond to the intellectual side of the question without losing the existential side of it? How do you answer…[those who are suffering] without drowning it all in philosophy?

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

Suffering is not simply a theoretical idea or only a subject for clever philosophical arguments, it is a very real reality with which people must live and it is a topic which is deeply emotionally charged.

Those who feel the pain… often shudder at how theoretical philosophical answers are. We do not like to work through the intellectual side of the question because we do not see where logic and philosophy fit into the problem of pain. If you have just buried a son or a daughter, or have witnessed brutality firsthand, this portion of the argument may bring more anger than comfort. Who wants logic when the heart is broken? Who wants a physiological treatise on the calcium component of the bone when the shoulder has come out of its socket? At such a time we are looking for comfort. We want a painkiller.

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

The solution to this problem is to balance delicately the intellectual and the emotional, speaking to both and neglecting neither:

We must not allow the anguish of the heart to bypass the reason of the mind. The explanation [of pain] must meet both the intellectual and the emotion demands of the question. Answering the questions of the mind while ignoring shredded emotions seems heartless. Binding the emotional wounds while ignoring the struggle of the intellect seems mindless. 

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

When my Dad died earlier this year, I didn’t want a dry philosophy lesson. I wanted people to grieve with me, but who were ready to talk when the time came to grapple intellectually and spiritually with what had happened.

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