To my surprise, I am starting to find random people I do not know speaking about this website. I have a modest amount of hits, but I never know how much people are engaging with the material here. I just want to address the following in no particular order to help explain how I research, and what direction this website is heading.

Note: This article was written before the author’s conversion to Orthodoxy.

Future Projects. Due to a worsening injury in my left shoulder (please pray for healing), I need to prioritize my writing. That may mean more videos of me on Youtube discussing a subject. These are among the least-viewed material I produce, but it is the quickest way for me to discuss a topic pain-free.

Further, I am engaged in two long term projects at once. One is annotating Irenaeus’ Against Heresies. I am still on Book II (of five) and try to knock out a chapter or two every other Sunday. Hence, it may be three months until it is done. Rest assured, the project is not abandoned.

Why engage in such a long, tedious project that I know people are not going to read in its entirety? For one, as much as it is possible, I am reading through the church fathers chronologically. I am doing so in order to understand these books without superimposing anachronistic presuppositions. Further, I want to demonstrate that the early church did not teach the same doctrines as any modern church, in the hope that we can better understand our Christian history.

Another long term project is a full-length commentary on the Book of James. I have so far completed the Book of Job and the Book of Romans. It is my ambition to teach the Book of James, particularly the importance of detachment from worldly goods and Biblical penance. I ask for your prayers that I may have the opportunity and that what I write is accurate.

Research.Some have called some of my research methods into question, mostly saying that I quote mine Protestant Apologetic websites instead of doing my own research. This is not true for several reasons:

  1. I don’t read such websites, though I often listen to the Divided Line.
  2. Most of my reading is from New Advent, Aquinas Study Bible, and Early Christian Commentaries. When I say most, I mean 95 percent. If you want to send me more primary sources, please send me more.
  3. I am not a believer in the seminary system nor the professionalization of the clergy, so I do not seek to waste my time reading from names like Al Moehler and such who are merely products of a post-industrial age which can afford to bankroll so many “scholars,” who intellectually, could not hold a candle to Calvin, Aquinas, Augustine, and others. This is why I read the fathers themselves. They address all the same issues modern scholars do in much less space, with much less verbosity, and with the benefit of showing us historically what the church always taught.
  4. The vast majority of my reading is consecutively through books, unless I get challenged to debate a topic. When this occurs, I datamine (control-F) original source material for relevant concepts and Scriptural passages.
  5. I sometimes read books, like Frend’s on the Donatist Church. If a book does not rely heavily on original source material, I will stop reading it or write against it such as the dreadful mess that is The Reformers and Their Step Children.

Please pray that I may be faithful, humble, and truthful.  Thanks!