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Content provided by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.
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Action Academy | Replace The Job You Hate With A Life You Love


1 How To Replace A $100,000+ Salary Within 6 MONTHS Through Buying A Small Business w/ Alex Kamenca & Carley Mitus 57:50
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Alex (@alex_kamenca) and Carley (@carleymitus) are both members of our Action Academy Community that purchased TWO small businesses last thursday! Want To Quit Your Job In The Next 6-18 Months Through Buying Commercial Real Estate & Small Businesses? 👔🏝️ Schedule A Free 15 Minute Coaching Call With Our Team Here To Get "Unstuck" Want to know which investment strategy is best for you? Take our Free Asset-Selection Quiz Check Out Our Bestselling Book : From Passive To Passionate : How To Quit Your Job - Grow Your Wealth - And Turn Your Passions Into Profits Want A Free $100k+ Side Hustle Guide ? Follow Me As I Travel & Build: IG @brianluebben ActionAcademy.com…
Doing the Deeds That Will Allow Us to Inherit the Kingdom
Manage episode 428195780 series 1143683
Content provided by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.
In reflecting on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Very Rev. Dr Bogdan Bucur calls our attention to the difference between the Lord’s invitation to those at his right hand in Matthew 25.34: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and the injunction to those on His left, “‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25.41). In this account of the last judgment, the difference between those on the right and the left is their deeds during their earthly lives. Fr Bogdan urges us to consider the concrete actions the Lord is expecting us to take during our time on this Earth to physically and practically minister to all those in need around us.
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415 episodes
Manage episode 428195780 series 1143683
Content provided by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries, Fr. Lawrence R. Farley, and Ancient Faith Ministries or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.
In reflecting on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Very Rev. Dr Bogdan Bucur calls our attention to the difference between the Lord’s invitation to those at his right hand in Matthew 25.34: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and the injunction to those on His left, “‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25.41). In this account of the last judgment, the difference between those on the right and the left is their deeds during their earthly lives. Fr Bogdan urges us to consider the concrete actions the Lord is expecting us to take during our time on this Earth to physically and practically minister to all those in need around us.
…
continue reading
415 episodes
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×Fr. Nicolaie shares the story of Tara, and the hope that comes when a broken heart is changed by God's healing touch.
In many Orthodox churches, baptisms are done privately and almost secretly: after the morning Divine Liturgy at which the entire church community was present had concluded and all the people had left, a few people remained behind—or perhaps, if they had not been at the Liturgy, came to church deliberately late to attend the private family baptism to which they had been invited. If Liturgy began at 9.30 am and concluded at 11.00 am and if the people had all dispersed after the post-Liturgy coffee hour, then a baptism would be held in the now empty church around 1.00 or 2.00 pm.…
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No Other Foundation

A number of Evangelical inquirers have asked exactly what we Orthodox mean in our prayer describing the Theotokos as “the salvation of the Christian people”. They also wonder what we can mean when we pray that we “may obtain paradise through you, O Virgin Theotokos”. These queries are perhaps reinforced every Matins and Vespers which conclude with the priest saying, “Most holy Theotokos, save us!”…
Hidden well away in the Greek of the genealogy with which St. Matthew opens his Gospel is a little theological secret—a secret which utterly vanishes in most English translations. Matthew begins his genealogy of Jesus by saying that “Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers” and so on and on for about another forty names. The word here rendered “begot” is the Greek ἐγέννησεν/ egennesen, the active mood of the verb γεννάω/ gennao. After so many instances of one man actively begetting someone else, the reader is primed for the concluding climax “and Joseph begot Jesus”. But that is not how the genealogy concludes.…
had thought of entitling this piece “About UFOs”, but then quickly reconsidered, not wanting to blow all my credibility before anyone had begun reading it. This piece is an unabashed and unapologetic rip-off of a chapter in Rod Dreher’s new book Living in Wonder in which chapter he deals with UFO phenomena and its current significance. This chapter (along with a previous one dealing with the dangers of the occult and, come to that, the entire book) should be required reading by all seminarians and pastors today. If you have read the book and the chapter on UFOs, consider this something of a précis.…
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No Other Foundation

Much to my surprise, some time ago the Nicene Creed was trending online among the Southern Baptists, America’s largest Baptist organization. They were, apparently, debating whether or not that Creed should be added to their official statement of faith. This was a bit controversial since the Southern Baptists are well-known for their position that they have “no Creed but the Bible”. Though it is hard for me to work up any enthusiasm or interest in what our Southern Baptist friends do with their official statement of faith, the news does provoke the question, “What’s so important about the Nicene Creed?” Or, in blunter terms, why should anyone today care about what a bunch of guys decided about 1700 years ago? Permit me to attempt an answer.…
Once when I was a new convert to Anglicanism (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) I asked my dear Anglican pastor why our Anglican Church no longer canonized any saints. I knew that the Roman Catholic Church continued to canonize saints and (had I only known it back then) the Orthodox Church continued to canonize saints, but the Anglican Church did not. What was the deal?…
I have just finished reading a very 2002 interesting book The Case for Christ, written in Evangelical style by Lee Strobel. One of the chapters was about how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, for which Mr. Strobel interviewed Mr. Louis S. Lapides, a Jewish convert to the Christian faith who now has a B.A. in theology from Dallas Baptist University and an M. Div. and a Master of Theology from Talbot Theological Seminary and who is now senior pastor at Beth Ariel Fellowship in California.…
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No Other Foundation

The whimsical title of this blog post is based on the 1969 book by David Reuben entitled Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). I chose the title because although the Church has its own teaching about sexuality, many young Orthodox Christians are afraid to inquire diligently about it for fear the Church will give unwelcome advice. Which of course it will.…
Recently I was re-reading a good but somewhat dated book about the episcopate, entitled The Apostolic Ministry, a collection of essays edited by Bishop Kenneth Kirk and published 1946. In one piece, written by Beatrice Hamilton Thompson on the “Post-Reformation Episcopate in England”, the author compared the state of the episcopate at the time Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker (d. 1575) to that of the episcopate at the time of St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258).…
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No Other Foundation

Recently I have come across an anti-Orthodox polemic which rejects our veneration of icons on the grounds that venerating an image painted on a board of Christ, His Mother, or His saints is contrary to the practice of the apostles and of the earliest Church. The objection is stated with some sophistication, and is not the usual fundamentalist reference to the Mosaic Law’s proscription of carved statues used in worship (e.g. Exodus 20:4f). This more sophisticated objection acknowledges that there were indeed images of Christ, His Mother, and His saints used in the early Church such as can be found in the funerary art of the catacombs and on the walls of churches (such as that of Dura Europos). But, it points out, there is no evidence that these images functioned as anything more than mere decoration. That is, the people did not come up to the wall to kiss the wall art or venerate the images.…
Recently a minor fracas in the narthex of our church was caused by (I kid you not) my long hair (see inset for a rear view of said hair). Since my hair steadfastly refuses to grow on the top of my head, you would think I could be cut a little slack for the bit that grows at the back, but apparently not.…
Thousands of years ago when I was a teenager and a brand-new Christian, I happened to read an article by S.G.F. Brandon about Jesus being a Zealot, in which he questioned much if not most of the Gospel portrait of Jesus and suggested that the Gospels (particularly that of Mark) constituted a whitewash of Jesus, eliminating His Zealotry from the Gospel picture to make Him and His movement more acceptable in Roman eyes. It was, of course, a precis of his 1967 book Jesus and the Zealots which created something of an academic dust up in its day.…
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No Other Foundation

It has been suggested to me that in many (most?) Evangelical circles one becomes a Christian “by accepting the finished work of Christ”—i.e. by believing and accepting as true that on the cross Jesus paid the full price due our sin and by saying a prayer acknowledging this.
I am sometimes asked if an Orthodox Christian can have an assurance that he or she will be saved. The question usually comes from my converts from Evangelicalism. They were previously taught that when one is saved, one is given the assurance that they are saved and this assurance offers a real and constant source of comfort. They ask me, “Were we misled? Can an Orthodox Christian have the same assurance of salvation?”…
When we are reading the literature of the ancient Hebrews (i.e. the Old Testament) it is important to be aware of the kind of glasses we are wearing—that is, we should be aware of the unspoken conceptual presuppositions that we bring to our reading. If we are not aware of our ingrained conceptual presuppositions, we can make mistakes in understanding ancient literature.…
Now that Great Lent is upon us, the question sometimes arises about where we should put our spiritual focus. There are two places we should certainly not put our focus—and only one place where we should.
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No Other Foundation

In reflecting on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Very Rev. Dr Bogdan Bucur calls our attention to the difference between the Lord’s invitation to those at his right hand in Matthew 25.34: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and the injunction to those on His left, “‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25.41). In this account of the last judgment, the difference between those on the right and the left is their deeds during their earthly lives. Fr Bogdan urges us to consider the concrete actions the Lord is expecting us to take during our time on this Earth to physically and practically minister to all those in need around us.…
Presented for your consideration (as Rod Serling used to say): an old man dressed up as an Orthodox priest-monk who is actually neither priest nor monk, performing outrageous antics both in public and online in a furious attempt to draw attention to himself. Mr. Milton Kapner calls himself Brother Nathanael, and he is a Jewish man who has attracted a large following of online listeners to his regular virulent anti-Semitic rants. Though he was once a novice in an Old Calendarist monastery in Colorado, he was kicked out of that monastery and is now not a monk at all, despite wearing monastic garb, but “a showman with a persecution complex who likes to be the center of attention” (from “Orthodox Christianity Then and Now”).…
The work of the prophet Haggai is short and easy to miss; it is a mere two chapters in our Bibles sandwiched in between the books of Zephaniah and Zechariah. If you are flipping quickly through the final pages of the Old Testament he easy to miss. After ploughing through longer works such as those of Isaiah (66 chapters), Jeremiah (52 chapters, plus 5 more chapters of Lamentations), and Ezekiel (48 chapters), Haggai looks positively puny in comparison…
I remember once when a friend was sharing with me his distress at the liberalism afflicting his Protestant denomination, and the fact that many of their clergy were denying such things as the virgin birth and the divinity of Christ. While murmuring sympathetically, I mentioned that such denials were not the same problem in the Orthodox Church. He then asked me what sort of things we did argue about. When I replied, “Well, things like whether or not a woman can receive Holy Communion while she is menstruating,” he looked at me funny. He didn’t ask, “What planet are you guys on?” but I could tell he was thinking it. Loudly.…
I have just finished reading Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity, by my friend Carl R. Trueman. Dr. Trueman is professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College, and a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (which, despite the title, has no connection with our own Eastern Orthodox Church).…
Every so often one encounters something that breaks the head as well as the heart. By that I refer to things that not only wring the heart with grief, but also confound the head because they are so perversely stupid. One such thing is the recent conversion of a Tasmanian Orthodox priest by the name of David Gould who had been Orthodox for 45 years and who then converted to Islam two years after becoming a priest. He now goes by the name of Abdul Rahman.…
I am told that during a very interesting and well-run radio show about deaconesses, it was agreed (or at least widely thought) that Phoebe, mentioned famously in Romans 16:1, was a deaconess. But was she?
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No Other Foundation

Commenting on the epistle reading of Paul to the Colossians, the Very Rev. Dr Bogdan Bucur concentrates on the idea that the passions we struggle with also lead us into idolatry. For “when Christ who is our life appears,” we either die to the passions, or we choose them over Him.This is a battle which happens in our hearts every day, as Christ has already appeared to us through our baptism, and continues to appear to us through our every encounter with Him spiritually and physically in the sacraments and the body of the Church.…
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No Other Foundation

I have just read two fascinating pieces about Pope Francis’ recent and controversial document Fiducia Supplicans, which officially allows Roman Catholic priests to bless persons in same-sex relationships, one by an Orthodox and the other by a Roman Catholic.
I note with no surprise whatsoever the news out of England, which is that the Church of England has decided to bless homosexual partnerships. This came after a compromise was struck last February following five years of debate about the church’s position on homosexuality and the inevitable apology offered for the church’s failure to welcome homosexuals.…
The feast whose season we now in is called “Theophany” or (in many places) “Epiphany”. This latter is not so much an English word as it is a transliteration of a Greek word, epiphaneia. It is often rendered “appearance” in the English versions, though this rendering can be misleading. One can have a small or insignificant appearance. For example, a person can have a brief cameo appearance in a movie (such as Alfred Hitchcock famously did in his movies), appearances so brief and insignificant as to be missed by inattentive eyes.…
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No Other Foundation

I forget, in the course of my long life as a Christian, how many times I have heard people assure me that “God will never give you more than you can handle”. By this they seemed to mean that God knows my emotional limits and capabilities, and will make sure that no disaster befalls me that will tax me emotionally beyond my present strength. Sometimes they affix a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13 to it to make their case: “No temptation has overtaken you but such is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it”. I must report however, on the basis of my long life as a Christian, that the assuring notion that God will never give anyone more than they can handle is nonsense.…
I am told on good authority that it is offensive to invite people of other religions to convert to Christianity. Thus it is offensive to say to a Jew, “Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God and so you should be baptized and become a Christian”. It is similarly offensive to say to a Muslim, “Jesus is the divine Son of God and Muhammad was not a true prophet, nor is Qur’an His Word, and so you should be baptized and become a Christian”. It is also offensive to say to a Hindu, “Those whom you worship as Gods such as Vishnu, Shiva, and Krishna are not true Gods, but idols, and so you should be baptized and become a Christian”.…
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