Christians of /lit/:How's your theological studies coming along?Here's what I've read this year as new Christian interested in Reformed doctrine. Prior to this I was only familiar with the views of a Restorationist church. I'll probably give Catholicism a fair shake next year, or the year following, but the Reformers and the Puritans have really set my heart aflame.What have you been reading?
>>25186481I really hope you read the bible front to back
>>25186484NT, and the Psalms twice, OT once.Using a Reformation Heritage KJV study Bible with Matthew Henry's commentaries this year.
>>25186481
>>25186494You could just suggest some works that support your understanding of scripture instead of posting boomer memes.
>>25186481>reformed
>>25186484Not true. All you need is love in order to be a Christian. Jesus was a Jew.
>>25186518While this is bait, retards out there do believe they can be christians without ever reading the word of god and that they can get into heaven with hearts full of hate
>>25186481I highly recommend Saint Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses. It's a good and accessible one. Saint Basil the Great's Be Attentive to Yourself and On Pagan Learning are also both short and good. In terms of higher level theology, I really like Saint Maximos the Confessor, and the anthology The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ is good or you could just go to the Centuries on Love and Centuries on Theology. Von Balthasar's book Cosmic Liturgy is a good companion here, although if you haven't studied any classical metaphysics it might be easier to start with something like Perl's Thinking Being (even though this is sort of off track at first, but it becomes essential to understanding the epistemology and metaphysics of the early and medieval church).In terms of the spiritual life, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the Life of Saint Anthony are a good starting point. I really like the Ladder or Divine Ascent, Evagrios, and Saint John Cassian's Conferences, but it depends on what you're interested in. Saint Isaac of Nineveh and Saint Theresa of Avila are other greats in the space of the spiritual life.Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's On Loving God is another favorite of mine.Dante's Commedia is also underrated as a spiritual text, although you really need to go through the notes in depth if not some secondary sources to grasp it (definitely NOT stopping at the Inferno, as modern audiences often do, which leads to totally missing the point). Depends on if it suits you. Musa's notes I've found the best of all the English translations on it and the Great Courses and Modern Scholar lectures on it are good background.
>>25186576Also, one that usually gets missed>From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop >Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God>If you say, “Show me your God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God.” Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear. It is like this. Those who can see with the eyes of their bodies are aware of what is happening in this life on earth. They get to know things that are different from each other. They distinguish light and darkness, black and white, ugliness and beauty, elegance and inelegance, proportion and lack of proportion, excess and defect. The same is true of the sounds we hear: high or low or pleasant. So it is with the ears of our heart and the eyes of our mind in their capacity to hear or see God.>God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open. All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun. Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine. The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes. In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds.> A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light. If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot be seen in it. In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God. >But if you will you can be healed. Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart. Who is to be the doctor? It is God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom. Through his Word and wisdom he created the universe, for by his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their array. His wisdom is supreme. God by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he arranged the heavens, by his knowledge the depths broke forth and the clouds poured out the dew.>If you understand this, and live in purity and holiness and justice, you may see God. But, before all, faith and the fear of God must take the first place in your heart, and then you will understand all this. When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits. God raises up your flesh to immortality along with your soul, and then, once made immortal, you will see the immortal One, if you believe in him now.
>>25186523The Mafia.
>>25186481Follow this 'stack and 'cast if you don't already brother. God bless.https://fiatiustitia.substack.com/https://www.patreon.com/gloryofkingz
>>25186621What's this, gnostic schizophrenia?
>>25186630Excuse me?
>>25186631I visited the substack, looked at the about page, and assumed it was gnostic schizo-posting. Is it?
>>25186637No, he's a Reformed Protestant. I'd advise you stop using buzzwords to dismiss things you cannot easily and immediately assimilate.
>>25186637I saw anime, pizzagate posts and something about Hamilton's economic views.. the vague quotation about hidden knowledge made me think it was a gnostic writer. I didn't realize it was Reformed schizophrenia sorry
The successors to the Apostles writing in the first three generations after are particularly worth noting:For instance, Saint Ignatius or Antioch, taught by Saint John and appointed by Saint Peter:>Certain people ignorantly deny [Jesus], or rather have been denied by him, for they are advocated of death rather than of the truth. . . Now note well those who hold heretical opinions about the grace of Jesus Christ that came to us; note how contrary they are to the mind of God. They have no concern for love, none for the widow, none for the orphan, none for the oppressed, none for the prisoner or the one released, none for the hungry or thirsty. They abstain from Eucharist and prayer because they refuse to acknowledge the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 5:1, 6:2)Or Saint Ireneus, a student of Saint Polycarp who was a student of Saint John:>Directing His disciples to offer God the first-fruits of His own creation—not because He stood in need of them, but that they themselves might be neither unfruitful nor ungrateful—He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt 26:26]. And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant. This the Church has received from the Apostles, and offers now to God throughout all the world. . . >Then how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the Body of the Lord and with His Blood, goes to corruption and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly, so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity (Against Heresies 4.18.5).Or as Saint Paul writes:> Is the cup of blessing which we bless not a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is the bread which we break not a sharing in the body of Christ? (I Corinthians 10:16) >"...Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord... For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself”
>>25186481Somewhat unrelated but pilgrim's progress is so comically bad. Besides the awkward allegories its just oddly petty and malicious at times. the whole book reads like 'And he came upon a fork in the road, one leading to a dark swamp that said DO BAD, and one towards a meadow with sunshine and puppies that said DO GOOD. One hapless fellow was tempted by a dragon called SIN to the path of DO BAD. A lady in white called CONSCIENCE came by and pointed to DO GOOD. She showed the hapless fellow now burns in hell forever and we should not feel bad.'
>>25186647You are unjustifiably smug
>>25187217I thought it had a certain sort of charm to it, but I agree. It is a very far cry from Paradise Lost or the Faerie Queene, let alone the Commedia.
>>25186621>slopstack Platform for halfwits larping as pseudointellectuals
Reading the appendixes for the EOB NT on and off. I think there may be more notes here than the actual New Testament.
>>25186481Read Gordon H Clark
