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The Hidden Garden

Episode date: March 07, 2013
Transcript published: March 28, 2013

So here’s how I understood things as a kid.

My heart was black with sin
Until the Savior came in.
His precious red blood, I know,
Has washed me white as snow.

And in God’s word, I’m told,
I’ll walk the streets of gold.
To grow in Christ each day,
I read my Bible and pray.

I liked my salvation plan succinct, neat and tidy, guaranteed. As a child, it was comforting to know I’d taken the necessary step for procuring eternal life, asking Jesus into my heart. I carried this comfort with me into early adulthood.

But somewhere along…

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The Arena
The Charitable Anathema

Episode date: March 27, 2013
Transcript published: March 28, 2013

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, I greet you on this feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy which is celebrated with such verve, such enthusiasm, by all our Orthodox brothers and sisters around the world, celebrating the victory of our faith, the victory of the Church and the Christian and apostolic teaching regarding the sacred icons over the icon-smashers, those that we know as the iconoclast heretics who were inspired by evil spirits and sought to rob the Church of her iconographic tradition under the guise of piety and respect for God’s commandments. They destroyed…

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Speaking the Truth
Bishops - Part 6: The Other Canons

Episode date: February 14, 2011
Transcript published: March 26, 2013

In this, the sixth of our reflections on the bishop and the clergy generally in the Church, I would like to reflect a bit about the other canons of the fourth century. Last time, I reflected on the 20 canons of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, but there are other councils in the fourth century that also had canons, and many, many, in fact, the majority of these canons also had to do with bishops and presbyters and deacons and the Church structure.

So I’d like to comment a little bit on them now, but also to mention that, in addition to the 20 canons of Nicaea that I commented on last time, there are a list of Arabic canons…

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Speaking the Truth
Bishops - Part 5: The Canons

Episode date: February 07, 2011
Transcript published: March 26, 2013

In this fifth reflection of ours on bishops and clergy generally in the Christian Church, I would like to present some thoughts and reflections about the canons of the Councils that were held in the fourth century that have to do with bishops and with the clergy generally. We mentioned last time that this radical change had taken place in the fourth century with Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, his approbation of the Christian Church and the bishops, his giving all kinds of powers and privileges and position and properties to the Church, particularly to the control of bishops, and how this brought about the entrance into the…

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Speaking the Truth
Bishops - Part 4: In the Age of Constantine

Episode date: January 29, 2011
Transcript published: March 25, 2013

This is the fourth of our reflections on the bishop and the clergy, generally, in the Christian Church through history. We reflected already on the Church in the first three centuries. We began with the New Testament, and then we had two podcasts about the structure of the Christian Church in the first, second, and third centuries, about how the Church got organized and how it was structured and the place of the bishop, because already in the New Testament, we have bishop, presbyter, and deacon in the Church; we have widows, we have virgins. We see the Church defined as a kingdom of prophets and priests, as a new nation, a peculiar people,…

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