Homily - The Publican, the Pharisee, and the Seeds of the Kingdom
OrthoAnalytika
Sanctifying the Moment: The Publican, the Pharisee, and the Seeds of the Kingdom Fr. Anthony Perkins; Luke 18:9-14 All of creation is good—and yet it was never meant to remain merely good. From the beginning, God made the world not as a finished product, but as something alive, dynamic, and capable of growth. Creation was designed to become better, to move toward beauty and perfection. Humanity was placed within it not as passive observers, but as gardeners, stewards, and priests—called to tend what God has made and lead it toward and into His glory. This brings us to the heart of...
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Retreat - Justifiable but Not Helpful: Discernment in an Age of Manipulation
OrthoAnalytika
In this pair of talks, Fr. Anthony examines why discernment so often fails in the Church—not because of bad faith or lack of intelligence, but because discernment is a matter of formation before it is a matter of decision. Drawing on insights from intelligence analysis, psychology, and Orthodox anthropology, he shows how authority, moral seriousness, and modern systems of manipulation quietly exploit predictable habits of perception, producing confidence without clarity. True discernment, he argues, is neither technical nor private, but ecclesial: formed through humility, ascetic practice,...
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Class - The Architectural Beauty of Eden
OrthoAnalytika
From Eden to the ChurchBeauty, Architecture, and the Space Where God Dwells Christian architecture is not primarily about style or preference. It is about ordering space so that human beings learn how to dwell with God. The Church building is Eden remembered and anticipated—a place where heaven and earth meet, so that God’s people can be formed and then sent back into the world. Key Biblical Insights 1. Eden Was God’s Dwelling Place Eden is first described not as humanity’s home, but as God’s planted garden—a place of divine presence, beauty, and order. Genesis...
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Homily - The Green Hand of Hell
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 17:12-19; The Grateful Leper I've included my notes, but I didn't follow them, choosing instead to offer a meditation on the "go show yourself to the priest" part of the Levitical command and noting how we do the same - and will all do the same one day at the Great Judgment. Homily: Healing, Vision, and the Mercy of God Onee of the things that sometimes gives people pause—especially when they encounter it for the first time—comes from the Book of Needs, in the prayers the priest offers for those who are sick. If you have ever been present for these prayers, you may have...
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Class: The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality
OrthoAnalytika
Beauty in Orthodoxy: Architecture I The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality In this class, the first in a series on "Orthodox Beauty in Architecture," Father Anthony explores beauty not as decoration or subjective taste, but as a theological category that reveals God, shapes human perception, and defines humanity’s priestly vocation within creation. Drawing extensively on Archbishop Job of Telmessos’ work on creation as icon, he traces a single arc from Genesis through Christ to Eucharist and sacred space, showing how the Fall begins with distorted vision and how repentance...
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Homily - Repent and Burn (in a good way)
OrthoAnalytika
Homily: The Sunday after Theophany Hebrews 13:7–16; Matthew 4:12–17 This homily explores repentance as the doorway from darkness into light, and from spiritual novelty into mature faithfulness. Rooted in Hebrews and the Gospel proclamation after Theophany, it calls Christians to become not sparks of passing enthusiasm, but enduring flames shaped by grace, sacrifice, and hope in the coming Kingdom. ---- Today’s Scripture readings give us three interrelated truths—three movements in the life of salvation and theosis. First: darkness and light. Second: repentance as the way from...
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Homily - Repent, Transcend Boredom, and Change the World
OrthoAnalytika
Homily – Repent… and Change the World (Embrace Boredom) Sunday before Theophany 2 Timothy 4:5–8; St. Mark 1:1–8 This is the Sunday before Theophany, when the Church sets before us St. John the Baptist and his ministry of repentance—how he prepared the world to receive the God-man, Jesus Christ. John was the son of the priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, the cousin of the Mother of God. When Mary visited Elizabeth during her pregnancy, John leapt in his mother’s womb. But what we sometimes forget is what followed. While Zachariah was serving in the Temple, the angel...
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Homily - Our Herodic Responses to Christ
OrthoAnalytika
Homily for the Sunday after Nativity The Child Christ in the World—and in Our Hearts Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13–23 [Retelling the Lesson] God humbles Himself to save mankind. He leaves His rightful inheritance as God and becomes man, born as a child in Bethlehem. And how does the world receive Him? Is He born in a temple? In a palace? Places that might seem fitting for the Ruler of the Ages? No—He is laid in a manger, in a stable. And even that is not the worst of it. When the leaders of the day learn of His birth, do they submit to Him? Do they nurture and protect Him so that He may...
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Homily - The Name of Jesus
OrthoAnalytika
St. Matthew 1:1-25 Why was the Son of God commanded to be named Jesus—the New Joshua? In this Advent reflection, Fr. Anthony shows how Christ fulfills Israel’s story by conquering sin and death, and calls us to repentance so that we may enter the victory He has already won. --- Homily on the Name of Jesus Sunday before the Nativity In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “They named Him Jesus, because He would deliver His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) Names matter in Scripture. They are never accidental. A name reveals identity, vocation,...
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Homily - The Pilgrimage to Peace
OrthoAnalytika
Fr. Anthony preaches on three types of pilgrimage and how they work towards our salvation.
info_outlineBible Study #33: The Kherem Wars of Joshua/Jesus
Fr. Anthony Perkins, St. Mary's (Pokrova) in Allentown
01 May 2018
Opening Prayer:
Make the pure light of Your divine knowledge shine in our hearts, Loving Master, and open the eyes of our minds that we may understand the message of Your Gospel. Instill also in us reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that overcoming all worldly desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all things pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the Light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give the glory, together with Your Father, without beginning, and Your All Holy, Good, and Life- Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. (2 Corinthians 6:6; Ephesians 1:18; 2 Peter 2:11)
Warm up question (an old one revisited):
Why is God working through humanity to renew and spread the lost pattern of Eden? Why not just magic it back (e.g. in the Promised Land) and put them there? Why turn Joshua into a warrior of kherem (i.e. of purity)? Many would contrast the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New. We can't. Can kherem be done in love? Under what circumstances would love REQUIRE it? Take-away: God is the shepherd that loves his sheep.
Joshua 9: The Deception of the Gibeonites
St. Ambrose. Joshua was deceived because he was good. So sacred was one’s promised word held in those days that no one would believe that others could try to deceive. Who could find fault with the saints in this, namely, that they should consider others to have the same feelings as themselves and suppose no one would lie because truth was their own companion? They do not know what deceit is, they gladly believe of others what they themselves are, while they cannot suspect others to be what they themselves are not. Hence Solomon says, “An innocent man believes every word.” We must not blame his readiness to believe but should rather praise his goodness. To know nothing of anything that may injure another, this is to be innocent. And although he is cheated by another, still he thinks well of all, for he thinks there is good faith in all [he also uses it to teach that friendship with Christ generates hostility from others].
Joshua 10: Joshua Purifies the Southern Parts
Count how many places were given over “to destruction” with nothing “left remaining”.
St. Ambrose. But how brave was Joshua the son of Nun, who in one battle laid low five kings together with their people! Again, when he fought against the Gibeonites and feared that night might stop him from gaining the victory, he called out with deep faith and high spirit: “Let the sun stand still”; and it stood still until the victory was complete [he also uses this to compare Joshua to Moses].
St. John Chrysostom. Consider how great of value is the righteous man. Joshua the son of Nun said, “Let the sun stand still at Gibeon, the moon at the valley of Elom [Aijalon],” and it was so. Let then the whole world come, or rather two or three, or four, or ten, or twenty worlds, and let them say and do this; yet they shall not be able. But the friend of God commanded the creatures of his friend, or rather he besought his friend, and the servants yielded, and the one below gave command to those above. Do you see that these things are fulfilling their appointed course for service?
St. Jerome. five kings who previously reigned in the land of promise and opposed the gospel army were overcome in battle with Joshua. I think it is clearly to be understood that before the Lord led his people from Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch had the dominion, and that to these, as to five princes, everything was subject. And when they took refuge in the cave of the body and in a place of darkness, Jesus entered the body itself and killed them, that the source of their power might be the instrument of their death.
Joshua Purifies the Northern Parts
Origin.
In prior readings, the king of Jerusalem had assembled four other kings with him against Jesus [Joshua] and against the sons of Israel. But now no longer does someone assemble four or five; on the contrary, see how great a multitude one person assembles.…
You see how many swarms of opposing powers and of malicious demons may be stirred up against Jesus [Joshua] and the Israelite army. Before the coming of our Lord and Savior, all those demons, undisturbed and secure, were occupying human spirits and ruled in their minds and bodies. But when “grace appeared” in the world, the mercy “of God our Savior” instructs us to live piously and purely in this world, separated from every contagion of sin, so that each soul may receive its liberty and the “image of God”3 in which it was created from the beginning. Because of this, fights and battles spring forth from their iniquitous old possessors. If the first ones are overthrown, far more rise up afterwards, and they unite into one and conspire in evil, always remote from the good. And if they are conquered for a second time, again a third time other more wicked powers will rise up. So perhaps the more the people of God are increased, and the more they thrive and are multiplied, there are that many more who conspire to assault.
What was the real target? Joshua 11:21–23 provides the answer.
St. Augustine. One should not at all think it a horrible cruelty that Joshua did not leave anyone alive in those cities that fell to him, for God himself had ordered this. However, whoever for this reason thinks that God himself must be cruel and does not wish to believe then that the true God was the author of the Old Testament judges as perversely about the works of God as he does about the sins of human beings. Such people do not know what each person ought to suffer. Consequently, they think it a great evil when that which is about to fall is thrown down and when mortals die.
It is asked how [it can be true that Joshua conquered all the Promised Land], since the Hebrews were not altogether able to capture all the cities of those seven nations either in the times after the judges or in the times of the kings. But one must understand it to mean that Joshua never approached any city with hostile intent that he did not capture. Or it may mean that no city remained uncaptured except for those which were in the regions mentioned above. For those regions were enumerated in which there were cities concerning which the conclusion was made: “and he captured all of them in war.”
St. Ephraim the Syrian. Whoever believes in me will also do the works which I do, and will do even greater ones. And where is this word which he said, “The disciple is not greater than his master” [illustrated]?6 For example, Moses killed only three kings, but Joshua killed thirty. [Moses] persevered in prayer, made supplication, but did not enter [the promised land]. It was Joshua rather who entered and shared out the inheritance.8 Likewise, Samuel was greater than Eli, and Elisha received a double portion of his master’s spirit after his ascension, like the Lord our Savior, for his disciples effected twice through their signs.
Teaching Point: Note what this implies for reclaiming the sanctified territory of our hearts and bodies!
Next Week: Judges!!!
Bibliography
Franke, J. R. (Ed.). (2005). Old Testament IV: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (First Edition, p. 205). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. Chapter 25.