The Original Church
Spirituality/Belief
The Original Church, with Dr. James L. Papandrea, is an ecumenical Christian community exploring our common roots in the early Church for the purposes of spiritual growth and practicing the Christian faith. No politics, debates, or proselytizing, just "faith seeking understanding" from the perspective of the early (and medieval) Church and the Church fathers. Jim Papandrea is an author and Professor of Church History and Historical Theology.
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What do we mean by Chronological?

In The Journey, we will be going through the four gospels concurrently - all four at the same time, reading parallel passages side by side. But here's the tricky part: No gospel writer ever claimed to be putting down the story in a strictly chronological order. The gospels are not, for the most part, chronological narratives, but they are anecdotal compilations of the things Jesus said and did. In other words, it's like the way you might tell people about your vacation - you don't start at the beginning and tell the whole story at once, beginning to end. You tell individual stories about things that happened, and one story reminds you of the next, even if they didn't happen one right after the other. For the gospels, the thread through them is theological and thematic, not strictly chronological. Of course there are things that happen at the beginning (Jesus' birth, baptism, temptation) and there are things that happen at the end (his passion, resurrection, post-resurrection appearances). But in between that, it's more thematic. Having said that, the closest thing we get to a chronological narrative is the Gospel of John, with a ministry that covers what appears to be 3 years, or going through 3 Passovers (the other gospels present the story in a kind of compressed form as if the whole story is Jesus on the way to Jerusalem for his passion).

So we are going to follow the rough chronology in the Gospel of John, putting the other gospel sections into the chronology where they would go in a "beginning-to-end" story, which means the stuff from Matthew, Mark, and Luke will often not come to us in the order they give it to us. But trust me, it will all make sense as a historical narrative. So a high level outline for the gospels will look something like this, and these are the sections we will follow through:

1) Prologue to Jesus' ministry (up through his temptation)
2) Year 1A: Galilee
3) Year 1A: Judea (ends with the arrest of John baptizer - Jesus leaves Judea)
4) Year 1B: Galilee
5) Year 1B: Judea (ends with the execution of John - Jesus leaves Judea)
6) Year 2: Galilee
7) Year 2: Judea (ends with Jesus finding out there's a price on his head, and - you guessed it - Jesus leaves Judea - it's not time for his passion yet)
8) Year 3: Jerusalem (including the passion, resurrection, etc.)

Down the road, when we finish the gospels, we will go through the book of Acts, interspersing the New Testament letters into the story chronologically, so we'll go through the rest of the NT (and beyond) chronologically by year, based on what we know about the early Church. And that's the plan!

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Sneak Peek into my NEW OFFICE!

I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:

00:02:17
In case you missed it, here's my Gospel Reflection

This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App

00:02:57
The Journey is BACK!

Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.

Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.

Enjoy!

00:36:42
Here's another song... Come Let Us Climb the Lord's Mountain

I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:

In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

I hope you like the song!

Here's another song... Come Let Us Climb the Lord's Mountain
THE JOURNEY 101

This is Part 6 of our mini-series on John Chapter 6

Here's the latest from The Way of the Fathers

The second episode on St. Hildegard of Bingen

Here is Episode 100 !! of The Journey

Something to celebrate! 100 Episodes! Here it is, Episode 100 (which is part 5 of the series on John, Chapter 6) - post comments and questions!

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