In everything they did…

In everything they the Apostles did, they thought of God and lived in constant devotion to Him. This spiritual state was their unceasing prayer.

- St. Basil the Great

On encouragement

We Christians are not all going to preach like Peter. We will not all count converts by the thousands like Paul. We do not all have the theological mind of John. We may not raise the dead or cure the sick or speak in tongues or prophesy, but we all should learn to emulate Barnabas [St. Barnabas went to Antioch and encouraged everyone]. We all should learn to encourage our brothers and sisters to be better Christians. We should all be sons and daughters of encouragement – not mere human encouragement: patronizing, saccharine words – but the encouragement of the Spirit of Encouragement, who fills our hearts, who always has a word or action ready for us to share with another. When you see a person in need, just listen to that Spirit and speak the encouragement.

Podcasts on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

Deliver Your Pizza and Go Home

Fr. Richard reminds us that the most significant thing that we can say about saints Peter and Paul is that they were apostles.

Keys to the Kingdom - St. Peter

Fr. Thomas discusses “the rock” upon whom Christ built His Church and St. Peter’s role in that early Church.

A Chosen Instrument of Mine - St. Paul

Fr. Thomas shows how, despite his persecution of the early Church, St. Paul was indeed an Apostle— by having seen the risen Lord and through his suffering.

The Holy, Glorious, and All-praised Leaders of the Apostles, Peter and Paul

The Saint of the Day podcast.

On the Apostle’s Fast

I am embracing the Apostle’s Fast remembering the faith they spread throughout the world despite the horrific persecution and death that they suffered.  While God does give blessings, we should keep in mind that there can be no crown of glory without a cross of great suffering.  We should also note that the Gospel of our Lord is to be spread beyond our own communities and comfort zones.  The Holy Ghost empowers us to speak “someone else’s language.” 

I pray that my fellow non-Orthodox Christians will join our brothers and sisters of the ancient faith and ether give follow the fast or pray for us who are on this leg of the journey as we all seek the same waters and summit.

- A small excerpt from “A Diary of the Apostle’s Fast”

The Most Convincing Apostles of Christianity

Those who live always according to the spirit of Christ are, without the use of words, the best preachers of Christ and the most convincing apostles of Christianity.

- Saint Theophan the Recluse

When the Apostles…

“When the Apostles, being full of the Holy Spirit, suffered the threats and cruelty of Christ’s enemies, they said to God with one consent, ‘For truly in this city against Your holy Servant Jesus, Whom You have anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together to do what Your hand and Your counsel ordained to come to pass’ (Acts 4:27-28). Did then the wickedness of Christ’s persecutors spring from God’s plan, and was that unsurpassable crime prepared and set in motion by the hand of God? Clearly we must not think this of the highest Justice: that which was foreknown in respect of the Jews’ malice is far different, indeed quite contrary to what was ordained in respect of Christ’s Passion. Their desire to slay Him did not proceed from the same source as His to die: nor were their atrocious crimes and the Redeemer’s endurance the offspring of One Spirit. The Lord did not incite but did permit those madmen’s evil hands: nor in His foreknowledge of what must be accomplished did He compel its accomplishment, even though it was in order to accomplish it that He had taken flesh.”

-From St. Leo the Great (The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series Vol. XII; Eerdmans pg. 178)

The Historicity and Reliability of Acts of the Apostles

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SEVENTEEN REASONS TO ACCEPT THE TRADITIONAL EARLY DATE THAT WOULD PLACE THE RESEARCH AND WRITING OF ACTS DURING THE LIFETIME OF MANY PARTICIPANTS. THESE STRONGLY SUPPORT THE HISTORICITY OF ACTS AND, INDIRECTLY, THE GOSPEL OF LUKE (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1).

1. There is no mention in Acts of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, an unlikley omission, given the content, if it had already occured.

2. There is no hint of the outbreak of the Jewish War in A.D. 66, or of any drastic or specific deterioration of relations between Romans and Jews, which implies it was written before that time.

3. There is no hint of the deterioration of Christian relations with Rome involved in the Neronian persecution of the late 60’s.

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