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This order of worship was adopted and practiced by the early church: The Greeting – a more formal, biblical greeting or salutation. A Response – the attendees would respond, often with a Scripture that was recited in unison or chanted. Readings and Psalmody – Several passages of Scriptures would be read or chanted, interspersed with a responsive singing or chanting of a Psalm. Psalms – the Psalms, considered God’s hymnal, were sung or chanted, most of the time without instruments. Message – an elder, rabbi or teacher would interpret and explain the relevant meaning of the Scripture(s) that were read....

“I didn’t know that for the first 1,500 years of church history, everyone saw it as the literal body and blood of Christ and it wasn’t until 500 years ago that someone popularised the thought that it’s just a symbol and nothing more. I didn’t know that. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s something to consider.’” “For 1500 years it was never one guy and his pulpit being the centre of the church, it was the body and blood of Christ…” Despite what some bloggers and YouTubers are claiming, I don’t think we can say from this video and short clip alone...

Leo XIV defended the traditional family, unborn babies and the elderly – and that’s great. After American Cardinal Robert Prevost, who made most of his ecclesiastical career as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, was chosen to sit in St. Peter’s throne as Leo XIV, a question has reverberated across the world: is the new Pope woke? Seasoned conservative figures like Steve Bannon perceived the new Pope’s election as a liberal ‘coup’ to continue Pope Francis campaign to destroy the church – Bannon even equated it to the 2020 election steal. Prevost’s brother, on the other hand, has repeatedly stated that...

With the election of a new pope, some have reexamined an alleged prophecy by a 12th century Irish saint who predicted the number of popes before the end of the world. Saint Malachy of Armagh, a Roman Catholic bishop who died in 1148, reportedly had a vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he claimed to have learned the exact number of popes who would reign from his time until Judgment Day. Interest in the purported prophecy was high in 2013 with the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, as the prophecy indicated that the pontiff after him — which...

(Hymn at the link.) With everyone so urgent about who is Pope Leo XIV, we may want to pull back and think about who he will seem to be in a year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, after his death, after the next Pope. When God sends the people a scourge because they dispise his blessings, and they are trying to understand why bad things are happening to supposedly good people, you can't just look at the punishment, you need to examine those who are the punished. The punishment for our faithlessness was a Dictator Pope who deliberately promoted...

Pastoring a church in Johannesburg, South Africa, I hear this complaint periodically. Crudely put, Christianity is the white man’s religion and has no place amongst true Africans. In an era where forming an African identity aside from Colonialism is high on people’s agenda, it’s a compelling argument to some. Except that it’s not true. For Christianity was present in Africa 1000 years before the first European Colonialists arrived on African shores. You may be familiar with the strong base for Christianity established in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1st century. Eusebius even wrote that the Gospel writer, Mark, came to Alexandria...

This may have been one of the most tumultuous papal conclaves in recent memory, with the cardinals of the Roman Church settling on what appears to be a unifying Pope, Leo XIV. It is remarkable that Robert Prevost, an American, became Pope. It long had been held that an American could never become Pope. But Vatican sources, who are impeccable, tell Newsmax he was the man to beat from the minute the conclave began. Here's what unfolded. This conclave started last Wednesday with secret meetings in the Sistine Chapel. But the discussions about replacing Francis began almost immediately after his...

Religious people (whether it be the Jews of Christ’s day or the Christians of our own) are keenly aware of sin—often, this is what drives us to religion in the first place—but we often have a nasty habit of seeing sin more clearly in others than in ourselves. We heap curses and hellfire upon the prostitutes and tax collectors of our time, without giving serious consideration to the prostitutes and tax collectors of our own hearts. Prostitutes and tax collectors had one thing in common: they could not hide the fact that they were sinners. Everyone would notice the callers...

48 minutes of assurance, re-assurance or conviction.

An American Pope Leo 14th

The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself in Christlike garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The papacy that Protestants are now so ready to honor is the same that ruled the world in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood up, at the peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity. She possesses the same pride...

Immediately prior to a Papal Conclave seems like the absolute best time to break out the Liber Pontificalis – that fascinating, frustrating, and enigmatic work of Late Antiquity that purports to provide a brief biographical sketch of each of the first 65 Popes of Rome. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I have read the Liber cover to cover, not including the dozens of times I’ve referenced individual accounts for research purposes, posts, comments, etc. Admittedly, the text is littered with errors: some obvious, others requiring a PhD in Patristics to spot. Thankfully, the version I most commonly...

The church's claim to the right to pardon leads the Romanist to feel at liberty to sin; and the ordinance of confession, without which her pardon is not granted, tends also to give license to evil. He who kneels before fallen man, and opens in confession the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart, is debasing his manhood and degrading every noble instinct of his soul. In unfolding the sins of his life to a priest,—an erring, sinful mortal, and too often corrupted with wine and licentiousness,—his standard of character is lowered, and he is defiled in consequence. His thought...

Have these persons forgotten the claim of infallibility put forth for eight hundred years by this haughty power? So far from being relinquished, this claim was affirmed in the nineteenth century with greater positiveness than ever before. As Rome asserts that the “church never erred; nor will it, according to the Scriptures, ever err” (John L. von Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, book 3, century II, part 2, chapter 2, section 9, note 17), how can she renounce the principles which governed her course in past ages? The papal church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she...

Even his enemies were struck with his heroic bearing. A zealous papist, describing the martyrdom of Huss, and of Jerome, who died soon after, said: “Both bore themselves with constant mind when their last hour approached. They prepared for the fire as if they were going to a marriage feast. They uttered no cry of pain. When the flames rose, they began to sing hymns; and scarce could the vehemency of the fire stop their singing.”—Ibid., b. 3, ch. 7. When the body of Huss had been wholly consumed, his ashes, with the soil upon which they rested, were gathered...

But blackest in the black catalogue of crime, most horrible among the fiendish deeds of all the dreadful centuries, was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The world still recalls with shuddering horror the scenes of that most cowardly and cruel onslaught. The king of France, urged on by Romish priests and prelates, lent his sanction to the dreadful work. A bell, tolling at dead of night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by thousands, sleeping quietly in their homes, trusting to the plighted honor of their king, were dragged forth without a warning and murdered in cold blood.

The ruling marks the latest chapter in a long-standing dispute between Russia and the Orthodox Russian Cultural Association (ACOR) of Nice, which has maintained these sites for nearly a century. A major legal ruling in Nice has shifted the balance of power over key Russian heritage sites. The Court of Appeals of Aix-en-Provence recently awarded the ownership of two iconic properties—The Russian Orthodox Church on Rue Longchamp and the Russian Cemetery of Caucade to the Russian Federation, reports Nice Matin. The Fight Over Longchamp Church Alexis Obolensky, president of ACOR, has spent decades safeguarding these historic sites. His organization, founded...

In the biblical stories of barren women, maternity is further complicated in order to heighten the drama of the arrival of the promised son, emphasizing the divine role in conception and birth. In the case of the patriarchal stories in Genesis, the matriarchs’ barrenness emphasizes that it is God who disrupts continuity, in the transition from one generation to the next, and then selects the true heir to the covenant… There are six barren women in the Bible: three of the four matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel) in Genesis; Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 1-2); the anonymous...

(OPINION) A self-proclaimed prophet, Brandon Dale Biggs, a pastor hailing from Oklahoma, has made headlines with his latest revelation following his prediction of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. In a series of prophetic visions that he claims began in 2014, Biggs alleges that God unveiled to him a striking image of the next pope standing alongside the Antichrist, a figure often depicted in biblical texts as both charismatic and treacherous, signaling what he interprets as the onset of the apocalyptic end times. With the recent passing of Pope Francis on Easter Monday at the age of 88, Biggs feels...

As the Church mourns the passing of Pope Francis, attention turns to the solemn and sacred task that lies ahead: the selection of his successor. That process is called the conclave — an ancient method of discernment that has changed little over the past 800 years. It begins in earnest once the seat of Peter is vacant, whether by death or resignation. The name “conclave” comes from the Latin cum clave, meaning “with a key” — a reference to the tradition of locking the doors during the voting process. The period following a pope’s death is marked by prayer, reflection,...