Orthodox readings for 31 October 2023

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Colossians, Chapter 2, verses 20-23

²⁰ and legal ceremonies, which are ended in Christ

²⁰Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

²¹(Touch not; taste not; handle not;

²²Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

²³Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

Colossians, Chapter 3, verses 1-3

¹ He showeth where we should seek Christ

¹If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

²Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

³For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Read more:Colossians, Chapter 3

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2

2:20 Therefore - The inference begun, Col 2:16; is continued.A new inference follows, Col 3:1.If ye are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world - That is, If ye are dead with Christ, and so freed from them, why receive ye ordinances - Which Christ hath not enjoined, from which he hath made you free.

2:21 Touch not - An unclean thing. Taste not - Any forbidden meat. Handle not - Any consecrated vessel.

2:22 Perish in the using - Have no farther use, no influence on the mind.

2:23 Not sparing the body - Denying it many gratifications, and putting it to many inconveniences. Yet they are not of any real value before God, nor do they, upon the whole, mortify, but satisfy, the flesh. They indulge our corrupt nature, our self - will, pride, and desire of being distinguished from others.

3

3:1 If ye are risen, seek the things above - As Christ being risen, immediately went to heaven.

3:3 For ye are dead - To the things on earth. And your real, spiritual life is hid from the world, and laid up in God, with Christ - Who hath merited, promised, prepared it for us, and gives us the earnest and foretaste of it in our hearts.

Luke, Chapter 9, verses 23-27

⁷ Herod desireth to see Christ; Christ feedeth five thousand

²³And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

²⁴For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

²⁵For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?

²⁶For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels.

²⁷But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

Read more:Luke, Chapter 9

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9

9:23 Let him deny himself, and take up his cross - The necessity of this duty has been shown in many places: the extent of it is specified here, daily - Therefore that day is lost wherein no cross is taken up.

9:24 Mat 16:25; Mar 8:35; Joh 12:25.

NOTES

Having revealed the will of the Father that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed, and on the third day rise again, the Lord, as the Evangelist Luke writes, addresses "all". It is obvious that the Evangelist means those crowds of people who followed Jesus and flocked to Him wherever...

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.

Paul draws attention to the fact that the Christian's life is directly connected with the life and person of Christ Himself, "hidden in Christ," as the apostle calls it. This is understandable: the Kingdom itself is inseparable from the relationships that bind the Son with the Father, and still more is the life of each individual Christian inseparable from them. This life is visible to the world to the extent that...

Paul draws attention to the fact that the Christian's life is directly connected with the life and person of Christ Himself, "hidden in Christ," as the apostle calls it. This is understandable: the Kingdom itself is inseparable from the relationships that bind the Son with the Father, and still more is the life of each individual Christian inseparable from them. This life is visible to the world to the extent that the Kingdom is visible to it at all, and the Kingdom opens to the world as the world is transformed. To the extent that the world is transformed, the life of the Kingdom, and therefore the life of its inhabitants, becomes visible to it; to the extent that it still remains untransformed, that life remains unknown to it. But on the day of the world's complete transformation and the Savior's return, everything that was previously invisible will become visible and plain to all, so that nothing hidden from the world will remain.

However, in order for the life of a particular Christian to be full, it must not be reduced merely to passive abiding in the Kingdom, in the space of the relationships that bind the Father and the Son. In any case, passive abiding in the Kingdom is scarcely possible at all, since the Kingdom itself exists only in continuous dynamism, insofar as every relationship is always dynamic and can exist only by being constantly renewed. But besides this external dynamism, the Christian's life must also necessarily contain an internal one, connected with spiritual renewal and the transformation of the Christian's own human nature. After full transformation, every person's nature must become the same as the Savior's human nature became after His Resurrection. But transformation is not a one-time act; it is a process connected with the person of the Savior Himself, with His life, and with the process by which the Kingdom enters the world.

The completion of the Christian's path, and therefore of the transformation of his human nature, coincides with the completion of the transformation of all the rest of nature, of all creation. And of course this path is not limited to the bounds of a person's earthly life, but continues after that life is finished. Yet it begins at the present, earthly stage of the path, and Paul describes it figuratively as a person's "stripping off" his former nature and "putting on" a new one, corresponding to the spiritual state that abiding in the Kingdom presupposes. Of course, a change in a person's physical nature is impossible at the present stage of the path, but a change in the person's psychic, soul nature is entirely possible. This is what the apostle reminds the recipients of his letter about, calling them to exclude from their life sexual immorality in all its forms, impurity, greed, anger, and everything else that is characteristic of human psychic nature in its fallen state. And if they succeed in this, then they will have taken the first step on the path toward the complete transformation of their nature, and therefore toward the fullness of the life of the Kingdom.

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