My 12 for 2012

2 comments

I wrote earlier about my New Year’s Resolutions. One of the items was “Complete Reading List”. Here are the books I’ve selected:

My Reading List

I’m sure this little bundle will inspire a blog entry or two…

The Church and the New Media – Brandon Vogt
The Path of Life – Cyprian Smith OSB
I’m Not Being Fed! – Jeff Cavins
Jesus of Nazareth – Pope Benedict XVI
Rediscover Catholicism – Matthew Kelly
Godless Delusion – Patric Madrid & Kenneth Hensley
The Passion of Jesus Christ – John Piper
How To Listen When God Is Speaking – Mitch Pacwa, SJ
Father Brown of the Church of Rome – G.K Chesterton
Jesus Among Other Gods – Ravi Zacharias
The Story of Christianity – Justo Gonzalez
Philosophy For Dummies – Thomas Morris

I will be beginning with the one at the top of the pile The Church and the New Media which I recently won in a competition over at the author’s blog, The Thin Veil. Thanks Brandon! 🙂

The Two Josephs

2 comments

As I mentioned before, I’m currently working my way through St. Matthew’s Gospel. I was reading a commentary the other day where it noted the parallels between the two main Josephs in the Bible:

 Joseph #1

St. Joseph the All Comely

The first Joseph is the Joseph of the Old Testament.

This Joseph was the one who had dreams and was sold into slavery by his own brothers (Genesis 37:28). When he resisted the advances of his master’s wife he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Fortunately, because he could interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams (Genesis 41:1-36) he later ascended to the role of Prime Minister (Genesis 41:39-40).

Later, during a great famine, Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy grain. After testing their hearts (Genesis 44), Joseph responds with mercy and brings his whole family to live with him (Genesis 47:11-12)

Joseph #2

St Joseph Icon

The second Joseph is the Joseph of the New Testament.

This is St. Joseph, the man who was betrothed to Mary (Matthew 1:19). When he found out that Mary was pregnant, he considered divorcing her. However, after an angel appeared to him in a dream, he resolved to take her as his wife and become the foster father of Jesus (Matthew 1:20-25).

After Jesus’ birth, St. Joseph receives another dream warning him of Herod’s plan to kill Jesus so he takes his wife and son to Egypt. Eventually he brings his family back and settles them in Galilee (Matthew 2:20-23).

Most people assume that St. Joseph died prior to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry since he is not mentioned during that time.

Now, the parallels…

 Parallel Lives

Here are the parallels offered by my commentary:

1. Both have fathers named Jacob (Matthew 1:16 and Genesis 30:22-24)
2. Both received dreams from God (Matthew 1:20-21 and Genesis 37:5-11)
3. Both where righteous and chaste (Matthew 1:19 and Genesis 39:7-18)
4. Both saved their families by taking them to Egypt (Matthew 2:13 and Genesis 45:16-20)

Some of these parallels are stronger than others, but noteworthy nonetheless!

Who’s your daddy? St. Justin Martyr

2 comments

Justin MartyrIn the JP2 Group we’re doing a mini-series on Christian worship in the Early Church. It is for this reason that I recently posted several blog entries about St. Justin Martyr, an Early Church Father and one of the first great Christian apologists.

However, I realized as I was finishing up yesterday’s post that I haven’t actually written an introductory post about this great man. I had done this previously when we were studying St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. So today I’m going to remedy this, providing a little bit of information about St. Justin’s life.

Who was this man whose writings we’ve been studying?

Searching For Truth

What we know about St. Justin mainly comes from his own writings. He was born in about AD 103 to Pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis, modern day Nablus on the West Bank. He had a great love of philosophy and studied various philosophical systems:

“…I surrendered myself to a Stoic Philosopher…but when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary)…I left him…

A Peripatetic Philosopher… asked me for money. For this reason I left him, believing him to be no philosopher at all….

I came to a Pythagorean Philosopher, very celebrated – a man who thought much of his own wisdom… He said, ‘What then? Are you acquainted with music, astronomy, and geometry?’ Having commended many of these branches of learning, and telling me that they were necessary, he dismissed me.

In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city…and I progressed, and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy.
– Dialogue With Trypho, Chapter 2

Read more

Jesus = Religion

3 comments

The following question is asked by the artist on the YouTube video “Why I hate religion but love Jesus”:

“What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?”

Hmmm…well, I guess I’d probably tut and then roll my eyes.

Next, I think I’d open my Bible to Matthew’s Gospel:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” – Matthew 5:16-18

I think I then might flip over to the Epistle of St. James:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world – James 1:27


Read more

1 … 529 530 531 532 533 … 586