Gain Becomes Loss

We are all faced with choices. With each choice comes the option to gain or to lose. As Christians we are taught that we gain when we lose. To the world this appears foolish. To God is appears to be heaven. In today’s Gospel lesson we come face to face with the Jewish leaders who…

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All Information is not Equal

We live in a society that values all information as equal. It often doesn’t matter if the information is accurate. If someone ‘puts it out there’ we tend to give it equal value to other information. The problem is not all information is accurate, and not all information should be valued equally. This is most…

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The Church and State

As Americans we live by the standard of separation of church and state. This uniquely American ideal has its benefits for sure. Historically, though, the Orthodox Church has not been free of civil interventions, and today is only the most recent example. Today the Church commemorates Saint Photios the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople. His life…

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Saints for the Lost of America

Just look around and you will see them. There are many Orthodox Christians that walk through your neighborhoods, lost. I don’t mean they don’t know where they are walking. I mean they are spiritually lost, surrounded by false teachers and myriad temptations. More and more every day, the lost faithful disappear into the fabric of…

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Every Question has a Motive

We live in a society that seems to feed on negativity. Turn on any cable news program and reporters and panels are constantly trying to trap people into making statements they will later regret. It is done mostly with politicians, but I have noticed lately that nobody is immune to this treatment. Even young athletes…

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Fancy Words

As a college student during the first Gulf War in 1990 I recall all my friends and I being ‘glued’ to the TV watching CNN reporting nonstop from across the globe. Every time we had the chance, we would watch the reports and speeches about the war. I remember that we had to watch the…

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Ancient Faith

Living in most cities in America, the oldest building we are likely to encounter is between 100 and 150 years old. Sure, there are a few rare buildings that have survived here and there, but for the most part we live in a very ‘new and young’ society. The vast majority of buildings we see…

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Knowledge Requires Trust

Knowledge written in a book in bold letter

We all grow up learning to trust our teachers. We trust that George Washington was the first president of the United States. We trust that Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General. Go back even further. We trust there was a Pharaoh named Tutankhamen. We learned to trust this information because we weren’t there to…

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Be Strong

All hands united together

Among the many struggles of being a Christian in 21st Century America is the reality that we are not living among fellow believers. Either we are among Christians who are not Orthodox, or we are among non-Christians. Worse than both is to be among Orthodox Christians who do not live nor believe as Orthodox Christians.…

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Christian Groupies

We read about it in the Scriptures. Crowds would gather around Christ every time He spoke. Many even went from town to town to follow and be with Him. They filled houses and covered mountain tops. Wherever Jesus went, the crowds followed. At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by…

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