Orthodox readings for 26 October 2001

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Colossians, Chapter 2, verses 1-7

¹ He still exhorteth them to be constant in Christ

¹For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

²That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

³In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.

⁵For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.

⁶As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

⁷Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Read more:Colossians, Chapter 2

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2

2:1 How great a conflict - Of care, desire, prayer.As many as have not seen my face - Therefore, in writing to the Colossians, he refrains from those familiar appellations, "Brethren," "Beloved."

2:2 Unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the acknowledgment of the mystery of God - That is, unto the fullest and clearest understanding and knowledge of the gospel.

2:6 So walk in him - In the same faith, love, holiness.

2:7 Rooted in him - As the vine. Built - On the sure foundation.

Luke, Chapter 9, verses 12-18

⁷ Herod desireth to see Christ; Christ feedeth five thousand

¹²And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.

¹³But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all this people.

¹⁴For they were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.

¹⁵And they did so, and made them all sit down.

¹⁶Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.

¹⁷And they did eat, and were all filled: and there was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve baskets.

¹⁸And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

Read more:Luke, Chapter 9

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9

9:12 Mat 14:15; Mar 6:35; Joh 6:3.

9:18 Apart - From the multitude. And he asked them - When he had done praying, during which they probably stayed at a distance. Mat 14:13; Mar 8:27.

NOTES

Luke briefly touches on a whole series of events about which the other evangelists, especially Matthew, speak in greater detail. He gives the central place to Peter's confession and to Jesus' account of His approaching death and resurrection. There is a logic to this presentation. First of all...

Luke briefly touches on a whole series of events about which the other evangelists, especially Matthew, speak in greater detail. He gives the central place to Peter's confession and to Jesus' account of His approaching death and resurrection. There is a logic to this presentation. First of all, the Savior lets His disciples feel the power of the Kingdom and learn from their own experience how this power acts in the world. And not only them: the miraculous feeding of thousands of people with five loaves and two fish is also possible only in the Kingdom. This is not surprising: when it comes to the Kingdom, it is easier to show than to tell. Meanwhile, even those who had previously taken no interest in Christ's testimony begin to notice it—for example, Herod, who was generally wary of every kind of messianic movement that threatened his power.

This is precisely why, immediately after Peter's confession, Jesus explains to the disciples just how different the messiahship He has brought into the world is. Of course, the apostles fully understood everything Jesus told them only on the day of Pentecost. But it was immediately after Peter's confession that He began speaking to them about His messiahship and His path. It is as though He is trying to make everything clear from the outset, so that His messianic ministry will not become associated in His disciples' minds with traditional popular messianic expectations.

From the very beginning, the Savior does everything possible to help His disciples understand as much as they can of what they will have to understand fully in due time. This is natural: Golgotha lay ahead. The disciples had to be prepared, as far as possible, for what awaited them—and what awaited them was the shock of the complete collapse of their entire worldview and sense of the world. Only the experience of the Kingdom could help them endure it—not the earthly kingdom of popular expectations, but the true Kingdom, the one the Savior brought into the world.

The apostles gained as much experience of the Kingdom as was then possible after they went out to preach on their own, without their Teacher. The new ideas about the Kingdom proved more difficult: they would not fit into the disciples' minds or find room in their consciousness. All that remained was to rely on their intuition and, above all, on the personal relationship that bound them to Jesus. Nevertheless, He tells the apostles everything that can be said in human words about His earthly path and earthly ministry. And then each one takes in as much of His words as he is able to take in.

Today's reading offers us several events that Luke links together, making them links in one chain. The passage begins with a description of how Jesus...

Today's reading offers us several events that Luke links together, making them links in one chain. The passage begins with a description of how Jesus sends the twelve apostles out to preach (vv. 1-10), continues with the story of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves (vv. 11-17), and ends with the account of Peter's confession, including Jesus' conversation (vv. 18-27). And this connection is, of course, not accidental. Jesus sends His disciples to witness to the Kingdom, and to witness not only by word but also by deed, so that the witness would be supported by such a visible manifestation of the Kingdom as healings (vv. 1-2). And the apostles' preaching, as we see, had success, attracting the attention not only of the people but also of the authorities (vv. 7-9).

Then something happened that perhaps even the apostles did not expect. The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves was, as we see, a surprise even for them. In order to feed the gathered people, they were ready to act by the most ordinary methods (vv. 12-13), but Jesus expected something different from them: He told them to behave as if they were in the Kingdom (vv. 14-16). And then something really happened that could not happen according to the laws of our world, not yet transformed, but that is possible in the Kingdom: a small amount of food was enough for everyone, and more than enough, so that if even more people had gathered, there would have been enough for each one (v. 17).

This was a very important experience of the Kingdom for everyone, and above all, of course, for the apostles themselves. Until now they had been witnesses of how the power of the Kingdom acts in a world not yet transformed, a world where its action manifests itself, in one way or another, in opposition to the evil in which this world remains. Now the apostles saw the Kingdom from within, as it will be when the world is completely transformed and renewed. Such an experience of abiding in the triumphant Kingdom could not pass without a trace, and Peter's confession may have become its result (vv. 18-20).

Then Jesus warns His disciples that before the victory of the Kingdom, which they had already partly had occasion to see, becomes complete, He Himself will have to pass through the cross, and those who follow Him will have to share that cross with Him (vv. 21-27). Thus, by giving His disciples a share in the Kingdom, Jesus at the same time tells them about the price of the Kingdom. About the price of the world's transformation and its deliverance from the evil into which the fall plunged it.

There can hardly be any doubt that the miraculous feeding of the many-thousand-person crowd with five loaves and two fish was yet another...

There can hardly be any doubt that the miraculous feeding of the many-thousand-person crowd with five loaves and two fish was yet another of the many manifestations of the Kingdom mentioned in the Gospel. It was a manifestation that neither the people gathered to listen to Jesus nor the apostles expected at all: it is no accident that the disciples asked Jesus whether they should go and buy bread for all the multitude of people around Him. But He acts differently, letting not only the apostles but everyone present see what the Kingdom is, where nature is completely subject to the spirit.

But in order to feel the breath of the Kingdom, one had to enter this Kingdom. Of course, the easiest way to enter it was to hold, figuratively and sometimes even literally, the hand of Jesus. Yet He, as we can see, wants those who are walking to form a spiritual chain whose participants can also hold on to one another. Apparently it is precisely for this purpose that He tells the disciples to seat the people in groups of fifty.

It should be noted that in Judaism the number ten, and numbers that are multiples of ten, generally have special meaning. The point is that ten people, more precisely, ten men who have reached religious adulthood, are enough to form a prayer assembly, to organize a community that will be considered a synagogue. And Jesus is clearly not simply organizing the crowd at random; He is turning it into a fellowship based on separate communities of fifty people each.

This appears to be the very form that, according to the Savior's design, the Kingdom was to take in our transforming but not yet transformed world: it was to become a collection of communities, communities including those who seek the Kingdom and those who have already managed to share in its life. In this way the spiritual chain of those seeking salvation and the Kingdom was to take shape and grow. But it was needed not only to help those seeking the Kingdom, but also so that the Kingdom itself would receive the form of its existence in our transforming world, not yet transformed to the end. A form that would allow it to grow, including ever new people, conquering ever new hearts.

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