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New Jerusalem Journal Reflections, Essays, and Articles by Philip D. Ropp |
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Now go, write it before them
on a tablet, and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come,
forever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying
children, children who will not hear the law of the
LORD: Who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not
prophesy to us right things; Speak to us smooth things, prophesy
deceits. Get out of the way, turn
aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before
us.”
Isaiah
30: 8-11
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Radio New Jerusalem Journal Presents... The Reflections, Essays, and Opinions of Philip D. Ropp |
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Philip D.
"Phil" Ropp is an ethnic Mennonite who, while studying for the
Presbyterian ministry, was saved by Jesus Christ in a dramatic
spiritual incident on a warm, spring night back in 1977. The
spiritual journey of his life has been witness to the numerous trials
his Savior has brought him through, eventually resulting in bringing
him to his knees before the Cross while joining with the Catholic
Church in 2002. During 2007, he left the Catholic Church for
several months due to anger and frustration that resulted from the
heresy and outright apostasy he encountered within the church
hierarchy. After worshipping with his native people in the
Mennonite tradition, the ultimate and unchangeable reality of
the Real Presence of Jesus was revealed to him in the form of a vision
in which he saw Jesus standing deserted and alone within a burning
Catholic Church. He has returned to the Catholic Church to make
his stand with our beloved Savior.
Phil's worldly education includes a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Alma College in 1977, and he has done post-graduate work in theology and history. In 1998, he began Radio New Jerusalem as a support ministry for Christian short wave radio. In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Phil wrote a number of essays and opinion pieces and published them under the heading of "Troubled Times." From this beginning evolved Radio New Jerusalem Journal, an online magazine featuring the essays, editorial commentary and opinions of Philip D. Ropp. |
| The Writings of Philip D. Ropp by Category: |
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| Reflections |
Biblical | Catholic | Features | 9/11/01 | Contact Phil |
| Reflections |
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| Journey to
Jerusalem By Philip D. Ropp Today’s
Gospel marks the end
of the Galilean ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the fateful
journey to Jerusalem and the
cross. This Galilean ministry, as presented to us
in Luke, begins with Jesus accepting the baptism of John, and with it
the
proclamation that he is the Son of God.
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| He Must
Increase
While I Must Decrease By Philip D. Ropp It would seem fitting at this, the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, to consider just who this enigmatic character clad in camel hair and feasting on locusts and honey really was. From today’s Gospel we know that he was the son of a priest named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. We know that they were righteous people, well on in years and childless. |
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| Who is
This Who
Even Forgives Sins? By Philip D. Ropp We are
all familiar with the words of
Jesus in Luke 12:48: "To whom much has been given, much will be
expected." Today we learn that to whom much has been forgiven, much can
be expected. And the three examples that we are given who
exemplify
this truth are King David, Saint Paul, and Saint Mary Magdalene.
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| A Miraculous
and
Glorious End to a Wondrous and Joyous Day By Philip D. Ropp To this day, the church collects its offerings in wicker baskets. This is a tradition that can be traced all the way back to the feeding of the 5000, as recounted in today's Gospel, wherein no less than twelve of these baskets were filled with the scraps that remained after all had eaten and were satisfied. It was a miraculous and glorious end to a wondrous and joyous day. |
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| The Rumors of God's
Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated By Philip D. Ropp Is
God Dead? When these words
appeared on the cover of Time
on
April 8, 1966, a religious storm was loosed upon the cultural landscape
of the United States that has yet to subside. Trivia buffs will recall
that clever bumper stickers on cars were originally popularized by one
that read "My God's Not Dead -- Sorry About Yours."
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| After the
Order of
Melchizedek By Philip D. Ropp The
Gospel According to Saint John is not only
the deepest and most theologically profound of the four New Testament
accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, but also the most
misunderstood. While the three synoptic Gospels share much
material in common, and are often treated by scholars as if they
comprise three separate parts of the same whole, the Gospel of John
stands alone in its format, its concept, and its vision of who our
Savior is and how we are to relate to him.
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| Spider-Man 3: A Gospel Message for the World of More and Better Gadgets By Philip D. Ropp Perhaps
the most interesting thing about the Book
of Acts is the fact
that there is so little in our religious life that has actually changed
since the earliest days of the Church. When we look around us and
observe how truly different the physical and political world is today
compared to the world of the apostles, it is astounding to realize how
very much the same as us the people are that populate that world.
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At the prison, each of our worship groups has an assigned leader. This is the man that is chosen to be representative on the prison’s activities committee, the body that oversees religious worship, and he also serves as the lay leader for our prayer services. John is the man that serves in this capacity for the Level III security group, and Will serves in this role for the guys in Level IV. |
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By Philip D. Ropp
Every actor, from the days of the first flickering silent pictures to the cinematic extravaganzas exhibited today, has lamented that some hack editor has left his best work to rot on the cutting room floor. This creative difference of opinion between actor, director and editorial personnel has more than once resulted in the police restoring order at a Hollywood party at which an earnest conversation about artistic merit had become, shall we say, somewhat less professional. |
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| My Lord and My God! By Philip D. Ropp The
solemnity of Lent
has drawn to a close and now we find ourselves celebrating the joy of
the
Easter season. Today, this season
stretches out before us, as we await the celebration of the Lord’s
Ascension on
May 17 and the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on May 27.
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| Untie Him and Let
Him Go By Philip D. Ropp As our
Lenten journey begins to draw
to a close, we find ourselves in
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| Fatted Calves By Philip D. Ropp When I
was a boy entering into my early
teenage years, I attended Sunday School at Eastminster Presbyterian
Church. My teacher was a young man in
his mid 20’s named Gary Fetzner. Mary
knows Gary’s
younger brother John. He’s president of
our parish council at St. Mary’s. John’s
younger brother, Rex, is one of my best friends, and has been going all
the way
back to this time back in the mid 1960’s.
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| Burning Bush, Holy
Name By Philip D. Ropp Moses
was merely minding his own business and that of his father-in-law,
Jethro. Tending sheep, leading the flock
across the
desert, he comes to Mount Horeb, the “mountain of God,”
which would later take on the name of the entire surrounding region:
Sinai. There was a bush and it was on
fire; and, though on fire, it was not consumed. As
if that was not strange enough, God spoke to Moses from
the midst of
the burning bush.
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| The Wandering Aramean By Philip D. Ropp Last
week, we celebrated Ash Wednesday and the beginning of our annual
Lenten
journey. It is a journey from the
wilderness of our fallen, sinful human nature to the light that beckons
to us
from the promised land that lies beyond the Cross. It is a
journey that brings us up and out of
the Egypt
of this broken promise land of man’s inhumanity to man, and leads us
onward
through the desert towards a land flowing with the milk and honey of
salvation.
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| The Source of Our Faith By Philip D. Ropp On
Wednesday, as the disciples of Jesus, we
begin our annual Lenten journey with him towards Jerusalem.
Already, the long shadow of the cross casts itself in our direction
from
the hill of Calvary. Already, the
distant horizon of Holy Week is in view, and we are beaconed to enter
the dusty
road with our fellow pilgrims and make our way once more towards the
source of
our faith.
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By Philip D. Ropp
In previous weeks, I have stood here and presented to you the reflections that I had prepared and given at the prison in St. Louis: The so-called “correctional facility” that so often seems to need more correcting than it gives. The reason for this “double dipping” from the pool of reflections is not so much that it allows me to get extra mileage out of the work that I do for them, but, more, that the words of inspiration that they need to hear seem to apply equally to you as well. |
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| A Still More
Excellent Way By Philip D. Ropp
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has
sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable
to the Lord." These are the words that Jesus speaks just
prior to the beginning of today's scripture lesson. This is that
scripture passage which was, in that day, fulfilled in their hearing,
and is in this day, fulfilled in ours.
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| The
Beginning Of His Signs By Philip D. Ropp The
gospel according to St. John tracks the
journey of Jesus to his destiny at calvary through a series of seven
dramatic signs. Each of these signs is a miraculous deed that
serves to reveal the true nature and identity of Jesus in
a progressively more wondrous, profound and significant way. By
the time the last of these signs is reached, the astounding and deeply
moving resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus has transitioned
from the deliverer of the Jews, to messianic king of all Israel, to the
Christ -- the transcendent Son of God Incarnate and Savior of the human
race.
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| Next Year in
Jerusalem By Philip D. Ropp L’shana
ha’ba-ah b’Yerushalayim. "Next year in
Jerusalem." This is a Passover prayer that has sustained
the Jewish people for two thousand years. In its historical context, it
hearkens back to the social and religious trauma experienced by the
Jews at the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70
AD. Dispersed throughout the world,
subjected to the harshest realities of political, social and religious
persecution, this simple phrase came to symbolize the hope, belief and
ultimate
trust in the deliverance and salvation of God.
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Our
Scripture
readings today are chosen for the purpose of
illustrating the inter-relationship between God, the law and
ourselves. We are all aware of the rules and regulations
by which our society and its institutions are governed. Our lives
and our relationships are in no small way defined and determined by the
rules that we are taught as
children and which follow us and become ever more complicated as we
progress to
and through adulthood. This is true not only of each of us as
individuals,
but of peoples and nations as well.
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| Biblical Essays
and
Commentary |
| A Brief Description of The
Documentary Hypothesis And the Origin of The Old Testament By Phil Ropp As the
Renaissance brought about the questioning of church authority that
resulted in the Reformation of the 16th century, so the Reformation
lead to the European Enlightenment that blossomed in the 17th century.
This new Age of Enlightenment, spawned from the Protestant Reformation
and later Catholic Counter-Reformation, called into question the
authority of the institutional church, be it Catholic or Reformed, to
interpret and teach Biblical truth based upon assumptions that remained
from ancient times, and traditions that had become attached to the
faith through the Dark and Middle Ages.
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Understanding the
Parable of
Wheat and Weeds
By Philip D. Ropp The Gospel of Matthew is a
skillful literary construct that neatly
organizes the birth, life and passion of Jesus into a tightly crafted
account. Its decidedly Jewish perspective begins with a genealogy
that establishes the Davidic lineage of Jesus and which sets the tone
for Matthew’s contention that Jesus is the messiah and the fulfillment
of the scriptures. By the end, Jesus has exceeded even these
fantastic
expectations...
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The authenticity of
Paul’s
letter to the church at Galatia is attested to by the typical Pauline
dichotomy that is the overriding characteristic of the text. From
a
technical standpoint, the letter poses more questions than it
answers.
There is a wide range of debate as to not only who but also where the
Galatians were, when the letter was written and where it
originated.
Thematically, the content is vintage Paul and is most often compared to
his letter to the Romans... |
| Trouble Not the
Master: Reflections on the Resurrection of the Daughter of Jarius in the Gospel of Luke By Philip D. Ropp The seventh, eighth and ninth
chapters of Luke’s gospel mark the
transition of Jesus from an itinerant Galilean preacher, prophet and
worker of wonders into the “Christ of God,” destined for Jerusalem, the
cross, and, ultimately, the miracle of the empty tomb. To be
sure,
controversy had traveled with Jesus since the beginning of this
Galilean ministry, when he brought it down upon himself in no uncertain
terms at the synagogue in Nazareth...
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| The
Mark of Cain By Philip D. Ropp One of the great
casualties inflicted upon modern man by the widespread acceptance of
the
scientific view of history has been the relegation of the Bible to the
intellectual scrap heap of myth and legend. There was a time,
and not that long ago, when all of western civilization understood the
world historically and socially within the context of a Biblically
based
reality. The story of how this came about is familiar enough...
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