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Justin Martyr’s Worship

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Justin MartyrFor the next three weeks in the JP2 Group we’re going to be looking at the worship in the Early Church.

The following text is an extract from the writing of Justin Martyr (c AD 100 – 165). The document is known as his First Apology, which was written to the Emperor Antionius Pius around AD 150-155. Various English translations were used in the rendering of this extract.

We will be studying this text as a group tomorrow.  At the weekend I’ll do another post about this text, together with a little bit of commentary…

Chapter 65: Baptism & Eucharist

After we have washed someone who has been convinced and has accepted our teaching, we bring him to the place where those who are called “brethren” are assembled. Together, then, we offer hearty prayers: for ourselves, for the illuminated person, and for all others in every place. We pray that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation.

Having ended the prayers, we greet one another with a kiss. Then bread and a cup of wine mixed with water are brought to the president of the brethren. Taking them, he gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and he offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things.

And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying “Amen”, the Hebrew for “so be it”. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called “deacons” give to each person present a portion of the bread and the wine mixed with water, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced. To those who are absent, they carry away a portion.

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Selah?

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A very quick post today. As I mentioned before, I’m trying to read through the Bible in a year. At the moment in the plan, each day I a section from Genesis, a psalm and a section from Matthew’s Gospel. As I’ve been reading the Psalms, I noticed a curious word occasionally interspersed within the text, “Selah”:

O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of me,
    there is no help for him in God. Selah

But thou, O Lord, art a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cry aloud to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy hill. Selah

I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.
I am not afraid of ten thousands of people
    who have set themselves against me round about. – Psalm 3:1-6

I wasn’t sure what this meant so I did a bit of googling…

It turns out that the exact meaning of “Selah” is somewhat disputed, but Wikipedia suggests that “It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like “stop and listen”. Selah can also be used to indicate that there is to be a musical interlude at that point in the Psalm”

The_More_You_Know_2011

Good Wednesday?

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This past week I was responding to someone in the comments section of my blog and I came across an issue I hadn’t encountered before…

It turns out that some groups will argue that Jesus didn’t die on Good Friday, but on the Wednesday before. I’ve noticed this chiefly among Fundamentalists and Messianic Jews. The case is made from Jesus’ own words in Matthew’s Gospel:

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Matthew 12:40

It is argued that in order for Jesus’ words to be true, we must work backwards three full days and three full nights from Resurrection Sunday. If we do this, we would conclude that Christ’s Crucifixion took place, not on Friday, but Wednesday:

Some of these folks will say that Christians of past generations simply made a mistake in placing the Crucifixion on Good Friday, but others go further, arguing that this was an attempt to Paganize Christianity (although, as is typical with such assertions, I’m rather at a loss as to what this achieves).

So, how might we respond to this claim?

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OCD: Curse and Blessing

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Earlier this week I produced a summary of a paper written by Dr. Daniel G. Amen about combating Automatic Negative Thoughts. I decided that today I’d add something of an addendum to that post and talk a little bit about my experiences with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

  

OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the sufferers have repeated, unwanted thoughts which compel them to perform certain actions which provide relief from the unwanted thoughts. This relief, however, is only temporary and the feelings, unbidden, soon return.  The OCD mind then demands that the actions be performed once again.  The actions quickly become ritualistic, increasingly elaborate and need to be repeated over and over again with increasing frequency in order to relieve the sufferer’s mind.

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December Blog Love

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While I was on my blogging sabbatical in December, I had a couple of blogs reference my website. The first was Veil Nation:

Screen Shot 2014-12-27 at 12.33.56 AM

When I produced the graphics for “Wear The Veil” campaign, I just searched Google Images for a base graphic with which to begin my work. Well, it turns out the graphic I used was of a veil called the Colette Veil, produced by Ann Anzul. Ann found my graphic and gave me a shout-out. Thanks Ann! 🙂

The second reference to my my blog in December came from Jim who writes at Not For Itching Ears:

Screen Shot 2015-01-08 at 3.04.12 PMJim’s post wrote about how to become a better blogger. In the section where he spoke about reading and commenting on other blogs, he had these kind words to say about this site:

One of my favorite blogs is called Restless Pilgrim.   It challenges my world view!  He’s Catholic,  I’m a Protestant who has wandered far, far, far from home!  We have great conversations about theology and early church history, which is the kind of stuff I like and write about.  He does too. David comments on my blog and I on his.  I am not sure who interacted with who first, but whoever did, made blogging a lot more interesting.  I have lots of stories like that and you will too if you “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Always a pleasure Jim 🙂

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 21 (“Rock City”)

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thamud

So, I’ve made a decision… Once I reach the halfway point in the Qur’an (which should happen in a few days), I’m going to take a break from this series for a couple of weeks.

I’ve finally managed to make contact with a local Imam, so I’m hoping to meet him soon and start working through the large backlog of questions I’ve recorded about the chapters read thus far.

I’m sure that more than a few of you are getting a bit tired of the relentless posts about Isalm.  To be honest, I’m also finding that my daily reading and writing is becoming a bit of a grind. It’s time-consuming and there are some other long-overdue posts I’d much prefer to complete!

However, as I am not quite at the halfway point, today I read the chapter of the Qur’an which is rather excitingly titled “Rock City”…

Surah 15 – “Rock City” (Al-Hijr)
We open with the affirmation that this is a “clear Qur’an [i.e. recitation]”. I will no longer point out when the Qur’an’s chapters begin like this. Hitherto, I wanted to make sure that I emphasized in these notes how often the Qur’an affirms its perspicuity.

We are told that no city was ever destroyed which had not previously received a warning of imminent destruction from one of Allah’s Messengers. This will be important for the examples which we will cover later in this surah.

We hear the common objections given by the disbelievers:

  • Accusations of madness against the Messenger
  • Expectations of angels accompanying the Messenger

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Servant Leadership

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The notion of leadership recently came up in discussion and the question was asked: What qualities make for a good leader?

If you go into a secular bookshop today you will find a large number of books which attempt to explain what it is you have to do in order to become a great leader.

In recent years, Christian bookshop shelves too have started to be filled with an increasingly large number of books which try to turn their readers into leaders by explaining the “eight key leadership principles” or the “five simple steps”, etc.

Like Father, Like Son…

The first passage of Scripture which comes to my mind when someone mentions to me the word “leadership” is from the Old Testament book of 1st Kings.  In this passage, King Solomon has just died and his son Rehoboam has ascended to the Throne of David.

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