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67 pages

English

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Learn from the early church's greatest preacher.John of Antioch, later called "chrysostomos" ("golden mouth"), preached over 600 extant sermons. He was one of the most prolific authors in the early Church, surpassed only by Augustine of Hippo. His example and work has inspired countless Christians through the ages. In Preaching the Word with Chrysostom, through a combination of storytelling and theology, Gerald Bray reflects upon 1,500 year-old pastoral wisdom from one of church history's most prolific Christ-centered preachers. Chrysostom's eloquent preaching and influence on Christian teaching left a legacy that is still recognized today. The Lived Theology series explores aspects of Christian doctrine through the eyes of the men and women who practiced it. Interweaving the contributions of notable individuals alongside their overshadowed contemporaries, we gain a much deeper understanding and appreciation of their work and the broad tapestry of Christian history. These books illuminate the vital contributions made by these figures throughout the history of the church.

Sujets

Christianity

History of religions

Theology

Christian Church

Christian theology

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Lexham Press
Date de parution	20 mai 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781683593676
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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PREACHING THE WORD
WITH
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
GERALD BRAY
Preaching the Word with John Chrysostom
Lived Theology
Copyright 2020 Gerald Bray
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
LexhamPress.com
All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com .
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from ESV ® Bible ( The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Print ISBN 9781683593669
Digital ISBN 9781683593676
Library of Congress Control Number 2019957123
Series Editor: Michael A. G. Haykin
Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Jeff Reimer, Danielle Thevenaz
Cover Design: Micah Ellis
LIVED THEOLOGY
Contents
Timeline of John Chrysostom’s Life
Series Preface
Chapter 1
John the Man
Chapter 2
In the Beginning
Chapter 3
John’s Portrait of Jesus
Chapter 4
In the Footsteps of Paul the Apostle
Chapter 5
The Legacy
Further Reading
Subject Index
Scripture Index
Timeline of John Chrysostom’s Life
Series Preface
M en and women—not ideas—make history. Ideas have influence only if they grip the minds and energize the wills of flesh-and-blood individuals.
This is no less true in the history of Christianity than it is in other spheres of history. For example, the eventual success of Trinitarianism in the fourth century was not simply the triumph of an idea but of the biblical convictions and piety of believers like Hilary and Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea and Macarius-Symeon. Thirteen hundred years later, men and women like William Carey, William Ward, and Hannah Marshman were propelled onto the mission field of India—their grit and gumption founded on the conviction that the living, risen Lord has given his church an ongoing command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:19–20). These verses had an impact when they found a lodging-place in their hearts.
The Lived Theology series traces the way that biblical concepts and ideas are lived out in the lives of Christians, some well known, some relatively unknown (though we hope that more people will know their stories). These books tell the stories of these men and women and also describe the way in which ideas become clothed in concrete decisions and actions.
The goal for all of the books is the same: to remember what lived theology looks like. And in remembering this, we hope that these Christians’ responses to their historical contexts and cultures will be a source of wisdom for us today.
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith . (Hebrews 11:39–12:2 KJV )
Michael A. G. Haykin
Chair and Professor of Church History
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
CHAPTER 1
John the Man

HIS LIFE
J ohn was born to a Christian family in Antioch, probably in or around the year AD 349. 1 His father died when he was still a boy, and he was brought up by his mother. He received an excellent classical education and was taught rhetoric by a man called Libanius, who was widely regarded as the greatest teacher of the subject at that time. When John was eighteen years old, he broke off his studies and tried to adopt a strict monastic way of life, much to his mother’s distress. He was baptized about this time and eventually managed to escape to the nearby mountains, where he found refuge with a hermit. After four years in the hermit’s cave, John branched out on his own. For two years he practiced the most extreme asceticism, doing considerable damage to his health in the process. In the end it was too much for him, and he returned to Antioch, where he sought medical help and went back to the church of his youth.
In 381 John was ordained a deacon by Bishop Meletius of Antioch, and five years later he was made a priest by Meletius’s successor Flavian. For the next eleven years John preached regularly in the city’s main church, and it was there that he acquired his enduring reputation as a preacher. His most famous sermons were delivered during those years, which in hindsight were the happiest ones of his life. He developed an expository style of preaching and seems to have worked his way through Genesis, Isaiah, and the Psalms in the Old Testament, along with Matthew, John, and the Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews) in the New.
John’s reputation spread, and in 397 he was chosen to become patriarch of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. John did not want to go, but the emperor intervened and forced him to leave Antioch. On February 26, 398, he was consecrated a bishop in his new see, but it turned out to be an unfortunate choice. Constantinople was a hotbed of corruption and political intrigue, and John was too forthright to be able to negotiate its treacherous byways successfully. He condemned the moral laxity of the city without compromise and did what he could to reform the church, which had succumbed to its atmosphere. By deposing unworthy bishops and clergy he made enemies who became increasingly determined to get rid of him, and his denunciations of the imperial court’s luxury and decadence earned him no friends there either. In particular, the empress Eudoxia turned against him, having been convinced by John’s enemies that his criticisms were directed mainly at her.
John also faced problems caused by the rivalry between Antioch and Alexandria. He had been consecrated as patriarch by Theophilus of Alexandria, but the latter was acting under duress, having been forced by the emperor to perform the ceremony. A few years later, Theophilus was summoned to Constantinople to answer charged leveled against him by some Egyptian monks. The trial was presided over by John, and Theophilus came to believe that the whole affair had been instigated by him. Seeking revenge, Theophilus summoned a meeting of thirty-six bishops, twenty-nine of whom were Egyptians like himself, in order to try John on a series of trumped-up charges. The strategy worked, and in August 403 he was deposed, a decision that the emperor lamely accepted.
John was expelled from the capital, but he was recalled the very next day when riots broke out in the city in his defense. John was restored to his office, and things seemed to be patched up, but two months later he was again accused of attacking the empress. This time the accusation stuck. The emperor ordered John to retire from his functions, but John refused to do so, and trouble soon followed. John had many followers in Constantinople, and when the army tried to expel him from his church the congregation resisted, with some loss of life. The situation became intolerable, and on June 9, 404, five days after Pentecost, John was forced to leave the city. He was exiled to the Armenian town of Cucusus (now Göksun in south central Turkey), where he lived for the next three years.
Unfortunately for John, Cucusus was not all that far from Antioch, and his former parishioners were soon making the pilgrimage to visit him, along with some dedicated followers from Constantinople. Nor was Cucusus a safe place for someone of John’s stature to reside. It was subject to periodic raids by the mountain men of nearby Isauria, and John had to flee from them at least once during his stay there. The support that he received from both Antioch and Constantinople alarmed John’s enemies, who had the emperor banish him to Pityus (now Pitsunda in the Abkhazian region of Georgia). Forced to go there on foot, and exposed to the hardships of bad weather and a semidesert terrain, John never made it to his destination. On September 14, 407, he died in Comana Pontica, a city that lay near modern Tokat, about halfway between Cucusus and the Black Sea, and is now in ruins.
John’s death came to be seen as a form of martyrdom, and his fame spread. A century after his death he became known as Chrysostomos (“golden mouthed”) because of his gift for preaching, and the name has stuck. The Roman church broke off relations with Constantinople because of what happened to John, and it was not until the wrong done to him was put right that relations between the two largest churches of the Christian world were restored. Thirty years after he passed away, John’s remains were brought back to Constantinople, and the emperor Theodosius II (408–450), the son of Arcadius and Eudoxia, publicly begged forgiveness for his parents’ sin in opposing John’s ministry. In later times John became the best loved of all the Greek fathers of the church, and his extensive legacy has been preserved almost intact. The simplicity of his life, the sincerity of his faith, and the sufferings he was unjustly forced to endure all combined to enhance his reputation, which was particularly strong among the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, who regarded him as a model Christian leader.
John’s reputation began to suffer in the late nineteenth century, when interest in the early church period turned more toward studying the history of Christian doctrine. John was not particularly involved in any of the great theological controversies of his time, though he was a convinced and consistent defender of Nicene orthodoxy. His pastoral approach left the impression th