The Rambling Disciple

With the world being swept by the corona-virus a whole lot of people have been confined to their homes for the time being. I pray that this ends swiftly and life can continue on normally. However, this newfound solitude does give us an opportunity to slow down a bit. I've seen many say they are going to try and start reading some more during this time. To help with this I've put together a list of some books I'd recommend if you are looking to read something that will help with spiritual growth and formation (besides the Bible, of course). 1. The Confessions of St. Augustine  by St. Augustine I cannot recommend The Confessions  enough to people. St. Augustine is one of the premiere Christian thinkers in all of history, and The Confessions  are his autobiography of how he came to the faith. It is beautifully written and I think many of us are able to identify with his struggles and stark self-reflection. 2. Discipleship  by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonho...

While the Pharisees and Sadducees were generally limited to the religious class, there was another significant group within first century Judaism that wasn’t primarily theological; the Zealots. While the term “zealot” can technically be applied to anyone who is an extremist of their group, here it refers to something specific. The Zealots were the rebels of their day.              For the Zealots, the greatest enemy on the planet was the Roman Empire. Their entire life was devoted to the overthrow Roman rule and the independence of Israel, usually by any means necessary. This meant kidnappings, uprisings, murder, and more. Zealots hunted down Roman officers, politicians, and soldiers. They considered anyone who collaborated with the Romans an enemy (tax collectors, for example) and therefore fair game. In modern terms we would call them terrorists.             ...

After the Pharisees the next best-known group of the first century Jewish world is the Sadducees. While not mentioned nearly as often as the Pharisees, the Sadducees were actually more numerous in Jerusalem and Judea. The Sadducees were the upper class, the elite. They held, by far, the most seats on the Sanhedrin (the Jewish ruling council) and were by and large the group that most of the priests were members of. To put it simply, the Temple was their domain and they ruled it with an iron fist.             The Sadducees were not like the Pharisees. If we were to call the Pharisees “legalists” the Sadducees were the opposite. They chose to acknowledge only the parts of the Old Testament they liked as Scripture. They ran the Temple. They made obscene amounts of money from running the Temple. So long as the Jews of the world kept bringing their money and sacrifices to the Temple, the Sadducees were happy. They didn’t particularl...

The best-known sect of first century Judaism today are the Pharisees. We see them frequently throughout the Gospels as they question and oppose Jesus seemingly everywhere he goes. I think we often get the impression that the Pharisees represent the entirety of first century Jewish thought and theology, but in truth they only comprised roughly 10% of the Jewish world. The Pharisees were purists above all else. They believed in a strict devotion to the Law of Moses and that all Jews should obey it to the letter. They despised what they saw as the current corruption of the Temple and the priesthood, emphasizing personal obedience to the Law above meeting the requirements of the Temple. They were looking for a Messiah who would cleanse the Temple, restore the authority of the Law of Moses, and bring about a golden age of Judah.             This purity of devotion to the Law was why the Pharisees were so against Gentiles and “s...