Scripture, Prophecy, and Knowledge of Christ in Origen

This chapter examines why Origen focuses closely on Christ and what it means for understanding prophecy. It argues that Origen’s focus on Christ can be understood as a response to the challenges of Marcionism. Earlier chapters examined somatic prophecy: that is to say, predictions of the future. Early Christian writers interpreted Old Testament prophecies as predictions of Christ, and doing so was an important anti-Marcionite strategy. However, christological prophecies were not only read in a somatic sense, that is, as predictions of Christ’s incarnate life. Many verses in the Bible were also read as pneumatic prophecies of Christ not as an incarnate human in time, but as the second person of the Trinity, outside time. As Origen claims, prophecies of this kind can ‘teach much theology’, functioning as pneumatic revelations of Christ as Logos and of God’s triune being. In answering the Marcionites’ claims that Old Testament prophecies were unreliable, Origen had to formulate positions on scripture’s epistemological status and also on how scripture relates to knowledge of God. This chapter therefore examines both Origen’s explicit response to the Marcionites, but also his notions of time, inspiration, and revelation, and examines a case study of John the Baptist as a prophet who unites the three senses of prophecy. It concludes that Christ is at the centre of Origen’s thought about prophecy, as the ultimate content of all somatic, psychic, and pneumatic prophecy.

Membentengi Pemuda Gereja dari Ajaran Guru Palsu Melalui Pemahaman 2 Petrus 3:3

Based on 2 Peter 3: 3 latter-day life is the appearance of mockers called false teachers carrying false teachings, namely denying Jesus as a savior, turning the day of the Lord or the day of the second coming of Jesus, and rejecting the Word of God. The lives of these false teachers only follow the passions. Adultery, obscene, all of it to blaspheme the glory of God. To fortify youth in dealing with heresies and living according to lust is to provide proper teaching and formation on the knowledge of Christ in 2 Peter 1: 5-7. The growth of true faith, namely to the faith of virtue, to the virtue of knowledge, to the knowledge of self-mastery, to the mastery of perseverance, to the perseverance of godliness, to the piety of love for you, to your love for all people. Where this love does not demand reciprocity, this love is the love that is willing to sacrifice for the people it loves. With the right knowledge of Jesus, it will be difficult for young people to influence teachings that are not true.Kehidupan zaman akhir berdasar 2 Petrus 3:3 adalah tampilnya pengejek-pengejek yang di sebut guru palsu membawa ajaran sesat, yaitu menyangkal Yesus sebagai juruselamat, memutarbalikan hari Tuhan atau hari kedatangan Yesus yang kedua kalinya, dan menolak Firman Allah. Kehidupan guru-guru palsu ini hanya mengikuti hawa nafsu. Nafsu zinah, cabul, semuanya itu kepada menghujat kemuliaan Allah. Untuk membentengi pemuda dalam menghadapi ajaran-ajaran sesat dan kehidupan menuruti hawa nafsu adalah dengan memberi pengajaran dan pembinaan yang tepat tentang pengenalan akan Kristus dalam 2 Petrus 1:5-7. Adanya pertumbuhan iman yang benar, yaitu kepada iman kebajikan, kepada kebajikan pengetahuan, kepada pengetahuan penguasaan diri, kepada penguasaan diri ketekunan, kepada ketekunan kesalehan, kepada kesalehan kasih akan saudara, kepada kasih saudara kasih semua orang. Di mana kasih ini tidak menuntut balasan, kasih ini adalah kasih rela berkorban bagi sesama yang dikasihinya. Dengan pengenalan yang benar akan Yesus , maka pemuda akan sulit di pengaruhi ajaran yang tidak benar.

F.M. Dostoevsky, Author of A Writer’s Diary, in the Reactions of 1873-1874 Periodicals (Based on the Materials of the Manuscript Department at the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature)

The article analyses the reaction of the press to the publication of A Writer’s Diary in 1873. It aims to answer the question of why leading daily newspapers such as Golos, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, Birzhevye Vedomosti, Novoye Vremya, did not accept and negatively evaluated Dostoevsky’s work as columnist and editor of the Grazhdanin. Dostoevsky returned to the newspaper business with a new genre, and from the very beginning of A Writer's Diary he declares his unlimited freedom of choice about the topics and format of his conversations with the reader. This fact immediately distinguished him from other columnists, who usually followed the standards of the feuilleton (a genre normally dedicated to the latest news), and strictly obeyed their editorial policies, constantly taking into account the publisher’s “wishes”. Columnists from leading newspapers in 1873–1874 could not find similarities between their work and Dostoevsky’s, between his method of describing reality and theirs, and so they neither could nor wanted to see the author’s novelty and originality that went beyond the established newspaper practice, to be surprised by the courage and innovation of his Writer’s Diary. Instead, most of the journalists (Lev Panyutin, Arkady Kovner, Mikhail Wilde and others) chose to be “critical” and – using irony, satirical attacks, sarcastic comments mockingly sought to undermine Dostoevsky’s authority as a columnist and discredit the values that he put above all in A Writer's Diary in 1873 (a “heartfelt” knowledge of Christ, the purification through suffering, the preservation of a relationship with the people). The article attempts to trace the development of this controversy and the factors that influenced its contents.

F.M. Dostoevsky, Author of A Writer’s Diary, in the Reactions of 1873-1874 Periodicals (Based on the Materials of the Manuscript Department at the Vladimir Dahl State Museum of the History of Russian Literature)

The article analyses the reaction of the press to the publication of A Writer’s Diary in 1873. It aims to answer the question of why leading daily newspapers such as Golos, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, Birzhevye Vedomosti, Novoye Vremya, did not accept and negatively evaluated Dostoevsky’s work as columnist and editor of the Grazhdanin. Dostoevsky returned to the newspaper business with a new genre, and from the very beginning of A Writer's Diary he declares his unlimited freedom of choice about the topics and format of his conversations with the reader. This fact immediately distinguished him from other columnists, who usually followed the standards of the feuilleton (a genre normally dedicated to the latest news), and strictly obeyed their editorial policies, constantly taking into account the publisher’s “wishes”. Columnists from leading newspapers in 1873–1874 could not find similarities between their work and Dostoevsky’s, between his method of describing reality and theirs, and so they neither could nor wanted to see the author’s novelty and originality that went beyond the established newspaper practice, to be surprised by the courage and innovation of his Writer’s Diary. Instead, most of the journalists (Lev Panyutin, Arkady Kovner, Mikhail Wilde and others) chose to be “critical” and – using irony, satirical attacks, sarcastic comments mockingly sought to undermine Dostoevsky’s authority as a columnist and discredit the values that he put above all in A Writer's Diary in 1873 (a “heartfelt” knowledge of Christ, the purification through suffering, the preservation of a relationship with the people). The article attempts to trace the development of this controversy and the factors that influenced its contents.

De Geest van Christus

With good reason John Calvin has been called the theologian of the Holy Spirit. His dealings with the work of the Spirit were mostly aimed at giving spiritual guidance. Exactly that motif brought him into polemics. The work of the Spirit is first of all soteriological. The Spirit of Christ brings a sinner into a saving union with Christ. Calvin’s thinking on the Spirit can clearly be discerned in his polemics with Roman Catholic doctrine, with the Anabaptists, and with Luther. Over against Rome Calvin emphasizes that it is not the power of the church that confers salvation, but that God’s Spirit is always the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Word. That becomes visible in the church, but it does not make the church the author of salvation! Over against the Anabaptists Calvin stresses faith. Faith is knowing and trusting Christ in a personal relationship. This implies experience, but it is always a relationship of faith, with its ground outside ourselves, in Christ. Genuine faith, therefore, cannot be measured by someone’s extraordinary experiences, but by a living knowledge of Christ. Luther was inclined to include the work of the Spirit in the Word of God, and in Calvin’s view this detracted from the freedom of the Spirit to, not automatically, make use of the Word. Some attention is paid to Calvin’s thinking about spiritual gifts. Seeing that here he did not clearly stick to his conviction on the close bond between Spirit and Word, it helps us to realise that Calvin was human - not infallible ... The Holy Spirit being the Spirit of faith, the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Word, however, remains important for the church in our age.

The problem of the human in theological anthropology: Reading Jürgen Moltmann’s christology with intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance

Jürgen Moltmann’s christology takes embodied life as the point of departure for knowledge of Christ. For Moltmann, christology is not primarily about the history of creeds, christology is christopraxis. That emphasis helps to prevent the problems of abstract theological doctrines that avoid the concrete and enable theological justification of politically oppressive ideology. Dietrich Bonhoeffer also argued for a social understanding of christology, which takes priority over creeds as guide for Christian life. Both of these German thinkers represent a theological engagement with the forces that Harlem Renaissance intellectuals name and address in their work to recalibrate humanity from false, harmful abstractions, towards real embodied life.