Bible topics
Leer en españolWhat Scripture says on key subjects, verse by verse, with witnesses from the Church Fathers.
What does Scripture say about apostolic succession and bishops?
The apostles did not leave the Church without shepherds. The New Testament shows them appointing elders and overseers, laying hands on successors and charging them to hand on what they had received. The Orthodox Church u
What does Scripture say about Baptism?
Christ commanded His apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church teaches that in Baptism we die and rise with Christ, are washed f
What does Scripture say about Confession and repentance?
Repentance (metanoia, a change of mind and life) is the first word of the Gospel and the ongoing path of every Christian. The Orthodox Church offers the Mystery of Confession, in which a believer confesses sins before Go
What does Scripture say about the divinity of Christ?
The Church confesses Jesus Christ as "true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father". This confession rests on how the New Testament speaks of Him: He is called God, receives worship, forgives
What does Scripture say about the Eucharist?
At the Last Supper Christ took bread and said, "This is my body", and took the cup and said, "This is my blood of the new testament." The Orthodox Church receives these words plainly: in the Divine Liturgy the bread and
What does Scripture say about faith and works?
Paul writes that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law; James writes that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. The Orthodox Church reads them together: salvation is God's free gift, rece
What does Scripture say about fasting?
Christ assumed that His disciples would fast: "when ye fast", not "if". The Orthodox Church keeps Wednesdays and Fridays and the great fasting seasons, above all Great Lent, as a shared discipline of prayer, almsgiving a
What does Scripture say about grace and free will (synergy)?
The Orthodox Church teaches synergy: salvation is entirely God's gift, yet God does not save us without our free cooperation. Grace always comes first, calls, enables and sustains, and the human person, made free in God'
What does Scripture say about heaven and hell?
Scripture speaks soberly of two final destinies: eternal life in the presence of God, and eternal separation from His life. Many Orthodox teachers explain that all will stand in the presence of God's love, which is joy t
What does Scripture say about the Holy Spirit?
The Creed confesses the Holy Spirit as "the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified". Scripture shows the Spirit at creation, speaking b
What does Scripture say about Tradition (paradosis)?
"Tradition" translates the Greek paradosis, "that which is handed over". For the Orthodox, Holy Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church: the apostolic faith handed on in Scripture, in worship, in the Creed
What does Scripture say about the Holy Trinity?
The Church confesses one God in three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one in essence and undivided. The word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, but the faith it names is woven through Scripture: Israel's co
What does Scripture say about icons and images?
Orthodox Christians venerate icons of Christ, the Theotokos and the saints, but worship God alone. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 787) defended icons on the ground of the Incarnation: the invisible God became vi
What does Scripture say about the Incarnation?
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." The Incarnation is the eternal Son of God truly becoming man, born of the Virgin Mary, without ceasing to be God. The Church, at Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), confe
What does Scripture say about the intercession of the saints?
Orthodox Christians ask the Theotokos and the saints to pray for them, just as they ask fellow believers on earth. This is not worship, and it is not consulting the dead; it rests on Christ's victory over death, which ma
What does Scripture say about marriage?
God created humanity male and female and joined the first man and woman as one flesh. Christ restored marriage to this beginning, blessed the wedding at Cana, and Paul calls the union of husband and wife "a great mystery
What does Scripture say about prayer for the departed?
The Orthodox Church prays for those who have fallen asleep in Christ, asking Christ to give them rest "with the saints", "where sickness and sorrow are no more". This rests on the conviction that the departed are alive i
What does Scripture say about the Resurrection?
"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death." The bodily Resurrection of Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith; without it, Paul says, our preaching is vain. Scripture presents it as a real event w
What does Scripture say about the Sabbath and the Lord's Day?
God blessed the seventh day and gave Israel the Sabbath as a sign of rest and covenant. Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, rested in the tomb on the Sabbath and rose on the first day of the week, and from the apostles onwa
What does Scripture say about salvation and theosis?
For the Orthodox Church salvation is more than acquittal: it is union with God, healing of the whole person, and growth by grace into the likeness of Christ. The Fathers called this theosis or deification, summed up by S
What does Scripture say about Scripture and its interpretation?
Holy Scripture is inspired by God and is the Church's supreme written witness to Christ. The Orthodox Church receives the Old Testament in the form the apostles largely used, the Greek Septuagint, including books Protest
What does Scripture say about the Second Coming and the Last Judgment?
"He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end." Scripture promises one visible, glorious return of Christ, the resurrection of all, and a final judgment, after which Go
What does Scripture say about the Church?
In the Creed we confess "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church". For the Orthodox, the Church is not an invisible collection of believers or a later human institution, but the Body of Christ, a visible communion gathe
What does Scripture say about the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary)?
The Orthodox Church calls Mary "Theotokos", the one who gave birth to God, because the child she bore is the eternal Son of God made man. The title, upheld at the Council of Ephesus in 431, is first of all a confession a