Bible and Mission

  I wonder if Fyodor Dostoevsky’s tale about Jesus’ return might have been inspired by an actual story of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum.   In The Brothers Karamazov , the character Ivan Karamazov tells the tale of a Grand Inquisitor who puts Jesus on trial upon His return to earth.   The Inquisitor claims that the Church has improved upon Jesus’ work and no longer needs Him.   This Church, whatever it is, does not need Jesus, does not want Him.   The shocking story Ivan tells is shocking mostly for how true it is in so many contexts, denominations, and local churches. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus attends the synagogue of His adopted home in Capernaum and immediately encounters a man possessed by an unclean spirit.   The man—or the unclean spirit in him—cries out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?   Have you come to destroy us?   I know who you are—the Holy One of God’ (Mark 1.23-24). Beyond the connection in these stories of a ...

  In setting up a law on sex for his proposed colony, the Athenian in Plato’s Laws forbids sex outside marriage between a man and a woman, mentioning in the course of his discourse breaches of this law in the form of adultery, incest, uncontrolled passion, pederasty, same-sex acts and orientations, and transgenderism.   The reason for such a law is to keep people from ‘those desires which frequently plunge many into ruin’ (8.835). [1]   His concern in having a law governing sex is not only that, without it, people will ruin themselves but also that they will injure the state.   What a state allows regarding sex is not a private matter as sexual practices have many consequences (8.836). Regarding same-sex sexual acts, he says that they are not natural (8.836).   The Law should ‘follow in nature’s steps’ in opposing males having sex with males as with women. [2]   In Romans 1.26-28, Paul is concerned with what is natural and what is against nature, that i...

  The origin of identifying ‘saints’ apart from other believers and of praying to them originates from Greek culture (we might says 'Graeco-Roman' culture).    This is an example of how a culture might, and often does, influence Christian practices and faith.   The Reformation rightly rejected such accretions to Biblical Christianity.   The pressure to honour, even fear, dead ancestors is something Christians face in Africa and Asia today, and so the topic remains relevant culturally if not in Protestant rejection of the Roman Catholic practice.  This brief essay will examine the cultural practice in Greece as found in Plato's Laws.  Prayer to heroes was well-established in the culture before the early Church arose in the 1st century AD. Plato, in laying down good practices for worship, says, Next after these gods the wise man will offer worship to the daemons, and after the daemons to the heroes.   After these will come private shrines l...

In a work titled Laws, Plato discusses the officials ( archontōn ) needed for a colony or city-state.  The officials selected should be ‘keepers’ in three areas: city stewards, market stewards, and the priesthood ( Laws 6.759; cf. Aristotle, Politics 6.1322b).  As to the priesthood, Plato describes three groups: the priests and priestesses, a group of interpreters of religious laws, and treasurers.  In the imaginary colony Plato is describing, he has in mind four classes of citizens defined by economic status.  People in religious service are to be drawn from the highest class. We should note that Plato’s famous student, Aristotle, wrote a work that identifies the various supervisors of institutions in a city-state in greater detail.  One such group is the priesthood.  Like Aristotle, he insists that they should be drawn from citizens and not ‘tillers of the soil’ (slaves) or artisans.  Aristotle also says, like Plato, that priests should be older....

  Today’s (30 June, 2026) ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States deserves a note.   One might want to say that it deserves applause, but should one applaud something that is, while important and appreciated, also a simple statement of fact?   We do not reward students for commenting that water is wet, the sun warm, and birds fly.   Be that as it may, after a season of exercises in antinatural illogic, we applaud the Supreme Court’s logic like a breeze in our sails to carry us out from the doldrums.   It is this: the Court ruled that men are not women and may not weasel their way into women’s sports, whatever gender pretenses they purport.   Justice Thomas simply stated: Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.   Sex is an immutable “biological” characteristic…; it is binary; and “man” and “woman”, “boy” and “girl”, are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex ( West V...