Theology That Matters

Christmas is an amazing time of year, it reminds of us how much God loves us, that He took on human flesh in order to save us. He came as a baby and lived a perfect life to give us hope and joy. In this podcast I take a few short minutes to remind us of what our real focus should be for us and family on Christmas day.

I know that Advent season is in full swing but I wanted to give a few insights into why Advent can be vital for our preparation for Christmas day and beyond. Advent just means arrival so it is a time to prepare for the arrival of Christ on Christmas with an eye toward his second Advent. Hope you enjoy.

This episode on Justice concludes the series on the 4 cardinal virtues. In this episode we talk about what is justice, it is much more than a judge in a court room. Justice is being fair, giving what is 'due' to others and this includes love and mercy to be completely just. Below is a close transcription of what is said during the podcast. Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for it is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three greatest virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. In the last three episodes we have covered the virtues of prudence, temperance, and fortitude. I encourage you to listen to tho

Fortitude (courage) is the virtue that helps us stand for what is right and do it, even when we have fears. Fears don't make us uncourageous, the courageous person knows what they fear but strives to overcome then for God by the power of God. Read below if you would like a detailed breakdown of what I shared in the Podcast. Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for it is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three greatest virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. We have already covered two virtues, Prudence and Temperance. Without Prudence none of the other virtues are possible, for one needs to know wh

Temperance is one of the four Christian Cardinal virtues. It is the virtue of being able to keep our passions and desires under control instead of them controlling us. It is much more than just abstaining from something like food or alcohol but is using our passions and God given desires in the correct way. Below is a close to transcript of what is covered in the podcast: Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for that is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three great virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. Last time we talked about Prudence (wisdom) and why it is so important. Without prudence, whic

Prudence (wisdom) is the foundation to all other virtues that God desires for us. Prudence is making the correct decision about right and wrong in our daily circumstances. If one does not have prudence, one can't be courageous, or just or temperate or have faith and hope.

In the Tradition of the Church there are seven main virtues that are fundamental to helping us be the people God wants us to be. In this episode we take an overview of virtue in general and see why being virtuous is vital in our Christian faith. In following episodes we will discuss specific virtues. Here is a rough transcript of what was said during the podcast: Welcome back to Theology that Matters and thank you for listening. In the past few episodes I have spent some time discussing varies topics such as “Original Sin” What is sin, are all sins equal and the sin of sloth. Through these episodes we have seen that we have a problem, a sin problem. It harms us and we as humans need to know this problem so that it will make us want to draw closer to God so He can fix it in us. Over the next few episodes I want to focus on a more ‘positive’ side, what we should be aiming for and running toward so that sin will not control us. If we want sin to not control us we need to replace those bad, negative hab

Pride and Envy are two sins that are the worst, they are purely spiritual. These are the two sins of Satan and his demons. These sins are things that we struggle with as Christians and we need to know why the are so harmful and God's ways to combat them in our lives.

We all believe that there are good and evil actions that humans make. In this podcast we will look at how one can determine if an action is good or evil by understanding the action itself, the situation and motive of the action.

Many people think that God gives rules to kill our fun and joy or so that He can control. This is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the commands that God gives in the Bible. They are there to point us to what the Bible calls 'sin', which is missing the mark of our created vocation and purpose. We are made in God's Image and He wants us to live up to our full potential and so to understand what sin is and why God gave us His commands will help us see how we can live out our vocation as humans.

Understanding why God is Father will help us see why the Biblical view of marriage, one man and one woman, makes so much sense. Its implications also show us so much more and teach us what we all really long for, the Divine Marriage of the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7).

Sloth Sloths are animals that are well known for not doing much. Their name literally means, ‘slow feet’, which makes perfect sense because they are the world’s slowest animal. They live in trees most of their life and don’t move around much, and only leave their tree to go to the bathroom (defecate) once a week. This is the same idea that the Bible uses when it calls sloth a sin. It is a sin that has been around for a long time, The Bible puts it this way, “Through slothfulness the roof deteriorates, and a house leaks because of idleness.,” (Ecc. 10:18) “As the door turns upon his hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed,” (Pro. 26:14) And lastly “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven wise men,” (Pro. 26:16). Sloth is a sin of omission, of not doing something or willing to exert oneself and avoids moving toward the good that God has ordered us. A few examples that Peter Kreeft gives are: “not jumping into a pool to save a baby from drowning. Not getting out of our warm, comfortable bed

Original Sin: In the book of Genesis we see that at the beginning humans were created in the image of God, male and female. This image allowed them to reflect God’s character, His love, justice, mercy, grace and much more. Being in God’s image means that Adam and Eve where to image God into all of the earth. This is a supernatural grace that is given to accomplish all that it means to be made in God’s image. St. Thomas Aquinas calls it, “Original Righteousness.” He explains it like this, “Man was originally constituted by God in such a condition that his body was completely subject to his soul. The faculties of the soul were subject to reason without any rebelliousness and man was subject to God. In consequence of the perfect subjection of the body to the soul, no passion could arise in the body that would in anyway conflict with the soul’s dominion over the body. Therefore neither death nor illness had any place in man.” In this original righteousness Adam and Eve were innocent and could neither d