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Our Life in Christ
Our Life In Christ brings you the orthodox Christian faith as recorded in Scripture, taught and practiced by the early Fathers of the Church, and preserved within the spiritual life of the Orthodox Christian Churches around the world.
Join program hosts Steven Robinson and Bill Gould for an hour of insightful discussion about Orthodox Christian faith and practice. We record the program in Steve’s basement lair, and distribute it here as a podcast, broadcast it on Ancient Faith Radio, and archive it on Our Life in Christ’s website.
For more information about Our Life in Christ, visit OurLifeinChrist.com.
Visit our Program Listings page to see when this podcast will be broadcast on Ancient Faith Talk.
Programs
The Prayer of St. Ephraim - ChastityMarch 28, 2006
St. Ephraim begins the second half of his great prayer "Give rather a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Thy servant." Asking God to take our sinful passions away is followed by a petition to give us virtue - chastity being first in the order. In the Fathers, and especially St. John Climacus, we find that the virtues - which are in truth the energies of the Holy Spirit - act in our heart and are active through us through the deeds of the body surrendered to Christ. And chastity, rather than being limited to some quaint notion of sexual purity (true enough), is the virtue of wholeness in Christ which enables us to fight the passions fervently.
The Prayer of St. Ephraim - Lust for Power and Idle TalkMarch 23, 2006
We continue our discussion of the famous Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian and his plea for God to remove from him the "lust for power" and "idle talk". As is made clear from the sayings of the Fathers cited here, these sins are so well-rooted in our normal, everyday lives that raising our self-awareness regarding how and how often we commit them is a significant Lenten undertaking.
Lent: The Prayer of St. EphraimMarch 17, 2006
We continue our discussion of Great Lent by reviewing, with many quotes from the Church Fathers, the famous Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian that is used during all the weekday services. Writing in the 4th Century, St. Ephraim's hymnography captures the Spirit of the Lenten Season and has been a vital standard for the Orthodox Church ever since. In its simplicity and penetrating quality we learn that we are at once helpless and in need of God's grace to overcome our sinful nature, and yet must also pursue repentance and the virtues in faith continually - to be both emptied and filled.
The Purpose of LentMarch 08, 2006
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, faintheartedness, lust for power and idle talk.
-Lenten Prayer, St. Ephraim the Syrian
The Lenten Season, or the Great Fast as the Church calls it, comes each year as part of the Paschal celebration. It is a forty day fast, a time of preparation during which we come face to face with ourselves in the light of extraordinary prayers and insights into our spiritual condition, given as only the Orthodox Tradition is able. Here we discuss Lent, the school of repentance and what God intends for us by it.
The FilioqueMarch 02, 2006
The addition and acceptance of three words - and the Son (filioque in Latin) - to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith (Creed) in the Western Church, and then finally by the Roman See, changed the course of Church and human history. It is often seen as the primordial cause of the dogmatic schism that separated the West from the East a thousand years ago. Here we attempt to unpack the origin and significance of the filioque, and why the Eastern Orthodox Church views it as an assault on the historical doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
Rome, Petrine Doctrine and the Orthodox TraditionFebruary 23, 2006
Continuing with our discussion about Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, we turn to the question of what happened to the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in the first centuries following the death of the Apostles, and specifically the relationship between the Eastern Churches and the Church at Rome. Contrasting the Petrine Doctrine and the conduct of Roman Bishops with that of the Eastern Bishops through the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the first millenium, we find that the collegial model was maintained as it had begun in Acts 15, and that Rome, despite certain attempts to exert universal authority over the Churches, was subject to the Councils and their declarations.
Answering Objections to Apostolic SuccessionFebruary 08, 2006
We continue our discussion of apostolic succession by examining some common objections given by Protestants - found in a sermon outline published on Calvin College's CCEL Historical Church document site. It becomes clear that for Protestants, reaction against apostolic succession is not based on solid Biblical or historical grounds, but rather on the need to question and reject the authority of Rome (papal and magisterial) and its excesses, which are not necessarily a part of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.