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The Sarcophagus of Alexander the Great & the Risen Body of Christ.
I spent a couple of hours last week in the Istanbul Museum of Archeology and was able to view the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. It is enourmous and ornate. Originally it was painted in bright colors, some of which can still be seen on the sides and along the top moulding. This wasnt the […]
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The Obelisk of Theodosius and the Horseman of Revelation 6.
On my first morning out in Istanbul, we got up early to head towards the Hagio Sophia, the site of the – originally 4th century – church where a modern day mosque sits. On the path from the burrow of Taksim, Istanbul towards the mosque we came across the Hippodrome of Constantinople, an ancient horse […]
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Time for an Update
I’ve been silent for a long time. I deleted my social media accounts, and made a commitment to remove my presence from the internet in general for a year, so here I am. There has been a lot of turmoil but also a ton of growth. So as I sit here in my hotel room […]
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White Supremacy: A Spiritual Darknesses in Our Highest Places.
When we speak of Jesus being our king, we are speaking of a king who stands against spiritual darkness in high places. In our world today, one manifestation of that spiritual darkness is ‘white supremacy.’ It tells lies about my black brother and sisters, and about myself; it lies about the worth of different races […]
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The Peace-makers: War, violence, and the response of the Church Fathers. Part 4
The insinuation of many evangelicals is that the martyr has no place in the 21st-century church; that the martyr is simply a fool without a gun whose life has been cut short for lack of firearms training. There seems to be no place in the modern church for the one who utterly refuses to kill, the one who believes that there are things far worse than death…
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The Peace-makers: War, violence, and the response of the Church Fathers. Part 3
The word pacifism is often confused with the idea of pacifying or letting the enemy have what they want. However, the actual meaning is found in the root Latin word pax (peace), and it means peace-making. According to Commodianus (250), the call of the Christian is to “make thyself a peace-maker to all men.”
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The Peace-makers: War, violence, and the response of the Church Fathers. Part 2
The Peace-makers: War, violence, and the response of the Church Fathers. Part 2 The inconvenient fact for Western Christians is that, for Tertullian and the church fathers of the first 3 centuries … “a Christian could not serve in the military because the Christian cannot bear the sword … Jesus is the full expression of God, and he has revealed God to be non-violent, choosing to go to the cross rather than to wield the sword … And if the church’s answer to evil is war, bloodshed, and violence, then our king is not unique, and our kingdom is just as “of this world” as any other.”
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The Peace-makers: Exploring war, violence, and the response of the Church Fathers. Part 1
The Same Way, or a New Way? The response to evil in the world is something that the church claims to possess above all other claims. The church claims that the cross of Christ is the answer to those prone to violence, those quick to use the threat of physical violence to coerce, and to […]
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Heaping Burning Coals on Their Heads
I have heard this passage become a method of revenge instead of a path towards reconciliation. But deep inside we know that this can’t be Christlike. So where do we begin to interpret this passage?
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How to Use a Commentary: 4 ways to get the most out of your daily study.
FYI: Skip to the bottom for my list of recommendations Reading a commentary while you study the scriptures is the best way to ensure that you are correctly interpreting the text. There is no shortage of people, even pastors, interpreting and teaching the Bible without any help from biblical scholars who have devoted their lives […]
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Tommy Preson Phillips 