Girls Gone Bible - Father Josiah & Greek Orthodoxy | Girls Gone Bible

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Hi GGB :) On this episode of Girls Gone Bible, we're honored to sit down with Father Josiah for a beautiful conversation surrounding Orthodoxy, Protestantism, the early Church Fathers, the gospel, and the person of Jesus Christ. Together, we explore the history of the Church, the depth of Christian tradition, and the centrality of Jesus in all things.   This conversation is rich, thoughtful, and deeply rooted in a shared love for Christ and His Church. we love you soooooo much. Jesus loves you more. -Ang & Ari ORDER OUR BOOK! You can order our new book "Out of the Wilderness— 31 Devotions to Walk with God Through Your Hardest Seasons" at girlsgonebible.com/book JOIN US ON GGB+ 🥹❤https://ggb.supporting... COME SEE US ON TOUR: Tickets for our tour are now on sale. Go to www.GirlsGoneBible.com/tour WE LOVE YOU AND CANNOT WAIT TO SEE YOU! OLIVE & JUNE Build your mani system www.Oliveandjune.com/GGB   NOCD  Book a free 15-minute call to learn more.  www.NOCD.COM   AVOCADO GREEN MATTRESS Go to AvocadoGreenMattress.com/GGB and check out their mattress and bedding sale!   SHOPIFY Sign up for one-dollar-per-month www.Shopify. com/ggb   GLORIFY Download now www.glorify-app.com/ggb Active Skin Repair www.activeskinrepair.com Use Code GGB at checkout FOR 20% OFF   GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY  www.GCU.edu Find your purpose at GCU.   The Missing Peace by Tim Ross  Order now www.upsettheworld.com/themissingpeacebook  

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Hi, guys. I'm Ange. And I'm Ari. And this is Girls Gone Bible. And you know when I'm on this side of the table, it's because we have a very special guest. And today is a huge day. We have Father Josiah on GGB with us today. The first priest.

It's been three years in the making. We've been waiting for this. Hi, Father Josiah. Thanks for being here. Thank you to both of you for having me. Of course. Of course. We will get into everything.

But first, we're having a conversation off camera. And I said, you know what? Just give us one second. Let's turn the cameras on. The Greek Orthodox Church makes manly men. Right? That's what we've heard. No, and I've seen it.

And then he just tells us and says he has 10 children. Amazing. You know, the church does this. And a beautiful wife, Catherine. And it's all true. Yeah. And the church does make men. and women.

Yeah. Yeah. And Jesus is the ultimate human being and in the church, by his spirit, he makes people who are whole. Yeah. And men are supposed to be manly. Yeah. There's a beautiful text in 1st John where St. John says, I write to you young men because

you are strong and you have overcome the evil one. Wow. It's a really important word today because so many young men are, what shall I say, viciously assaulted by all sorts of depressing things in our culture. And they need to hear this, that God views them, the Apostle John views them as strong and they have to use their strength to love God and to conquer all the threats, all the demonic threats. It's beautiful. They need that. Ari and I have been really excited to have this conversation with you because we both grew up Catholic. We are not originally Protestant. We would both identify as being Protestant today. We both go to non-denominational

churches. And this is one of my favorite conversations to have. I love the Catholic Church. I love the Greek Orthodox Church and I love the Protestant Church. And I think in this conversation, our goal is to bring so much unity to the body of Christ. There's so much division between denominations and we want to bring people together. And Father Josiah, they've been having beef since 1207 since the great schism. Would you agree? One of the realities of being Christians is that we're, we know God and we are on a path towards his kingdom, but we're not perfect. And we have a lot of sins that we have to overcome. This is why St. Paul says in the present tense, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Yeah. Right. So we have things to overcome. That doesn't mean that we're not authentic. It doesn't

mean that we're not sincere, but we're incomplete. And so conflicts do arise. Heresies do arise. Could you explain Orthodoxy to us, the origin and the connection to Jesus? With God's help, I think so. I think so. You know, the Lord Christ came out of his great love for man. He has always been with his father. Jesus is not a creature. He doesn't, he didn't start in time. He's the co-eternal son of God. He is divine and human. And he's always been in the bosom of his father for all eternity. In time, in agreement with his father and the Holy Spirit, he became a man, joining divinity to humanity and becoming what the church's fathers called the Anthropos.

That's a combination of two fancy Greek words, Theos, which means God. And Anthropos, like anthropology, which means man. Jesus is the one unique God man. He became what he was not, St. Augustine says, a man without ceasing to be what he was, God. Wow. And he remains forever the unity between God and man in himself. Once he came and he taught us his life-giving words, he crushed the devils. He went into the desert right after he was baptized.

And the devil tried to ruin his life. He came to him and tempted him viciously. And Jesus conquered Satan's temptations, which was the first time Satan had ever been completely just overcome. And then Jesus launched his public ministry. And for three years, he taught the truth, the unerring truth. He never spoke a single word mistakenly. He never said a single error.

You know, I've been preaching for decades and decades. And I make a lot of mistakes. Oh, you do? That's comforting. I feel seen. I wish it was something. I'm glad that there's some benefit to it, not to comfort other idiots. Sorry.

Thank you. It's so real. The Lord have mercy. Yes. But our Lord never did. Yeah. Our Lord, at the end of his ministry, he said, I have only spoken the words that the father has given me to say. Can you imagine being that obedient?

Lord. He loved his father so much. He only spoke the words that his father gave. And he confronted head on all the enemies of the human race, everything that torments us, Our sins, he bore them on the cross, the devils who constantly attack us, he crushed under his feet. And then death. Death tyrannized the human race. St. Paul says in his epistle to the Hebrews, he says that death was the ultimate weapon.

This is in Hebrews 2, verse 14. It's the ultimate weapon that Satan used to smash mankind. And Jesus voluntarily accepted death. He said, no one takes my life for me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up. He voluntarily allowed himself to die, entered into death, in his soul, descended into Hades, the domain of Satan and death itself, and then blew it to smithereens, crushed it under his feet like dust, filled that dark place of sorrow with light.

And then on the third day, resurrected his flesh, which he had given over to death, and then brought humanity for the first time to the other side of death. Until that time, no one, not even the great, not even the godsier of Moses or the great prophet Elijah. These were incredible people. No one had beaten death. No one had beaten death until he did it. And then he announced when he raised from the dead, he gathered his disciples. And he told them, go into the whole world. Preach the good news to everyone.

That Satan has been trampled. He doesn't have to be your tyrant anymore. That sin has been atoned for. You can be forgiven everything in the love of God. And that death has been crushed. Go tell everyone. Baptize everyone in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all of my words, all my sacred commandments.

And I'll be with you until the end of the age. This is the message. This is the message that has changed the world. My life, your life, the whole world. Thank you. Jesus sent his disciples out to represent him. This is the connection between Jesus and the church. The church is literally his body.

There's no separation between Jesus and the church. Paul learned this. Before Paul became a Christian, he was a rabbi, a Pharisee, and he hated Christians. He was actually holding the coats of the murderers of St. Stephen, who we call the proto-martre. He was the first one to give his life for Christ. It's recorded in Acts chapter 7. It's an incredible text.

And Paul was sitting there, breathing threats against Stephen, encouraging his murder. And then after Stephen was killed, which was a glorious death, by the way, he saw heaven open. And he saw Jesus waiting for him, standing, supporting his martyr. The Lord has done that for martyrs for 20th centuries. And the 20th century was actually the greatest martyric century. in the history of the human race. We gave more martyrs for Christ in the 20th century than all the other centuries. Jesus was there and supporting Stephen and Paul launched into this vicious attack.

He got letters from the high priests and he went to Damascus in Syria in order to round up all the Christians arrest them and bring them back for trial. And on the way, Jesus appeared to him. It was the text in Acts chapter 9 says that it was high noon. The sun was at its full strength. strength, and yet when Jesus appeared to him, he made the sun look dark. That's how bright our Savior's faces, radiant in glory. And he appeared to Paul, and Paul was blinded and fell off his horse. I've actually been there in Syria. We built a church years ago on the spot. Beautiful. And we have a beautiful statue of Paul falling off his horse there. It's awesome.

It's always been a place of pilgrimage. But my point is that Jesus said something to Paul that blew his mind. And it answers your question about the relationship of Jesus in the church. Paul heard these words. Jesus said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now, Paul didn't know Jesus. He was persecuting the church. He had not ever interacted with Jesus. He never did anything to Jesus directly. But Jesus didn't say, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting the church? He said, why are you persecuting me? There is no difference between Jesus and his church. There is no separation.

Paul says Jesus is the head and the church is the body. And believers who are incorporated through baptism and to Christ become individually members of that body. Paul found out that Jesus is not a floating head up in the atmosphere. If you want Jesus, you find the church. Yeah. To touch the church is to touch Jesus. So this is the Church's concept of how thick, how important it is to be a member of the church. Jesus seeks everybody.

He loves everybody. He's calling everybody to repentance and faith in him. But the way that you get that is you go to the church. The idea of going to your closet and praying is a great idea, but you can't let it stop there. Yeah, for sure. There's no individualistic Christians. That's not how it works. You go to the church.

And there's a beautiful text that's in the epistle to the Ephesians. Paul says that the church is the body of Christ who fills all in all. So if you want to find the whole Christ, you can't just go to the right hand of the Father and see Jesus. If you want the whole Christ, you need Jesus and the church. This is why we Orthodox have such a thick understanding of the importance of the church, the centrality of the church. There's no dichotomy between loving Christ and loving the church. You can't love Christ and not love the church. It's not possible.

Yeah. Because you can't divide them. There are so many different directions. We have so many questions. First, we want to ask, you were originally Protestant, right? You grew up in Los Angeles. I did. You were Protestant.

Yes. You were Presbyterian. And then you converted to orthodoxy. We want to know what that switch was. Do you have three days? I know. Unfortunately, I know, I wish. Well, I should say first that I was very blessed.

I feel very blessed in my upbringing. And I didn't convert to Holy Orthodoxy because I was mad at my church. I had really fine pastors since I was a little boy. As a matter of fact, when I went to a, when I went to college, I had applied to UC Berkeley, which is where my best friend was going. And I was planning on going there. I got in. I went up there.

And before I actually decided to go, I visited another friend who had gone to a Christian college in Santa Barbara called Westmont. And when I was up there, I was so taken by the college that I wrote Berkeley. I said, I'm not coming. I'm going to go there instead. So I ended up going to this beautiful college and studying the scriptures, which was really my main study when I was in college. And I really deepened my Presbyterian faith. I had this interaction with the Orthodox Church that was so intriguing to me. When I was eight, I had a buddy who I played baseball with in Glendale.

And he was Greek. And I would sometimes spend the night at his house. And he would sometimes spend that night at my house on the weekends. Well, he took me once to St. Anthony Orthodox Church in Pasadena, on Rosemey Boulevard. And I remember being so shocked by the liturgy. And I didn't know what it was. And at the end, we have this custom at the end of going up and kissing the priest will hold the cross or sometimes he'll distribute bread to us and that we kiss our priest's hands, which is a sign of respect because that's the hand that baptizes us. That's the hand that touches us when we confess and he reads forgiveness, prayers for us.

And then when we die, those are the fingers that actually close our eyes and put us in the grave. We love our priests. And I had never, I didn't, I had a pastor boat. As a Protestant, you know, we didn't think pastors were priests. Yeah. And I went up there and I kissed the priest's hand. And I felt like electrical light bolt, lightning strikes coming out of my mouth. It was the weirdest thing.

And I remember stumbling out of the church. All right, guys, starting something new is honestly terrifying. Whether it's a business, a creative project, a podcast, there are always a million questions. in your head, like, what if nobody cares? What if I fail? What if I'm not actually qualified to do this? And honestly, when we started GGB, there were so many moments where we felt so overwhelmed trying to figure everything out, the branding, the logistics, the scheduling, the content, all of it. And that's why we love Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and honestly, make starting something feel way less intimidating.

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Because after that, you just walk out of the church. And I remember the sun coming in. I was eight years old. I kind of regained my composure and never thought about it again for 10 years. Then I'm 18. I go off to Westmont College. And in the love of God, he lets me meet the woman who would become my wife. Thank you, Jesus.

And when I met her and she finally consented to date me, which was a challenge, she finally consented on March 17th, which is St. Patrick's Day. I've never forgotten that because one year later on St. Patrick's Day, I asked her to marry me. And she said yes, for which I'm very thankful. When I started dating her, I found out she was Protestant also. She was Methodist, evangelical Methodist. But she was the youngest of six, and her oldest brother had gone off to Wheaton College in Chicago and had become Orthodox. He had this professor of religion who was encouraging people to explore different churches, and he ended up becoming Orthodox.

So when I started dating her, he started writing me letters. He started sending me books, books that were super beautiful, but raised questions I had never even thought about. And that began a journey for me that took about, I guess, about six years, five or six years, in which I was finishing up college and I decided to go to seminary. So I went to a Presbyterian seminary, which was an incredible experience. I loved it. I had incredible professors. But all those years that I was in seminary, on the side, I was taking independent studies. about areas of difference.

The organization of the church, what's called the ecclesiology, for instance, Orthodox Christians have bishops. Presbyterians, they're called presbyterians because they don't have bishops. Presbyter means it's contracted to priest. It's a Greek word that just means a pastor or overseer. And presbyterians, on principle, didn't believe in bishops. The first presbyterian was in 1588, a man named Thomas Cartwright. And that's why that was one of the things I studied. why as a Presbyterian do I not have a bishop? So I studied that issue. And then I had another

issue which was worship style. We studied the liturgy. And another thing was the sacraments. Those three areas, I did independent studies while I was in seminary. And in all three cases, I ended up embracing, I can't say that I was even happy about it at the time. I'm happy about it now, but I wasn't so happy about it at the time. I ended up becoming convinced of the Orthodox tradition on those areas. And so when I was finishing my school, the dean called me into his office. I had been studying very hard, well, for many reasons, but one of them is I wanted to receive a nice, there was a nice scholarship that you got if you were the top student. And he called me into his office and he said, you know, you should be getting the scholarship. He said, but if you look in the fine print, it says you have to be going into the Presbyterian and Reform Ministry.

He goes, I have a feeling you aren't. And I said, you're right. You're right. Yeah, so then I became Orthodox. Okay, this is so, so interesting to me. I want to know, I can't wait to talk about the Eucharist. That's like what I'm, and here's the thing. Again, Ari and I grew up Catholic.

Neither of us have been to liturgy yet. We haven't been to the Greek Orthodox Church. And so I think a lot of what we think about the Orthodox Church probably is similar to Catholicism. And I know there's so many differences. I do want to ask you about, again, haven't been to a service. I just want to know, like for me, scripture is everything. The Bible is absolutely everything to me. It's what my life is built on after getting saved.

Yeah. In the Greek Orthodox Church, so in the Greek Orthodox Church, what is valued more tradition or scripture? The question, as you put it, is an. expression of your Protestant commitments. Because in your mind, those are two different things, which is it, scripture or tradition. All I would say to you, with all respect, is you need to read your Bible more closely. Okay. St. Paul says this. He said this to the Thessalonians. This is first Thessalonians too. Dan fast and hold to the tradition, which I imparted to you, either through word of mouth or writing.

So tradition is not in antithesis to Scripture. Scripture is the chief part of tradition. There's also oral instruction. If you were in that church, you would, by the way, that church, the Thessalonians, that town is still actively Christian. I actually went there first in 1996. It's called Thessalonica. It's a famous town in Greece.

Paul was the pastor there. When I went to my first liturgy there in 1996, I stood in the altar with the priest, and behind the altar was this old stone chair. Yeah. And it was roped off. It's usually where the bishop sits. And it had an icon of St. Paul in it. And I asked the priest after the liturgy, I said, why is it roped off? I said, doesn't your bishop sit there?

And he goes, oh, he would never sit there. I said, why? He goes, that's Paul's seat that he used to sit in when he was teaching the church in Thessalonica. I said, what? Yeah, I mean, that's how Paul started that church. Right. And he wrote these two letters, first and second Thessalonians, to them. And he told them, I mean, if you were a parishioner there, he was there 18 months, teaching every day.

Right. Can you imagine being his students, his disciples, listening to St. Paul, tell stories of his conversion and how to become a Christian? And then he left you two letters, one with five chapters, one with three chapters. Do you think those two letters contain everything St. Paul told you? Yeah. He was your pastor for 18 months. He told you tons of these. He taught you how to love God and how to serve God in great detail.

If when he died, if when he was martyred in Rome, you forgot everything he had taught you over 18 months and only followed his two letters, Bible only, you would have greatly reduced the amount of apostolic instruction that he gave you. Nobody did that. So for the Orthodox, we love the scriptures. Are you kidding me? We love the scriptures. The greatest Bible teachers in the history of the church are saints. I quoted St. John Chrysostom to you earlier. It's the greatest preacher in the history of the world.

Yeah. His sermons are collected in red for this. And he died in 407. The last 1,600 plus years, we've been reading a sermons east and west. They're translated into every language, comparable in the Greek language, only to St. Augustine's writings in the Latin West as far as size. He knew the Bible. He literally memorized the entire Bible while living in a cave for six years in which all he did

is read the scriptures and memorize them during the day and at night pray. He never even laid down once in six years. He tied himself to a wall to sleep. To stay awake? To read, to study it? Yeah. For six years? Six years.

When did he sleep? He slept like for an hour, but only upright. That's kind of how I felt this past three years. I feel like I've tied myself to a wall. I've been studying. I'm not kidding. Wow, that's serious business. That's serious business.

But my point is that no one, no one listened. He quoted from memory in his corpus of writings. He quoted the New Testament 11,000 times and the Old Testament 7,000 times. in his written sermons that we have, all from memory. When he preached an hour in the liturgy, an hour. And when he stopped, the people booed universally. Please don't stop. This is how incredible this man is.

No one can suggest that the Orthodox Church doesn't love and revere the scriptures. It was our bishops who sifted. You know, the Bible didn't fall like a package on Christmas Day from heaven. The Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by the apostles, but discerned by the church. There were many different documents that claimed to be by the apostles. They were false. And then there were other things written by important men that were very edifying, but they weren't scripture. They weren't inspired.

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This is good, but not scripture. Would, like, the Book of Enoch be in that second category? The Book of Enoch. It's the one thing that, like, new believers kind of always bring up for some reason is the book of Enoch. It's very popular. People talk a lot about that. Yeah. that text in particular, it would either be in that second category or the third category,

which is mixed. So there's inspired, infallible. There's good, but not infallible. There's mixed, therefore be very careful. And then there's heretical. Right, right. And all of those, it was our bishops under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because the church, as I mentioned to earlier, you can't separate the church from Jesus'

leadership. He promised, he said, I will build my church. and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I found out as a Protestant, I really had this concept that something was wrong until the Protestant Reformation. And then the Protestant reformers fixed it. Yeah, Orpid Orthodox don't believe that.

If that's true, then how can you have that promise of Jesus being true? I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. If you want to say that at any one time the faith was lost to the church or wasn't in its wholeness, then how is that not the gates of hell prevailing? We don't think that. And the church fathers don't think that.

We think that the church is always preserved by Christ. And you can leave the church. Heresy can arise. Somebody can become a heretic, just like a body, a physical body can be diseased. Right. But you have to, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that disease is cut off. We throw the heretics out. St. Paul says that reject a heretic after a second or third warning.

Wow. So the preservation of the church is something that we think is basic, based upon Jesus' promises. That doesn't mean the church is perfect, but it means Jesus will preserve the church and the faith in integrity until his second coming. We believe that. So we don't think, we think all believers today should be able to trace their lineage back to the church. And if you can't, that's a problem. And that's what happened to me is I couldn't, the way I was believing in the way I was worshipping, I knew I could trace it back to 1588, but I couldn't trace it back to the apostles.

And that bothered me. That really bothered me. That doesn't mean that it was all wrong. The vast majority of what I believed is a Presbyterian was absolutely true. And it was Orthodox. But there were portions that were not right in my judgment and in the church's judgment and the Orthodox Church's judgment. And I was asked this question. by someone, he said, look, how many heresies do you have to believe to be a heretic?

Wow. And I thought, well, I think one. Just one. And I felt, I felt that I had a couple. So the reason why, one of the reasons why this conversation is so important to me, I have been the past few months. I've just, first I went on a journey with communion. I went on a journey with the Eucharist. that kind of opened me up.

What does that mean? So I just, I went through kind of a hard situation about six months ago, and I leaned heavily into, I just felt like I developed and received like a revelation of the body and blood of Jesus as a means for healing, right? I needed deep healing and I began to take communion every single day at my house. And so I just went on a journey where the body and blood of Jesus Christ, it just became of like utmost value in in my heart and in my life. And that led me to then, and I also want to talk about the Reformation, but then that led me to, I started watching a bunch of videos on the Eucharist,

on Orthodoxy, on Catholicism. And then I, a few months ago, me and one of my best friends, we actually went to the Catholic Church, and I really wanted to take the Eucharist. I've been taking communion at Mass my whole life, but I haven't been doing it the right way. I didn't know that you had to be caught up in your confession. So I went to the Catholic Church a few months ago. I did confession with a priest. I went and took the Eucharist. And so I've been on this little journey. I love the Eucharist. And I believe that communion is not just symbolic. And that's a huge conversation amongst Protestants saying that the Eucharist is simply symbolic and it does not go beyond that. Talk to us about the Eucharist because I don't believe it's just symbolic. Do I believe that there's

like an elemental change transubstantiation, I don't know yet. My heart is so open, so open. You take it over. Jesus gave us an incredible discourse, a detailed discourse on the Eucharist. It's actually in John, the Gospel of John chapter six. The entire chapter is the most beautiful description of the Eucharist. itself, he says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life. And then he reverses it just in case it wasn't clear. Whoever does not eat my flesh and does not drink my blood has no life in him. He means life, eternal life. He doesn't mean biological life, right? The scriptures talk about biological life, what's called veils. We get biology from that. And also the life of the

So Siki is the word. But then there is the most important life, which is Christ's life, which is eternal life. Aeonea Zoe, it's called in the New Testament. When he says you have no life, he's talking about his life, eternal life, the life that conquers death, that holds you in existence forever with him in communion. And he connects it all the way towards eating and drinking his flesh and blood. The disciples were scandalized when they heard this. And there was a huge group. He was giving a sermon to a massive group of people.

And the scripture said, St. John records, because of this teaching, many stopped following him. They literally. And then Jesus looked at the apostles and he said, are you leaving to? He didn't say, oh, wait, you're misunderstanding me. It's symbolic. Why would you be leaving me? I just meant it to be symbolic. No, no.

It wasn't symbolic. And it's scandalized. What are you talking about eating your blood, eating your flesh and drinking your blood? You're crazy. This is what the people were thinking. And they left him. And the apostles were scandalized. And Jesus said, are you leaving to?

when Peter looked at him, he said, Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. That reality, that incredible reality, came into existence in the New Testament Church. After the day of Pentecost, the church began to worship in our Christian way, which was a fulfillment of the Old Testament. The Old Testament had a type of the Eucharist and a type of all the sacraments, actually. But they all came into fulfillment, into the New Testament fulfillment after the day of Pentecost. And we set up the churches. And the church from the beginning was dedicated to the scriptures and to the Eucharist and to the Apostles' teaching.

The breaking of bread, the Eucharist was called in Acts 2, verse 42. It's an incredible text. And then Paul describes it again in a really shocking way in his correspondence with the church in Corinth. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul describes a worship service. And he was describing how that church had some problems. some of their parishioners were ill-prepared for the liturgy and they were coming to worship, which was a very powerful experience. He says in chapter 14 that the worship service of the church at that time was so powerful

that if an unbeliever came in, he was cut to the quick, he fell on his face in the midst and declared God is certainly in your midst. That's how palpable the presence of God in the liturgy. By the way, that's exactly what happened to be going on to want to the Orthodox Church that was just describing to you. Today, I have hundreds and hundreds of people trying to become Orthodox in my parish. I have 350 people receiving catechism right now from the outside. And if you ask them, like, as I have, what's the main thing?

They visit the church and they feel the presence of God and they're like, I can't leave. And they see us all receiving Holy Communion. They're just completely blown away. Wow. So Paul describes, after describing that impact of the liturgy, he says in chapter 11, he said, some were coming without preparation to Holy Communion, some were even coming. drunk. Wow. They were coming drunk. And he said, for this reason, a number among you are sick and some have died because they took the Eucharist without any reverence at all. Right, right. They're intoxicated

and they're going to go receive Holy Communion. Wow. This is how powerful, no, if it's just symbolic, how does that happen? How does that happen? And the church says, never believe that this, forgive me, it's called heresy. It doesn't matter how many pastors teach it. It's not the teaching of the church. It never has been the teaching of the church. The Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus given to us to conquer death and to give us life and to nourish us in a one-flesh union. You know, husbands and wives, they have their union, their physical union, making love to your wife and its fruitfulness in childbearing. That one-flesh union is an earthly way of closeness. But we have, we Christians have a one-flesh union with Christ himself, which is what the Eucharist is.

After we receive Holy Communion, we say this beautiful prayer in which we ask the Lord to go through all of our mind and all of our body into our very core. We ask him to fill our bones and all aspects of our life with himself. And we basically live communion to communion. That's basically how we live. Two questions. One, a million questions, actually. one, do you think that, and so was it the Protestant Reformation that changed the Eucharist being the true body and blood and making it symbolic?

And is that because they wanted to offend less people? Or is it because it's easier for us to understand that way? Well, you have to know that the Protestant Reformation wasn't a singular thing. The Protestant Reformation had many different branches. Some of them hated each other, and they literally fought each other to the, death. Zwingli and the Anabaptists fought with the Lutherans. Literally Zwingli, at 31 years of age, one of the major Protestant reformers, was killed in battle. Religious conflict in battle. So there were, we had to be careful when we talk about Protestants in general because there's a very large umbrella

under which that word Protestant is. You have more traditional Anglicans and Lutherans on one side. And then you would have what I would say is a lot of well-meaning, make a church people today, who are really very extreme Anabaptists. They don't actually believe the sacraments do anything. They think that you're born again when you say a prayer. They think it's completely disassociated from baptism. That is not the teaching of the church. Jesus was very clear when he was talking to Nicodemus.

This is John chapter 3. To be born again is to be born of water and the spirit. The megachurch pastors have removed water from the equation. They think the Holy Spirit comes into you because when you pray and ask Jesus to be your Savior, which is a beautiful thing, I ask them, I ask him every day. Me too. Not just yesterday.

I can save every day. Not just a long time ago. Oh, Lord, save me today. That doesn't mean I'm nervous and I don't think he loves me or he's not in me or I'm not baptized. No, no, I'm not. So don't get the wrong idea, but I want to love him more. I still have parts of me that need redeeming dark spots.

I need him to light up. I need him to save me. And I need him to save me now. And I need him to save me in the future. as well. The salvation, though, begins. The relationship, as soon as I started calling on his name, and even when I was little, I had a relationship with him. But baptism is the culmination, the formal beginning. Wow. And when you're baptized, you get married. You get married to him. And it washes away your sins. St. Peter says, this is First Peter 3, so no mega church pastor can be

mad at me for quoting this. Get mad at St. Peter. He says, four words. Baptism, now, saves you. Well. Okay. It's not a symbol. It's not just something you do on the outside. And when you start thinking that, of course, I know many Protestants who come to the Orthodox church who have been baptized numerous times.

That's completely forbidden. It's completely impossible. Wow. There is no such. You don't get born again numerous times. If you're born, you're born. Then you live. And is Greek Orthodox you get baptized later in life rather than in Catholicism where you do it

as a baby? No. Well, it depends. It really depends who you are. So people who are coming to the church are received by baptism. And then their children are baptized around 40 days old. And the paragon, the reason that we do that is in the Old Testament. Abraham was circumcised.

Circumcision was an Old Testament type of baptism. St. Paul says, is in Colossians 2. circumcision was the mark that you belong to God, just like baptism is. And God asked Abraham to do that as adults. So when Abraham was converted, he got circumcised. It heard because he was a grown man. But Isaac, he circumcised on day eight. And so that paradigm, St. Paul says, is a paradigm we follow.

So converts who are old get baptized as adults, but then their children around the 40th day are baptized and they have their own godparents. I was going to ask about, because I'm trying to, because we don't have that much more time, and I have a million and five questions, would you say that orthodoxy is maybe more intellectual? By the way, when I ask questions, I'm like so open-hearted. And sometimes when I ask questions, I'm simply asking from the Protestant's perspective, you know, the things that they want to know. Of course. But this is a question for myself because I have spent the past like five years in hyper charismatic spaces. I believe heavily in the gifts of this Holy Spirit.

And first I want to ask you, would you say that orthodoxy is maybe more of an intellectual approach to faith? Whereas at times, and this could be a complaint of mine in a lot of people's that in the Protestant church, in like charismatic spaces, There's maybe a hyper-emotionalism. Like we rely so much on feelings and rely so much on like, the Lord is there if you get slain in the spirit. The Lord is there if you're bawling your eyes out. No. No, I wouldn't say that orthodoxy is an intellectual,

is for the intellectuals. And forgive me, I know a lot about Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement. It's a lot of beautiful things. about it actually. I have a friend, he's gone to be with the Lord now. His name was Father Michael Harper, but he, as an Anglican, was a major charismatic leader internationally. And he converted as an older man at like 65 to Holy Orthodoxy and became an Orthodox Christian and then wrote an incredible book about his journey to become Orthodox. So I even have friends who were

very, very influential charismatic teachers. The charismatic movement is tame compared to the life of the normal Orthodox Christian. Wow. I don't think there's anything in the charismatic movement that even appropriates even close to kind of just the normal Orthodox way. Wow. I mean, the church, the proof of the pudding, the proof of the grace of God is in what it produces.

And the greatest witness that Jesus is alive and that His grace can even conquer our sins and death is the production of whole healed people. That's who we call saints. Wow. People who are so close to him that even their enemies they love and death is welcomed. We produced the church. If you came into my parish, it's gorgeous. We're going to come visit.

I can't wait. You're going to go nuts. I know. I shouldn't say more. I shouldn't say more. But when you come in, you'll see painted on the wall, the entire church is painted. Actually, we invested millions of dollars to paint. There's a scheme of iconography that Orthodox churches follow that reveal the life of Jesus and his miracles in paint.

So if you can't actually read, which is the vast majority of Christians for all time, we're not literary. And you could read the whole life by looking. And you'll find, and when you come in, you're going to see full-length people, different historical figures. Men, hundreds of them, men on the right side, women on the left side. These are all people from every century. We made sure that we painted saints from all 20 centuries, from every land, defied death, overcame their fears, and loved Christ in the way that he loved us, which is unto death. Jesus said, no greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friend.

And to be able to have a closeness with Jesus so intense that you actually embrace death for his sake rather than in any way betray him. This is so much more impressive than speaking in tongues or getting a prophecy. I mean, I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. It's just, it's minor compared to what's happened. And the greatest number of those martyrs actually is the 20th century. We have produced. The church isn't like stilted. I mean, people sometimes look, oh, we wish I could live like in the first centuries.

No, you don't. You don't. Yeah. Live in the time that Jesus put you in and live the way they lived in the first century. Really. You know, we have this incredible saint. You made me think of him when you mentioned the Eucharist. Yeah.

His name is St. Ignatius. He was actually. Love Ignatius. Do you know about St. I know Ignatius. He died in like 107. He was actually the little boy.

That tradition says when Jesus, gathered a child and put him on his lap and told the disciples, unless you become like this child, you'll never inherit the kingdom of God. The tradition says that was him as a boy. That was Ignatius. He ended up becoming the bishop of the leading city in the east, which is called Antioch, in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. And he was so influential that the Roman, the pagans hated him. And they literally put him in chains, walked him across the world to Rome and then murdered him in the Coliseum. And he wrote these letters. He wrote seven letters on his journey to the churches, to the major churches that he knew were going to be on the path that the soldiers were taking him.

And he wrote them with one request, don't stop me. Because they were going to pay off the, they wanted to save them. He said, don't save me. This is my dream. Guys, I think one of the biggest lies is that we're supposed to have it all together as Christians. But the truth is, a lot of us are still hurting, still processing, still trying to figure things out. And the missing peace is such a beautiful reminder that Jesus didn't just come to save us. us, he came to give us peace in the middle of everything. Thank you, Jesus. If you've been feeling

overwhelmed or just not like yourself lately, this could really meet you where you are. Go check out The Missing Peace by Tim Ross available everywhere, including audiobook. We cannot wait for you to read this. This is my dream. He goes, I want to become chewed by the lions so that I can become the bread of Jesus and offer my life back to him. I want this. And then he told them, he said, he said, he said, he called, he just describing how much you love the Eucharist. And he said, the Eucharist is the medicine of immortality. If you want to conquer death, you want to become made strong so that you can stick with Jesus no matter what, take the Eucharist time. Wow. Do you think, okay, and every, again, every question we ask is with complete humility in our hearts that there's

so much that we don't know and so much that you can educate us on. Do you think, me taking communion at home by myself is, do you think it's, one, is it a heresy to is there power, is their presence in what I'm doing? Or do you believe that it's only in the church that there's any power or presence? Well, just like that question you asked earlier, let me reframe it. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If the church is who Jesus said it was, this is his body and the fullness of Christ on the earth. And if having a pastor of the church, a pastor that has received the tradition and passed it on,

is important. Having a bishop, having a priest, is then certainly that doesn't mean that you can't be with Christ when you pray outside of the church. It doesn't mean that he's not going to do miracles for you. It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you. But you can't turn the world into church. That's what we're trying to do by preaching the gospel.

One day, the whole world will be lit up by the church. The church is the light of God on the earth, and we're trying to light up the darkness. One day, we will. One day, there won't be anything but church. That's what heaven is. There's no single speck that's not dedicated to Christ and filled with his presence and the light of the church. But now we live in a mix, right? Now, St. John writes, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

Right? So there's church and there's world. The goal of the church is to go in to the world without becoming the world, right? We're in the world, but we're not of the world. And Jesus set us into the world. We're trying to light it up. But there's a distinction. If you say that you, what you do in your closet, what you do privately in your home is equal

to what's going on in the church and making a big mistake. You can't trivialize membership in the church is organic to be connected to the church is to be connected to Jesus' living body on the church. earth. And that necessarily means you have a bishop. There is no such thing as being membered in the church like Jesus wants without having a bishop. Matter of fact, St. Ignatius says you have to know him and that your bishop should know your name. Your bishop should know your name. The bishops and the priests of the church are Jesus' shepherds. You know, Jesus said to Peter after the resurrection, I remember Peter denied him three times. After the resurrection, Jesus met Peter,

and he fixed him, he healed them by asking him three times, Peter, do you love me? He let Peter say yes three times to heal his triple denial. And then he told Peter, if you really love me, this is what you have to do. This is how the apostles and their successors show love. He said, if you love me, feed my sheep. That's the mentality of bishops and priests. The way that we show, the way that I as a priest show love for Christ is to take care of you. to take care of the sheep.

So if you don't have a priest in your life and you don't have a bishop in your life and you're not receiving the sacraments, you're missing out. You're seriously missing out. We can't trivialize that. We can't act like, but that doesn't mean that the Lord doesn't love you,

that he doesn't hear your prayers, that he's not answering your prayers and working miracles in your life. If you ask, you receive. If you seek, you find, if you knock, he opens the door for you. But he always is going to take you and send you to the church.

You know, I'll use an example of Cornelius. Remember the story in Acts 10? Cornelius is a Roman centurion. I mean, he's a very influential pagan military commander. But he was pious. And he was watching the Christians and he was watching the Jews and he's like, hmm, I better start praying. So he was praying.

And the text says that God listened to his prayer and sent an angel to him and said, your prayers have been heard. Some people who, especially the more kind of wild Protestants, No offense. None taken. They think, wow, I mean, look at that. He's saved. But the angel told them, you need to go and send for a man who's down at the house of Simon

the Tanner. His name's Peter and tell him to come speak to you because he has something very important for your salvation. So he sent his servants. They went to Peter's house. Peter was actually praying and he was having a vision on the top of this man's house when the he heard a knock on the door. And he came back down.

They said, I'm from Cornelius. the Centurion and an angel told them that you have to come. So he went there and Peter prayed for him and baptized him. And he received the Holy Spirit. I love that text because it shows one, the Lord was working in his life before he had interactions with the church, but he didn't stop there. A lot of people think it's me and Jesus, it's me and Jesus. Well, that's great, but that's a beginning.

Jesus brings you to where he lives and where he lives is in his church. His spirit fills his church. And this in Cornelius's life, he wasn't. saved until he met Peter. And Peter baptized him and he received the Holy Spirit. This is what happens. So I would just say a lot of what's going on in Christianity in America and in Protestantism is preparatory. That's how I look at it.

What does that happen? That means that people are interacting with Jesus and Jesus is interacting with them. But it's not meant to be the end. He wants you to root yourself in his historic church, which is his body. Plant yourself there. root yourself deeply, participate in the sacraments, get a priest in your life, because it's normal. It's how we have lived for 20 centuries everywhere we've gone. I have to ask you this. Do you guys pray to saints?

You girls. You're like, you girls. You knew. You knew. Look, the connection between the next life and this life is very intense. we often have this idea that what's going on here is one thing and what's going on there is another thing. If you read the scriptures carefully, if you read the apocalypse, the revelation, the last book, if you read chapter six, read chapter six versus nine to 11. It shows the souls of these people who had given their life for Jesus, these martyrs, and they're underneath the altar in heaven. That's how close to God they are.

And they're praying, they're watching us, and they are seeing that we're getting slaughtered. This is first century. We're getting slaughtered. We're getting martyred. And they're praying to Jesus and they say, Lord, How long, holy and true, will you continue to allow this to happen to our brethren? So this idea that they don't see us and that they don't know us, it's complete nonsense. I'm sorry, it's complete nonsense.

That's a scriptural text. And then we have, of course, 20 centuries of interaction. You know, when I was saying that the normal Orthodox life, the normal Orthodox Catholic life, is going to dwarf any experience as a charismatic someone's hat. Well, this is the interactions with the next life. Paul says this in his epistle to the Hebrews. He says that our worship service, this is the chapter 12. He goes, we ascend, not a physical mountain, not Jerusalem's Mount Zion, a heavenly Zion,

and we mingle with angels, angels in men meet. This isn't every liturgy. I've had numerous parishioners, especially young people, see angels in the liturgy and say, did you see that person standing next two fathers? I was like, no, I didn't, but they did. Not once or twice. Not once or twice. So that world sees us.

So when we talk about praying to saints, 100% we do. 100%. We don't pray to saints in place of priests. to Jesus, right? Saints are only saints because they're in union with Jesus. The word saint means holy one, Agios. A saint is someone who's united to Jesus in this life and in the next. And yeah, we do. We don't pray to saints in place of them, in place of Christ. We pray to the Holy Trinity. And we also make our supplications known to the Virgin Mary. And usually our patron saints like, I have a patron saint, my name, who you're named after is your patron saint. I'm Josiah.

Josiah was great king. Love Josiah. We just preached him last week. We just preached Second King's 22. The best, the best. He is the best. I agree with you. He's the best.

Do we have saints? Is there St. Ariel? Yes, there is she like. There's a St. Ariel? Yeah, there's a St. Ariel. I have Ariel in my parish. You're kidding. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you girls can have to figure itself. Saint Angela? Angelos is the word for angel. So there are lots of. Angelos and Angelos. Oh, cool. I love that. I have them in my parish, too.

It's a very popular name in Greek. Okay, cool. I have so many questions. Like, can we talk about tongues and prophecy? All those are all great questions. We're probably going to have to do a part two because we have come to the end. Father Josiah, truly, truly. What an honor.

Thank you. It feels so holy, honestly. Like, there's such a holiness just sitting across from you. It's a reference. Beautiful. Well, I respect your incredible sincerity and your love for God. Yeah. And I'm glad that you're seeking him and talking with people about it.

What's more important than that? To know God and to love God and to let this be a part of our national conversation. This is what we should be doing. Yeah. And we love our Orthodox brothers and sisters so much. Thank you. We love them so much. We are truly one.

We're going to come to your church. And I would just say, put your seatbelt on. I know. Okay, last thing, literally last thing. So I don't believe you. Okay. Last thing. There's so many people. I know, I know people who want to be Greek Orthodox. But they become Catholic instead because they don't have the time or whatever to do the catacumen. Yeah.

And so what if, yeah, I don't know what I'm trying to say. This is my favorite conversation. Whatever. Thank you. And I really want to wear one of the lace things over my head. Do you guys do that? She wants to veil. I really want to veil. I have many visions of myself wearing one. When you come and you see all those incredible female saints,

I was telling you from every century, you're going to see one common characteristic. They're all veiled. Every single one. I think that's so beautiful. Yeah, every single one. It's because they represent God and love and holiness to us. It's an honor to be veiled.

Yeah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you so much for today. We honor you so much. Thank you for this. know me well. Otherwise, I might scandalize you. But I really appreciate being able to speak. And thank you for the invitation. Thank you. Thank you so much. God bless you. We love you guys so much. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May he turn his face towards you and give you peace. Shalom, shalom. We love you so much.