Homilies On Joshua

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The history of the entry into the Promised Land followed by the period of the Judges and early monarchy may not appear to readers today as a source for expounding the Christian faith. But the church fathers readily found parallels, or types, in the narrative that illumined the New Testament. An obvious link was the similarity in name between Joshua, Moses' successor, and Jesus—indeed, in Greek the names are identical. Thus Joshua was consistently interpreted as a type of Christ. So too was Samuel. David was recognized as an ancestor of Jesus, and parallels between their two lives were readily explored. And Ruth, in ready fashion, was seen as a type of the church. Among the most important sources for commentary on these books are the homilies of Origen, most of which are known to us through the Latin translations of Rufinus and Jerome. Only two running commentaries exist—one from Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the famous Cappadocian theologians, the other from Bede the Venerable. Another key source for the selections found here derives from question-and-answer format, such as Questions on the Heptateuch from Augustine, Questions on the Octateuch from Theodoret of Cyr, and Thirty Questions on 1 Samuel from Bede. The remainder of materials come from a wide variety of occasional and doctrinal writings, which make mention of these biblical texts to support their arguments. Readers will find a rich treasure trove of ancient wisdom, some of which appear here for the first time in English translation, speaking with eloquence and powerful spiritual insight to the church today.

The disciplines of theology and biblical studies should serve each other, and they should serve both the church and the academy together. But the relationship between them is often marked by misunderstandings, methodological differences, and cross-discipline tension. Theologian Hans Boersma here highlights five things he wishes biblical scholars knew about theology. In a companion volume, biblical scholar Scot McKnight reflects on five things he wishes theologians knew about biblical studies. With an irenic spirit as well as honesty about differences that remain, Boersma and McKnight seek to foster understanding between their disciplines through these books so they might once again collaborate with one another.

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What Not to Do Abominable embraces1 Clement28.1 AbortionAthenagorasPresbeia35 AbortionBarnabas19.5 AbortionDidache2.2 AbortionDoctrina2.2 AbortionHippolytusPhilosophumena9.7 AbortionLetter to Diognetus5.6 AbortionMinucius FelixOctavius30 AbortionRevelation of Peter26 AbortionSibylline Oracles2.281f AbortionTertullianApologeticum9 AbortionTertullianExhortation to Chastity12 Abortion by drugsClement of AlexandriaPaedagogus2.10 (96) AbortionistDoctrina5.2 Abstinence, excessive, at the beginning stagesOrigenHomilies on Numbers27.9.2

The Crisis of Bad Preaching is an audacious response to a long-simmering pastoral crisis: poorly prepared, often stale, and largely irrelevant homilies that are fueling the mass exodus of people from the Church. Echoing Popes Benedict and Francis, Rev. Joshua Whitfield confronts what is perhaps the most common complaint of Catholics around the world: hollow, vacuous preaching. A parish priest in Dallas, Whitfield encourages fellow preachers to profound renewal, reminding them that preaching is not just something they do, it is essential to who they are. Catholic preaching today often achieves the opposite of what it should, which is connecting the People of God with the Gospel of Christ in a compelling and motivating way. With an insider’s candor, biting honesty, and persuasive conviction, Whitfield stresses that preachers need to return to this ideal because the wellbeing of the Church depends on it. More than just another how-to book, The Crisis of Bad Preaching is at once deeply challenging and uplifting and full of practical advice for a reversal of the status quo. In Part I, Whitfield explores the essential role of the preacher as a public intellectual and member of the communion of preachers that spans the history of the Church. Whitfield offers advice about which great preachers—from Origen, Augustine , and Aquinas to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bishop Robert Barron—to study and what to learn from them. Whitfield also explains why preachers must submit in humility to the fullness of the Church—its teachings, authority, practices, and structures. In Part II, Whitfield explores the important habits of prayer, preparation, cultivating rhetorical skill, and learning to take full advantage of both positive and negative criticism. He explains how the way of the preacher must be the way of the Holy Spirit and argues that without the preacher opening his heart to the fire of evangelical proclamation, he will lack the capacity to preach the transforming grace of the Gospel, his mandate. In a brief epilogue, Whitfield encourages ten habits for listening. Addressed to both laity and the ordained, he asserts that fixing preaching will take the concerted effort of all members of the Church.

Hans Urs von Balthasar places Origen of Alexandria “in rank . . . beside Augustine and Thomas” in “importance for the history of Christian thought,” explaining that his “brilliance” has captivated theologians throughout history (Spirit and Fire, 1984, 1). This brilliance shines forth in his nine extant homilies on Isaiah, in which he employs his theology of the Trinity and Christ to exhort his audience to play their crucial role in salvation history. Origen reads Isaiah’s vision of the Lord and two seraphim in Isaiah 6 allegorically as representing the Trinity, and this theme runs throughout the nine homilies. His representation of the seraphim as the Son and Holy Spirit around the throne of the Father brought early accusations that Origen was a proto-Arian subordinationist, followed by a pointed condemnation by Emperor Justinian in 553. These homilies, originally delivered between 245 and 248, are extant only in a fourth-century Latin translation. Though St. Jerome, likely because of these controversies, does not identify himself as the Latin translator, the evidence overwhelmingly points to his pen, and his reliability in conveying Origen’s authentic meaning is well documented. If one sets aside the questionable charges of subordinationism, these homilies, expounding on passages from Judges 6-10, come alive with Origen’s legacy of presenting Christ as the central figure of the soul’s ascent to God. Reading allegorically the two seraphim to be Jesus and the Holy Spirit around the Father’s throne, Origen draws a picture of the Trinity as a tightly knit whole in which the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally sing the Trisagion (“Holy, holy, holy”) to each other and the Father about the divine truths of God’s nature, allowing the part of their song that conveys the “middle things” of salvation history to be heard by creation. The “second seraph” is the Son, or Jesus, who descends holding a hot coal, or Scripture, from the altar of the throne, with which he cleanses Isaiah’s lips, or the believer’s soul. Origen employs his signature exegetical method of allegory and typology through the lens of the threefold meaning of Scripture to emphasize to his hearers that Christ is the deliverer, the content, and the reward of the healing Word. He repeatedly assures them that those who submit to Scripture will enter into salvation history’s cycle of cleansing from sin, growth in virtue, and ever-deepening knowledge of God. As a result, they will become like Christ and thus will be prepared to join the Trinity for all eternity at the heavenly wedding feast.