Crumbs from the Table

After decades of attacks on Rome by Germanic tribespeople from the East, in 476, Odoacer, a ruler Ostrogoth finally deposed the last Emperor of Rome, declaring himself “King”. The once all-powerful Roman Empire, at least the western half of it, was no more. Meanwhile, the eastern half of the Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, would survive and thrive until 1453. From this point onwards, west (Rome) and east (Constantinople) would follow divergent paths of development. What had been the western half of the Roman Empire was now ruled by peoples such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals and others. By the time they settled in the west, these peoples already professed a form of Christianity, but their Arian Christian faith denied the Trinity and viewed Christ merely as an exalted creature (see chapter V). The incoming “Barbarians” (uncivilised tribespeople, in the eyes of the Romans) occupied churches and, in some cases, persecuted the Nicene Christians (those who believed in the...

The Anglo-Saxons had been Christianised in the 500s and 600s by Irish missionaries from the north, and from Roman (and Frankish) missionaries from the south. Thus, these formerly pagan settlers from what is now Germany and the Netherlands came to profess Christ, and embraced the gospel.  This led, in the late 600s and into the 700s, to a missionary movement from what we would call England back to the ancestral homeland of the newly converted Anglo-Saxons. In other words, having themselves turned to worship the true and living God, the Anglo-Saxons had a desire to bring that same gospel to their ancestors still living on the continent of Europe.  Two names stand out among the many Anglo-Saxon missionaries.  The first is Willibrord . He hailed from Northumbria, and arrived in Frisia (Netherlands) in 690. He laboured among the Frisian people for many decades, and saw fruit from his labours, but also died a martyr's death, demonstrating the ongoing hostility to the gospel on ...

Halloween aside, today, 31 October, is Reformation Day.  This date commemorates the day when, in 1517, on the eve of All Saints Day, a young monk and theology lecturer, Martin Luther, according to the custom of the time, nailed 95 theses to the Cathedral door at Wittenberg, inviting debate.  The content of the 95 theses was, in some ways, not that subversive. For example, it begins by saying that repentance is not just about going to confession and performing the acts of penitence prescribed by the priest, but about heartfelt contrition and a life of repentance. However, Luther's actions in 1517 set in motion debate that eventually led, in 1521, to him and others being excluded from the Roman Catholic church and becoming a separate gospel church (German: Evangelisch ). Luther's "brand" of Reformation involved only minimal change to the outward appearance of churches, and focused on the internal message of the gospel, in particular the good news of justification by fai...

 A question often asked by new Christians is how God can be part of everyday life. Here is a list with some of my suggestions:  1. Life in prayer. Get into the habit of regular prayer. Make a time for daily prayer (often this will be first thing in the morning). Also get into the habit of responding in prayer throughout the day as you go about your daily business (James 5:13). All of our lives are lived "before God"; one Christian wrote about this as "practising the presence of God. Prayer is not only about presenting requests, but also about giving thanks and praising/worshipping God.  2. "Manna". Just as the children of Israel were fed in the wilderness with a daily provision of manna from heaven, so as Christians we need to feed on God's word on a daily basis. In my experience, this will involve focusing on a verse or word relevant for each day.  3. Household table. A recurring feature in the teaching of the Apostles (written down in our New Testament) i...

"One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself – creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over.” Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis

Starting in about 1100, the borderlands (the so-called Marches) to the east of the Holy Roman Empire, an area known as Germania Slavica , in part populated by Slavic peoples such as the Sorbs, were settled by Germans and other peoples. The process came to an end around the start of the 1300s. The Holy Roman Empire had previously extended as far as Magdeburg. Between 1000 and 1340, its population increased from 4 million to 11.4 million. Consequently, over the course of about 200 years, it extended eastwards into what would later be the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), into western Poland, and as far as the Baltic states. Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) was founded in 1286.   Key figures at the start of this process were Graf Adolf von Schauneburg (1143), and Markgraf Albrecht der Baer (r. 1123-1170). Approximately 200 thousand people moved into these lands in the 1200s, and a comparable number in the 1300s. The Ostsiedlung proceeded in phases, the third of which inclu...

α. Jerusalem (30 or 33 AD) The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ. 1. Ephesus (approx. 100 AD) The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus. 2. Athens (second century) The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe). 3. Lyon (from 177) The church in ...