Orthodox readings for 21 October 2008

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Philippians, Chapter 1, verses 8-14

³ He testifieth his thankfulness to God, and his love toward them, for the fruits of their faith, and fellowship in his sufferings, ⁹ daily praying to him for their increase in grace, ¹² He showeth what good the faith of Christ had received by his troubles at Rome

⁸For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

⁹And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

¹⁰That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;

¹¹Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

¹²But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;

¹³So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places;

¹⁴And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Read more:Philippians, Chapter 1

Topics:

End of the World

Luke, Chapter 8, verses 1-3

³ Women minister unto Christ of their substance

¹And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,

²And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,

³And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.

Read more:Luke, Chapter 8

NOTES

The word, the seed sown by the sower, contains within itself the germ of the Kingdom of Heaven. Falling into our hearts, it begins to sprout into an ear of new life. But in this parable the sower...

Jesus' parables are something halfway between amusing stories from everyday life and riddles: in them He explains the inexpressible, the Message of His Kingdom, in simple human language. Many of them begin...

Among the Savior's parables about the Kingdom, the parable of the sower, the parable of the word that God sows in the human heart, occupies a special place. The Kingdom and the word: how are they connected? How is the word entering the human heart...

Among the Savior's parables about the Kingdom, the parable of the sower, the parable of the word that God sows in the human heart, occupies a special place. The Kingdom and the word: how are they connected? How is the word entering the human heart connected with the Word? The Word with a capital letter is incarnate in Christ. But what about the word of God with a lowercase letter? How does it enter a person's heart? What is this word like? The word by which God creates the world. The word that the prophets hear. The word that, as the hymn writer says, does not return to God unfulfilled. It turns out to be given to everyone. It is sown like seed in a field, with a generous hand. Only it is far from always received as seed is received by well-prepared soil.

This is understandable: the word is not simply a revelation given once. It is the instrument of God's action, which God uses in order to change a person. To prepare him for the fullness of communion with God. For life in the Kingdom. And a person does not always want this. For all sorts of reasons. Sometimes simply because he has no time. If God's word is not the main thing for a person, if God for him is somewhere beside the road along which the person is walking, the word of God will never become in his heart the instrument of God's action. But even if it does become that, this is still not everything.

After all, spiritual life is not for a day, not for a month, not for a year. It is forever. And if a person has time for "spirituality" today but not tomorrow, then his "spirituality" really does belong in quotation marks. And, of course, there is steadfastness during trials. A person who desires a righteous life, life with God, has always been an enemy of the evil in which the fallen world lies. And a Christian is doubly its enemy: he not only does not accept this evil himself, he also brings into the world the Kingdom that destroys evil without mercy, leaving it no place in creation.

It is not surprising that if this world generally hates the righteous, it hates Christian righteous people twice as much. And yet persecutions themselves are not as frightening as the everyday, organic rejection of spiritual life that marks the fallen world. Persecutions spiritually mobilize; their absence relaxes. And only after overcoming both can one begin a normal spiritual life. With the word in the heart, reflecting that very Word that became incarnate in Christ, and which, if one allows it to change one's heart, will make it capable of containing the life of the Kingdom in all the fullness available to a human being.

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