Theology

The realm of tears is so mysterious! - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. – Isaiah 50:10

Biblical interpretation is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges for the Bible reader. What are the essential hermeneutical principles we need?

My first Bible was given to me by Pastor Damian Zamfir in the winter of 1972. Pastor Zamfir, the man who led my first steps on the path to Christ, invited me to visit him in the parish house of the Adventist church on Rodnei Street in Targoviste.

The tendency toward the total privatization of religious life is particularly strong today, especially in the new generation.

If God exists, why would I matter to Him?

Among the words of Jesus, I was first fascinated by His surprising and enigmatic counter-questions, which generated real clashes among his tempters. In the face of the questions that were supposed to leave Him speechless, He always had a more comprehensive vision, from the perspective of which the traps were reduced to ridiculous, absurd obstacles.

I don’t remember ever doubting that, beyond the limits of the ensnaring, visible world, there is another reality that can only be accessed by those who speak the language of faith.

"All your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature" through the decisions you make, wrote CS Lewis. If the choices we make really have such an impact, how can Christians make sure they make the right decisions?

I was born into an Adventist family. This meant feeling that pretty much everything I knew, including my religious tradition, was the sole truth.

The end of the line for Christian perfectionism is not perfection, but atheism. This is because what we imagine to be the constant unsatisfied look of God upon us, is a burden too heavy for any human to bear.

Bridges seem to be the emblem of existential stress for Romanians. In the face of a difficult situation, even Romanian folk wisdom recommends: "Make a pact with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."

In a psalm that is worth reading on our coldest mornings and in our darkest nights, King David asked some rhetorical questions—“Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?”— questions which our contemporaries would not dare to answer.

Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.

As we know all too well, life can be hard. Even in the best of times, life can be hard. But now this, a pandemic? How are we to cope?