By Dr Lydia Gore-Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)
In the first part of this article, I have argued that Matthew has adopted the Kingdom theme in Mark and fully expanded it and even made it the central scheme to shape his narrative, which can be seen especially in the five-fold structure of the Gospel and a concentration of Jesus’ teachings and parables which all revolve around the nature of the Kingdom and the manners of life therein. What particularly makes Matthew a Gospel about God’s Kingdom is the carefully designed beginning (chs 1-2) and ending (chs 27-28). They show us clearly how the kingdom theme functions distinctly as a structuring principle in Matthew...
By Dr Lydia Gore-Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)
The topic first came to me as a research question. At the opening of every Divine Liturgy, we hear the acclamation, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit!”. But what does Scripture say about the Kingdom of God? I decided to begin with the Gospel of Matthew, and what I discovered was this. The “Kingdom of God” is not only a central theme in Matthew, but a fundamental structural scheme around which Matthew shaped his version of the Gospel narrative. Through Matthew’s perspective, who interpreted Scripture through the lens of Christ, we are enabled to see that the entire Bible is concerned with...
By Sr Dr Margaret Beirne RSC (Associate Professor of Biblical Studies)
Today, 1 September, we celebrate a time-honoured Christian feast day, known as the ‘Feast of Creation’ within the Orthodox Church and today universally celebrated across the ecumenical world as the ‘World Day of Prayer for Creation.’ The earlier title, ‘of creation’ was a feast of thanksgiving to God for the ‘gift of creation’, based on the creation accounts in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis; the latter, ‘for Creation’ reflects the more recent growing movement of ecological awareness and conversion...
By Dr Lydia Gore-Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)
“The Bible says nothing,” a non-Orthodox friend asked me, “about the death of Mary and her assumption, does it?” He was absolutely right. There was no historical records, and neither the Gospels nor Patristic writings in the first four centuries of Christianity mention anything about Mary’s life after the Pentecost. St Epiphanius of Salamis, who died in 403, writes that people examining the scriptures “will find no evidence there either on the death of Mary, nor on whether she died or not, nor whether she was buried or not buried...
By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)
This coming Sunday, our Holy Orthodox Church invites us into a radiant celebration—the Sunday of All Saints. It is a day unlike any other: we do not honour a single saint, nor a particular group of saints—whether these be martyrs, monastics or confessors. Rather, we lift our eyes to the entire company of God’s friends—first and foremost, to the Theotokos, followed by the Apostles, the Prophets, the Martyrs, the Teachers, the ascetics, the righteous and the unknown—every man and woman of every time, every place, and every circumstance who sought Christ, and whose lives were crowned by divine love...