Before Christ we all shared the same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. Each person’s individual action attracted either reproof or praise from God, but no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation, or the evil inheritance that had been passed down to him and through him would pass to his descendants. But Christ came,

I want to continue our reflections in Exodus this week, for there is a lot there to reflect on. Specifically, I want to look at chapter 32 and what happens while Moses is on the mountain with God and the near disaster that is averted by Moses. You recall that Moses was on the mountain with the Lord for forty days and forty nights. Meanwhile, the people, down below, began to get nervous about his absence. Fearing that he had been killed, they turned to Aaron and said, “Make fo

As many of us have been reading through Exodus we have encountered one of the perennial questions raised by the Exodus story, one that has significant theological ramifications: what does it mean when it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart? And the Lord said to Moyses, “As you go and return to Egypt, see, all the wonders which I put in your hands, you shall perform them before Pharao. But I will harden his heart, and he will not send the people away.” (Exodus 4:21, NETS) T

I know a number of you are reading the Bible through this year according the plan I shared at the start of the New Year. If you are then you started in Exodus (we will read Genesis during Great Lent). Exodus is a great story! Perhaps you have never read it before, even if you are familiar with the story from DeMille’s famous film The Ten Commandments. Even from the movie a number of the key themes of Exodus are clear, but reading the biblical narrative makes these and many ot

It is an unfortunate reality that, today, the feast of the Theophany is overshadowed by Christmas. As you probably know Theophany is the more ancient feast in the Orthodox Church and originally celebrated the entirety of the manifestation of God in the flesh, from the birth in Bethlehem to the baptism by John in the Jordan. When, in the fourth century and following, the Orthodox east began to keep Nativity as a separate feast, Theophany became focused on the baptism alone. Th