Christopher Goins > Recent Status Updates

Raymond Brown’s scholarship gets undermined here. Fantastic. Down with liberal Catholic scholarship!

Catholicism is the richest (in terms of meaning) religion on Earth. Connecting the Emmanuel prophecy of Isaiah with Mary as the Queen Mother reminds me of why I became Catholic in the first place.

This is my bedtime reading. This one is one of the essentials ones for making it to heaven. Every Catholic should re-read it every year,

Very clarifying. I am learning some new stuff. I think the casual reader might be disappointed at how little the Magisterium details and formally defines aspects of purgatory. The Protestant might say “aha! Conjecture!”

The Bible is a complex book. Here I don’t mean confusing. I mean there is a LOT going on within any given individual passage, such as the parallels in the Gospel of Luke between Mary and Zechariah.

A Catholic scholar’s take on Christmas

Starting over. For book review purposes

Avoiding purgatory will be the hardest yet most rewarding thing I ever attempt to work toward in my life. But sainthood is possible in this life.

Good. I have a lot to work with. Can’t wait to write the review.

I am currently reading this and Volume 1 at the same time with the intent of completing them this time lol. I am FINALLY past the point where I was in college.

I like this book more which covers the Messianic Prophecy Objections!

There are some interesting parallels between anti-Catholic Protestants and non-Christian Jews: to maintain their objections they’d have to be inconsistent in their own interpretation.

Decent. I started this series in college, which was much closer to the time of this book’s printing, but never finished it. It could be improved if Dr. Brown was a Catholic. Foundational for deep messianic prophecy studies. Honestly, many objections Jews bring up could and have been brought up by gentiles. The only Jew-specific ones are the ones dealing with Jewish history and tradition.

I’m making a lot of connections between the Catholic moral foundation set out before 1983 and those same principles’ application to Israel and Gaza now.

Zero justification can be made to make a long story short.

“Is it not time that we concentrate our efforts on peace rather than war?” ~Cardinal Krol

Amazing! Overviews of history are too bird’s eye view sometimes when it needs to zoomed in like eagle or peregrine falcon vision. GREAT principles introduced from St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and medieval Catholics like Vitoria. There’s absolutely no way the current war being waged on Palestinians by Israel is moral on Catholic grounds.

Amazing. I read portions of the Bible at a time though (Torah, Apostolic Letters, Writings, History, Gospels, Deutero-Canonicals, etc.) so page 976 is a little misleading. But it’s where I currently am in Isaiah.

I just finished all of the Deuterocanonicals a few weeks ago for the first time. Absolutely amazing!

Good so far! Jesus really wants to be present with us. He is crazy about us. So much so that He is present in the Blessed Sacrament! He is “our priceless gift, a matchless mystical medicine.” We receive him “Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.”

Introduction was good.

Dear fellow Goodreaders,

Just because I “Want to Read” something doesn’t mean I endorse the book. I think of myself as an open-minded critical thinker that’s willing to engage with other views.

Best,

Christopher
Recently confirmed Catholic
6.25.23

Great so far. Aquinas was extremely productive — not that I didn’t know that before. But this breaks his productivity down to the numbers and pages per day and makes attempts to replicate that kind of productivity actionable.

This is my first 700+ page read. I plan on reading every word. Catholicism baby!

Excellent so far. I feel like I’m in college again — or in the early days of my journalism career — where I was reading examples of good writing and trying to imitate it.

Great! Teaches men how to deal with their sin right from the start of the book. Sin is deadly serious. Unconfessed mortal sin can send one to Hell. This is just the opening chapter. Venial sin is nothing to play with as well. Personally, the stern message from the author shines a bright beam on areas I need to repent and confess. “Evil images” is one of them. Their proliferation on social media makes it hard.

The first chapter explaining the difference between Ancient Greek pagan prophets & the ancient Hebrew prophets was informative.

The ancient greeks were hucksters that scammed their own people, hid behind mystery & in mountains away from the people, and concerned themselves with nothing moral only political.

The ancient Hebrew prophets dwelt among the people and took no money for their prophecies (which came true)

Not even done yet. But I’m buying this for sure for my high school students! And middle schoolers too!

Pages 24 - 30 are AMAZING! The insights that whole Bible/Biblical Theology are amazing! Some truly new things learned here — even if some are extrapolations from a much, much revisited text (Genesis 1-4).

I’m very seasoned on the information in this intro chapter but there are some new tidbits here. I like the part about God creating on days 1, 2, 3 and then filling those creations with the corresponding creation. The info and emphasis the number “7” in the Hebrew. For example, there are seven syllables in the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1. Also, the connection between Genesis 2-3 and Proverbs 1:7 is gold.

Good so far. Jesus made it quite clear in Luke 24 that the entire Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was about Him. This book emphasizes that “whole bible” approach and highlights the benefits of reading the Bible in light of its overarching story.

I actually read this before but apparently didn’t log it on Goodreads those many years ago (I think 2015 or 2016). Welp, here’s to the second time around!

This time I’m re-reading to see if it is a goodie—one of those books I’d recommend Christians internalize.

We shall see.