Forging Ploughshares

Jordan Wood, in part two of a three part series on Maximus' Mystagogia, describes the paradoxical relationship between church and world, soul and body, idealism and realism, the apophatic and catapha…

In Romans 13:1, it was under the darkest of circumstances that Paul outlined the responsibility of Christians to the state. In light of the fact that Jesus has been slain and Paul himself will shortl…

Jordan Wood introduces the alternative logic of the incarnation in which the symbol is the symbolized, and usual modes of ordering cause and effect and time and eternity, the apophatic and cataphatic…

The two on the Road to Emmaus, illustrate that the embodied, the fleshly, the historical, the scriptural is inadequate in recognizing Christ. To be stuck with the literal, which describes this theolo…

Jordan Wood answers a series of questions concerning how Christ is to be conceived in regard to hierarchy, lower and higher, cause and effect, and Jordan depicts his embrace and occupation of the ins…

Christ precedes and makes possible the fact of Scripture, both in its writing and formation, but also in the continuing reading and exegesis of Scripture. This fact is the unifying center of the fait…

In this discussion of Maximus' paradoxical view of the space and time bending elements of the Word/Scripture as the continuation of incarnation, Scripture is set in the context of Christ as Word - th…

This sermon on coming to Christ outside the city (Hebrews 13:12-14) traces the inevitable collapse of every civilization, and the attempt of Republican politicians such as JD Vance, Josh Hawley, and …

Maximus, unlike N. T. Wright or Peter Enns but like Origen and the Apostles, equates Scripture with the body, soul, and spirit of Christ, treating the inspiration of Scripture as continuing to occur …

The logic of Christ defeats the necessary logic surrounding death, in which  life is fragmented and sequential in its beginning and end, but Christ's defeat of death introduces an order in which life…

In this conclusion to part 4, Jordan takes on the scholastic notion that creation and incarnation are not a necessity, suggesting that such a notion leaves us with no particular understanding of God …

The Gospel of John depicts a real world deliverance from fear, real world healing from sin and slavery, and this is captured in John's deployment of Passover and treatment of Isaiah and the Suffering…

The death of Christ encompasses all dying and the life of Christ encompasses all of life, so that every individual true beginning and end is to be found in Christ.

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Yom Kippur, the sacrifice of the Yahweh Goat and the sending of the Azazel Goat into the Abyss is the primary holy day for understanding the work of Christ. Clearly dividing and understanding the wor…

Jordan Daniel Wood explains how Maximus' notion of the end is the beginning constitutes an understanding of salvation that encompasses and goes beyond legal understandings or ideas of Christus Victor…

Christ connects to himself a long anti-sacrificial tradition in the prophets, connecting sacrifice with disobedience and violence, and not instituted by God. Christ sees himself as exposing the histo…

In this repeat episode, Ryan Hemmer explains the significance of Paul Ricoeur, René Girard, and Sigmund Freud, in regard to the role of culture. What role for evil and desire or goodness and deity in…

In Galatians, Paul explains that Christians are to read the law allegorically for their edification and to cling to the law for interpreting Christ is to continue to be enslaved by the elementary pri…

Here is a repeat of an earlier podcast on Girard and Peter Berger. Jonathan, Matt, Brian, Brent, and Paul discuss Ephesians 4-5 and the singular lie exposed by Christ creating entry into love. The fu…

Joy is integral to the Christian life as described by Peter, commanded by Paul, and as defined by love and mutual indwelling by Dionysius and Maximus, who describe this joy and love as ecstatic longi…