bible and theology on Incense

May we offer our whole lives as living sacrifices, breaking our comforts and pouring out our whole lives as pure nard unto our Savior.

Put an altar of incense in your innermost heart. Be a sweet aroma of Christ.

Prayers when they reach heaven become fragrant roses, pouring out their holy perfume before God. As from gardens of flowers blooming on the earth, fragrance rises, sweetening all the air, so from home...

Christ … wants to have the heart pure, though outwardly the person may be a drudge in the kitchen, black, sooty, and grimy, doing all sorts of dirty work. Though a common labourer, a shoemaker or a bl...

Pastor: Lord God, heavenly Father, You promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, You led him to the land of Canaan, People: and You sealed Your covenant with him by the shedding ...

The tabernacle consists of a courtyard and a tent inside, separated into two sections: ‘The Holy Place’ and ‘the Most Holy Place’ or ‘Holy of Holies’. Inside the Holy Place is a table that holds ‘the ...

To a man who lives unto God nothing is secular, everything is sacred. He puts on his workday garment and it is a vestment to him: he sits down to his meal and it is a sacrament; he goes forth to his l...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.

The aroma of the knowledge of God comes from Christ and through Christ. The reason why Paul said “aroma” was this: Some things are recognized by their smell, even though they are invisible. God, who i...

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

And we, as often as we hear anything of good people, draw in as it were through our nostrils a breath of sweetness. And when Paul the Apostle said, “We are a good odor of Christ unto God,” it is plain...

Cinnamon has a naturally pleasing sweetness that delights the taste. At the same time, it also has a sharp strength that inflames the palate of the one who tastes it and that becomes more piquant and ...

Fire of the Spirit, life of the lives of creatures, spiral of sanctity, bond of all natures, glow of charity, lights of clarity, taste of sweetness to sinners, be with us and hear us. Composer of all ...

They are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

There’s a story told in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers…Abba Lot said to Abba Joseph, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far ...

What is it then that I love when I love you? Not bodily beauty, and not temporal glory, not the clear shining light, lovely as it is to our eyes, not the sweet melodies of many-moded songs, nor the so...

A student of mine called me late one evening after worship. He was really excited on the other end, and I had to ask him to slow down. So, he says, “Mother Kim, this strange thing happened to me today...

The Incarnation [and I might add Communion] remains a scandal to anyone who wants religion to be a purely spiritual matter, an etherized, bloodless bliss.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you...

​Living God Holy Inferno Who revealed yourself as Burning Bush Pillar of Flame Dancing Tongues of Fire Illumine your children, so we may know your will Refine your children, till our souls burn to do...

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament ) , scholar Ken Bailey provides helpful context t...

Breathe in us, O Holy Spirit, That our thoughts may all be holy. Act in us, O Holy Spirit, That our work, too, may be holy. Draw our hearts, O Holy Spirit, That we love but what is holy. Strengthen us...

What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.

When people commune with God the very sensation of life is transformed, so that they are equipped “to see what is most beautiful, to hear what is most harmonious, to smell what is most fragrant, to ta...

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of Your light like dew.

But to reject, marginalize, trivialize, or be suspicious of the sacraments (and quasi-sacramental acts such as lighting a candle, bowing, washing feet, raising hands in the air, crossing oneself and s...

Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.

A blessed spirit is a mould ever more and more patient of the bright metal poured into it, a body ever more completely uncovered to the meridian blaze of the spiritual sun.

“For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.”