St. Athanasius the Apostolic
Ep 03
The Sources Behind the Study
Resources
Everything we use, everything we cite — made available to you.
The Church Fathers Library
St. Cyril of Alexandria
Ep 02Ep 03Ep 04Ep 05Ep 06Ep 07Ep 08Ep 09
St. Basil the Great
Ep 09
St. Gregory the Theologian
Episode to come
St. John Chrysostom
Ep 01Ep 02Ep 04Ep 05Ep 06Ep 07Ep 08Ep 09Ep 10
St. Ignatius of Antioch
Episode to come
St. Ephraim the Syrian
Ep 07Ep 08Ep 09Ep 10
St. Gregory of Nyssa
Ep 09
St. Ambrose of Milan
Ep 03Ep 07Ep 08Ep 09
St. Augustine of Hippo
Ep 01Ep 02Ep 05Ep 06Ep 07Ep 08Ep 09Ep 10
St. Theophilus of Antioch
Ep 05Ep 08Ep 09
St. Hilary of Poitiers
Ep 10
Scripture Index
Every passage we have covered, organized by book.
Matthew
- Matthew 2:13–23Episode 01 — The Holy Flight →
Luke
- Luke 2:21–39Episode 03 — The Law Giver Under the Law →
- Luke 9:12–17Episode 07 — He Looked Up to Heaven →
John
- John 3:22–36Episode 02 — He Must Increase →
- John 4:1–42Episode 04 — Thirst for Living Water →
- John 14:1–11Episode 06 — Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled →
- John 20:1–18Episode 05 — The Eighth Day →
Using This Content in Ministry
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Recommended Reading
Primary Research Sources
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
A landmark multi-volume series collecting the commentary of the Church Fathers on every book of Scripture — organized verse by verse. Each volume gathers patristic voices from across the first eight centuries of the Church, making it the essential desk reference for anyone reading the Bible alongside the Church Fathers.
A primary research tool for every episode · Available through IVP Academic and major booksellers
Treasures of the Fathers of the Church
Patristic Meditations on the Sunday Gospels of the Coptic Lectionary — organized by Coptic month. These volumes gather the voices of the Church Fathers around the very passages the Coptic Church reads each Sunday, and serve as one of our primary guides for understanding how the Church has always opened the Word.
- Sunday Gospels of Tute, Babeh, and Hatour ISBN 978-0-9721698-1-3
- Sunday Gospels of Kiahk, Tubah, and Amshir ISBN 978-0-9800065-8-2
Available through Amazon and select Coptic bookstores
Scripture Study
The Orthodox Study Bible
The full text of Scripture with Orthodox commentary, lectionary notes, and patristic cross-references throughout.
The Gospel of John: A Commentary
A reader’s companion to John drawn from Chrysostom, Cyril, and Augustine — the same wells we return to.
Reading the Bible with the Church
Why Scripture is the Church’s book — and how the lectionary teaches us to read it in community.
Patristics
On the Incarnation
The cornerstone of Coptic Christology — short, ancient, and astonishing. The place to begin with the Church Fathers.
Homilies on the Gospel of John
Verse by verse through John from the golden-mouthed preacher — pastoral, exacting, and unhurried.
The Life of Antony
The desert father whose life founded monasticism — and the spirituality that still shapes the Coptic Church.
Coptic History
The History of the Coptic Church
The story of the Church of Alexandria from the Evangelist Mark through the age of the martyrs and councils.
The Coptic Synaxarion
The Church’s daily commemorations — the source for our Saints Episodes and a year-long companion in itself.
The Desert Fathers
The wisdom of the Egyptian desert — terse, demanding, and full of the air the Coptic tradition still breathes.
Glossary
Terms we use in the podcast, defined plainly.
Abomination of Desolation
A phrase Christ takes from the prophet Daniel — something horrifying standing in the holy place where it has no right to be. In Mark 13 it is the signal to flee, not to linger.
Anaphora
The central prayer of the Coptic Divine Liturgy, in which the bread and wine are offered and consecrated.
Apostles’ Fast
The fast the Coptic Church keeps after Pentecost until the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul — honoring the apostles’ preaching, labor, and martyrdom.
Arianism
The fourth-century heresy claiming the Son was a creature rather than fully God. Its defenders seized on Mark 13:32 (“nor the Son”); St. Athanasius of Alexandria answered that Christ knows as God and shares our not-knowing as man.
Berakhah
The Jewish blessing of thanksgiving spoken over food. The head of the household lifted his eyes to heaven before breaking bread — the gesture Christ performs at the feeding of the five thousand.
Christology
The study of the person and nature of Jesus Christ — fully God and fully man, united without confusion.
Didache
“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” — the earliest Christian handbook we possess, from roughly the first century. Not a Church Father but an anonymous document; St. Athanasius of Alexandria named it among the books given to new believers. It sets the Church’s Wednesday and Friday fast.
Divine Liturgy
The Church’s central act of worship, in which bread and wine are offered, blessed, broken, and given as the Body and Blood of Christ.
Ego Eimi (“I AM”)
The Greek phrase behind Christ’s “I AM” sayings in John — the same words God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. “I AM the resurrection and the life” is a claim to divinity, not a metaphor.
Elect
Those gathered to Christ at His coming — in Mark 13, the ones for whose sake the days are shortened and who are collected “from the four winds.”
Eremos
Greek for “deserted place” or wilderness — the same word the Septuagint uses for the Exodus desert. When the Gospels use it, the reader is meant to hear Moses, manna, and God feeding His people where nothing grows.
Eucharist
From the Greek for “thanksgiving” — the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Its four actions (took, blessed, broke, gave) appear at the feeding of the five thousand and at the Last Supper.
Gehenna
The word translated “hell fire” in Matthew 18 — drawn from the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, a place of ancient idolatrous sacrifice that became an image of final judgment.
Holy Fifty Days
The season from the Resurrection to Pentecost — fifty days of unbroken joy in which the Church neither fasts nor kneels.
Incarnation
The eternal Son of God taking on full humanity — becoming man without ceasing to be God — in the person of Jesus Christ.
Lectionary
The Church’s calendar of appointed Scripture readings — the order in which the Bible is read aloud through the liturgical year.
Millstone
The great stone turned by a donkey to grind grain — far heavier than a hand mill. Christ names it as the fate preferable to causing one of His little ones to stumble.
Olivet Discourse
The long teaching Christ gives on the Mount of Olives in the last week of His life (Mark 13), on the end, the signs, and the command to watch. The longest single stretch of teaching in St. Mark’s Gospel.
Paralytic
The man carried by four friends and lowered through a roof in Capernaum (Luke 5). Christ forgives him before healing him — treating the deeper affliction first.
Patristic
Relating to the Church Fathers — the early bishops, theologians, and teachers whose witness the Church has received.
Pentateuch
The first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy — the Law of Moses. In Augustine’s reading, the “five barley loaves” of the feeding miracle.
Pharisees
A lay movement devoted to applying the Law of Moses to every corner of daily life. Their zeal was genuine; the Gospels show where that zeal hardened into judgment of others.
Publican
The older English translation of telōnēs — a tax collector. Levi (St. Matthew) was one.
Scribes
Professional students and copyists of the Law, trained to interpret and apply it. They appear alongside the Pharisees as the objectors in several of the passages we read.
Septuagint
The Greek translation of the Old Testament made before Christ, used by the apostles and quoted throughout the New Testament.
Shema
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4) — the daily confession of Israel. A bridegroom was excused even from reciting it on his wedding night, which is why joy displaces obligation in Luke 5.
Sign (in St. John’s Gospel)
St. John does not call Christ’s miracles “wonders” but signs — acts that point beyond themselves to who He is. The raising of Lazarus is the seventh and greatest of them.
Skandalon (Stumbling Block)
The Greek word behind “offense” and “stumbling block” — originally the trigger of a trap. In Scripture it is anything set in a person’s path that causes them to fall.
Synaxarion
The collection of the lives of the saints, read day by day according to the Coptic calendar.
Telōnēs (Tax Collector)
A customs officer who bid for the right to collect tolls on a road and lived off whatever he took above his contract. In Galilee they worked for Herod Antipas, not Rome — taking money from their own people. Jewish legal writings of the period ranked them with robbers and treated their houses as unclean.
Tetrarch
A regional ruler under Rome, governing a quarter of a divided kingdom. Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, beheaded John the Baptist and “sought to see” Jesus.
Theophany
A manifestation of God. In the Coptic calendar, the feast of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, when the Father’s voice and the Spirit’s descent revealed the Trinity.
Theosis
The process of becoming, by grace, partakers of the divine nature — union with God, the goal of the Christian life.
Theotokos
“The God-bearer” — the Church’s ancient title for the Virgin Mary, guarding the truth that the One she bore is God Himself.
Typology
Reading persons and events of the Old Testament as foreshadowings — types — fulfilled in Christ and the Church.
Wineskins
Animal skins used to store wine. A new skin still has give in it; an old one, already stretched to its limit, will burst if new wine ferments inside it — Christ’s image for a heart that has hardened into its final shape.