by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Among the biblical concepts supporting St. Paul’s theology of atonement, one of the most important, surely, is that of expiation. What does the Apostle mean when he writes,

“God set forth [Jesus Christ] as the expiatory in His blood” (Romans 3:25)?

Although this is the only time St. Paul uses the noun hilasterion, I believe that the full context of his epistles, along with the Old Testament substratum on which they depend, provides the correct and adequate meaning of that term. Read more

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

The classical and ancient theology of the Christian Church regards as redemptive the entire “event” of Jesus Christ, beginning with His personal and permanent assumption of our flesh. Everything about Jesus Christ is soteriological. Read more

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Although the history of art does not show this to be the case, ancient legend claimed that the Amazon warriors — the easier to bend the bow and fling the spear — had their right breasts amputated. Indeed, popular Greek etymology explained the name “Amazon” as derived from a-mazos, “without breast.”

I wonder, however, if that physical mutilation did not also insinuate in the Amazons some deeper and more significant impairment, a hint, as it were, of diminished femininity. The willful loss of that breast suggests – to me, at least – that the Amazons, as women, were not quite up to the mark. I confess to a basic, inherited, and irremediable bias against women warriors. I don’t like girls getting into fights. It just ain’t proper. Read more

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

There is a glaring fallacy in the contemporary presumption that idolatry is found only in polytheism. I admit, of course, that all polytheism is necessarily idolatrous, but it seems not to have occurred to most folks that the confession of one false god is just as idolatrous as the confession of several. Monotheism is no defense against idolatry.

This modern misunderstanding about idolatry, moreover, is the twin and steady companion of another, the strange fancy that all monotheists necessarily confess the same divinity.

Arguably the clearest spokesman for the latter fallacy may be that C. S. Lewis character who forthrightly declared, Read more

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of  Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was recently published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Inasmuch as Holy Scripture ascribes to the staff of Aaron such diverse wonders, it is hardly remarkable that Christian readers, over the centuries, have looked upon it as the bearer of numerous mysteries. It is not my intention to question any of those traditional interpretations, but I am especially partial to the view that Aaron’s staff represents the pastoral office in general, and the ministry of preaching in particular.

We may begin by mentioning that the underlying Hebrew word, matteh, not only means “staff” or “rod,” but also “tribe.” It was a symbol, in fact, of tribal authority. Thus, Aaron’s matteh indicated that he was, first of all, the leader of the priestly family, the tribe of Levi. It was entirely appropriate, therefore, that eventually Aaron’s matteh was kept in the Holy of Holies, inside the Ark of the Covenant, along with the Tables of the Law and the jar of Manna (Hebrews 9:4).

Applied to the pastoral ministry of preaching, then, staff of Aaron represents the authority with which the preacher proclaims the Word. The Christian pulpit is not the forum for the sharing of a preacher’s ideas, not even his theological exegetical ideas. It is the place from which the seed of the Word is sown. What is conveyed in the preaching must be nothing other than the Gospel itself.

Thus, some months after evangelizing the Macedonians, Paul wrote to them,

“we preached to you the Gospel of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:9).

Paul sums up that experience:

“when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (2:13).

The staff of Aaron is more than a sign of his authority, however; it is the channel of power. Indeed, this is what distinguishes the matteh of Aaron from the other tribal staffs of Israel. Two narratives, in particular, illustrate the power of Aaron’s priestly staff: the encounter with Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus and the test in the Tabernacle in the Book of Numbers. Each of these incidents, I will argue, demonstrates an aspect of the preaching ministry.

First, Aaron’s staff is powerful against the satanic forces represented in the rule of Pharaoh. Even before Egypt was visited with a single plague, that matteh became a snake and devoured the staffs of the sorcerers (Exodus 7:8-12). Then, through the same instrument the Lord visited Egypt with the plagues of frogs and lice (8:5,16,17).

If, then, we understand Aaron’s staff to symbolize the ministry of preaching, the account in Exodus indicates the aggressive, confrontational, and apologetical aspects of the preacher’s task. His message must be ever

“mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Second, Aaron’s staff is the bearer of both beauty and nourishment, because we read of it:

“the staff of Aaron, of the house of Levi, had sprouted and put forth buds, had produced blossoms and yielded ripe almonds” (Numbers 17:8).

I understand those blossoms to indicate the rhetorical skill in which the Gospel is conveyed. Aaron’s staff is not employed to hit people over the head, but to attract their adherence by the beauty of the Gospel and the sweetness of conscientious persuasion. It is the preacher’s task to attract his hearers to conviction. The Lord compares His Word to honey, after all. So, wrote Gregory the Theologian, the preacher does not use force or violence, but the lure of wisdom.

The ripe almonds on Aaron’s rod I take to mean the spiritual nourishment provided by pastoral preaching. If the content of the sermon really is the Word of God, then it really will be that by which man lives. It will accomplish what God has promised with respect to His Word:

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, / And do not return there, / But water the earth, / And make it bring forth and bud, / That it may give seed to the sower / And bread to the eater, / So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; / It shall not return to Me void, / But it shall accomplish what I please, / And it shall prosper in that for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:1-11).

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of  Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, the Lord’s first words presented him with a challenge:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a person is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

The Greek adverb translated here as “anew” is another, which is deliberately ambivalent. Literally it means “from above,” but this expression may be taken in two ways: It can mean “from on high” or “from the top.” If the latter sense is understood, the meaning is “anew” or “again.” (One thinks of our English idiom, “let’s take it again from the top.”) That is to say, there are two aspects to this birth: It is new, and it is from on high. Very early John’s gospel had spoken of this rebirth: Read more

A continuation of last week’s Pastoral Pondering on Apologetics,  for Sunday, June 21 2009.

I have suggested that the discipline of apologetics, the reasoned defense of the Christian faith, is sometimes troublesome to the pursuit of theology. It seems to me that the history of soteriology, the theology of salvation, manifests a singular case in point.

When it starts from apologetics, soteriology is somewhat compelled to commence outside itself, to begin with the state of not-being-saved. Apologetics obliges soteriology to inquire, “From what are we saved?” The answer, of course, is “sin.” Read more

One of Father Pat’s Recent Pastoral Ponderings, this one for June 14, 2009: All Saints Sunday

An important part of the proclamation of the Christian faith to the world is, of course, a proper defense of that faith. We are not surprised, therefore, that this defensive ministry, called “apologetics,” is very much in evidence in our records of the apostolic preaching to those outside the faith. The Apostle Paul, for instance, wrote of his “defense [apologia] and confirmation of the gospel” (Philippians 1:7).

Paul illustrated such a defense when given opportunity to address a Jewish mob gathered near the temple. He began by declaring, “Brethren and fathers, hear my defense [apologia] before you now” (Acts 22:1; cf. 25:16), and then he went on to argue for the truth of the Gospel. Read more