Hello!

Hello everyone!

I am going to come out front and say this: I am an Orthodox Christian and, yet, have been a fan of SermonIndex for quite some time. There's a lot of great content here. I've also lurked in this forum.

To be honest, Francis Chan's recent comments had me thinking you know what, I'm going to go and check this out a bit more. Hence I've registered!

I'm not a priest nor any other teaching authority in the Orthodox Church, but I am always happy to share my faith, as I'm sure so many of you are and Pastor Gordon.

May all of you and this ministry be blessed, and may we all grow in our walk with Christ. Great to be here!

Welcome to the forum, HaveMercy!

May the Lord speak to you through this forum. I'm actually open to Eastern Orthodox Theology. From what I've heard, many of the Desert Fathers had an influence on Eastern Christianity. One of my favourite doctrines of the Orthodox Church is the doctrine of Theosis! - "God becoming man so that man can become God."

Of course that's a very nuanced statement from some of the Early Church Fathers, but it is to become Christ in His nature and character. It does not mean people bow down and worship us. For Protestants, that's another way of saying santification leading to glorification. "To become like Christ" or "partake of His divine nature" - 2 Peter 1:4, Romans 8:28-30. I guess the beauty of Christianity at large is that we use different terms to describe the same process!

I hope you will find all the answers you need here, friend. It's wonderful to have you on this forum.

Your Servant in Jesus' Name,

- Michael Liao

Thank you for the welcome Michael! As you know that quote is from Athanasius of Alexandria, a wonderful early church father who I believe Pastor Gordon has mentioned on more than a few occasions, and his work is even in audiobook format on SermonIndex!

The desert fathers were very much at the heart of the development of Eastern Christianity. My academic studies of theology have led me to understand that there is a long tradition that is unbroken, but also often unwritten, that threads through the history of the Eastern Church in particular. This treasury is preserved in our monasteries, who are so much a part of the life of the Orthodox Church. For more reading on this subject, I would encourage anyone to look at "Saint Silouan the Athonite" by Saint Sophrony of Essex.

Another great resource if you are interested in the desert fathers is to check out something called The Evergetinos. These are the entire collected sayings of the desert fathers, and there's a lot of them: I have a four volume set that must total 2,500 pages!

https://www.ctosonline.org/patristic/EvCT.html

Some, but not all of this, is available online in English. I believe all of it is available freely in Greek, here may be a starting point if you can read Greek: https://archive.org/details/Evergetinos

Thank you again for the warm welcome brother!