Sunday, March 30, 2014

If the Fathers of the Church Were Alive Today, 1: Origen of Alexandria

As a thought experiment I have attempted to imagine what it would like if the Church Fathers and other Ancient Christian Writers were acting and writing in the context of 21st century North American Christianity. I will add installments in the series from time to time as inspiration strikes. 

1. Origen of Alexandria


                                       Pastor Origen and Judy

They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless. -Revelations 14:4b-5, NIV

Now I know that you folks want to know what the Bible is telling us about these first fruits. Fruits are the results of our activity. Now our whole activity is devoted to God, and so is our whole life, since we are bent on progress in divine things.
But we don’t want just some of those first fruits  spoken of above which are made up of the many first fruits, we want ALL of those fruits, don’t we? So, if we’re right, in what must our first fruits consist, after the bodily separation we have undergone from each other, but in the study of the Gospel? For we may venture to say that the Gospel is the first fruits of all the Scriptures. So what are those first fruits? That’s right: a Bible Study. Where, then, could be the first fruits of our activity, since the time when Judy and I we came to Alexandria, but in the first fruits of the Scriptures?
It must not he forgotten, however, that the first fruits are not the same as the first growth. That’s why Judy and I started the First Growth Seminars as soon as we came to Alexandria. For the first fruits are offered after all the fruits are ripe, but before you have first fruits, you gotta have first growth. (For more information, visit firstgrowth.com)
Now of the Scriptures which are current and are believed to be divine in all the churches, one would not be wrong in saying that the first growth is the law of Moses, but the first fruits are the Gospel. Am I wrong? Now Judy says that I am wrong about a lot of things, so I have to ask!

For it was after all the fruits of the prophets who prophesied till the Lord Jesus, that the perfect word began to grow and send forth its shoots. Praise Him.