church history on Consequences

John Chrysostom, the eloquent Church Father, had incurred the wrath of the Byzantine (aka Roman) Emperor Arcadius. Enraged, the emperor consulted his counselors on how to punish the powerful preacher....

Amy Carmichael was a passionate missionary to India. She gave her life for the sake of those who had suffered the consequences of an unyielding caste system. She also had her suffering, due to physica...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

A magistrate regards someone as a criminal and punishes him if he catches him among thieves, even though the man has never committed anything evil or worthy of death. Christ was not only found among s...

Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University and half the namesake of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, was an American minister who began his ministry in 1880. While he wrote and preached countle...

In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...

It is quite enough that you have sinned. Now let go of it. Don’t let your despondency lead to an even greater offence. The Lord says, ‘I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he repent ...

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

The church does not exist to make the world run more smoothly, but to be a truthful sign of what the world is meant to be.

Jesus, You name us Beloved, Blessed Son, Daughter Sibling, Heir Help us remember You name us Child of the King Redeemed, Forgiven Saved by grace through faith Help us remember You name us Ligh...

Imagine you are an alien who earned your interstellar passport and decided to spend a day on planet Earth. Suppose you picked a small town somewhere in the United States. Maybe you wouldn’t be surpris...

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Season 3, episode 21 of Bluey (an episode called “Tina”) opens with Bandit telling his daughter Bluey to put her plate in the dishwasher. When Bluey pushes back and asks why, Bandit replies, “Be...

The Bible ceased to be a foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far more clear and dear to the common people. Hereafter the Reformation depended no longer on the works of ...

In a way, the Reformation began in one monk's overwhelming guilt. Martin Luther was riddled with guilt and filled with anxiety because he could see that he could not live up to God's standard ...

The Creed was the focused, worshipful expression of people whose lives had been totally transformed by the Bible and by the risen Jesus Christ. The Creed’s words are not windows with the shutters pull...

Indeed, those who become disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against the demons by their lives and deeds of virtue, putting them to flight and mocking their prince, the ...

Christian disunity is and remains a massive impediment to the gospel itself—the proclamation of which is and should be evangelicalism’s strong suit.

The early Christian writers used some stunning expressions of delight and gratitude when they mentioned Jesus’s death. Think of Paul saying, “He loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20), or “The ...

I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as noonday that they have fallen into error and even into glaring inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am no...

A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in  The Philokalia  about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg...

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

When we reach the point where the Creed no longer looks or sounds to Christian people like a declaration of the gospel, there is need, I believe, for some whistle-blowing and reassessment of what goes...

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

Luther's stand at the Diet of Worms is legendary. Having written blistering indictments of the abuses of the Catholic church and theological treatises which challenged its teachings, Luther was su...

Paul’s vision in Ephesians is one of a single, united people of God, created through the cross to embody peace and reconciliation.

In 1258, Islam stood on the brink of collapse, with Egypt as its last stronghold. While Islam was struggling, the vast Mongol Empire, under the rule of Kublai Khan, stretched from the Black Sea to the...

When Johann Sebastian Bach sought to convey the heart of Christian truth through music, he chose the Mass as his foundation. His B Minor Mass begins with a heartfelt plea from the full chorus and orch...

Have you heard the acronym “K. I. S. S”? It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Paul doesn’t exactly call the Corinthians stupid (in 1 Cor. 15), though elsewhere Paul sounds tempted to do so, when ...