Main news for 15 March 2025

Paul always treated with respect people who observed the norms and rules of their religion. On the other hand, in the church communities of those days there were many who "did not distinguish days," Gentiles, and in practice simply, to use modern language, secular people, for whom no religion was interesting in itself. What was to be done in such a situation? For religious people, that attitude toward religion caused, at the very least, bewilderment.

But Paul, as we can see, is in no hurry to support them. That will hardly surprise us if we understand the motives that guided the apostle.

Paul himself was, of course, a religious man; he speaks of himself as "a Pharisee of Pharisees." But he by no means makes his own religiousness absolute. There are reasons for that. If religion could be salvation in itself, if it could open for its adherents the way into the Kingdom, the apostle would no doubt have treated it differently. But he understands perfectly well that, if that were so, Christ would not have needed to come to us in order to save us. And if religion does not save, if it is a human affair, then it must be treated accordingly, as a human affair. If there are people in the church for whom religion is important, that is a matter of their conscience, and of course the apostle was far from wanting to fight anyone's religious devotion. But he also understood very well all the dangers that religion carries for spiritual life.

One of the chief dangers was precisely that religious people could make their religiousness absolute, as the only possible and only acceptable form of Christian life. Such absolutizing not only repelled nonreligious people; it distorted the very essence of Christianity, which under this approach turned into a kind of new religion, thereby being emptied out and losing its spiritual essence. And Paul speaks sharply against this, not against religion as such, but against making any religiousness absolute, including the form of it that he himself bore. There was only one way to avoid such absolutizing: leave the choice of religion to the discretion of each member of the church. In that way, each person could choose for himself the form of life in the Church, and therefore in the Kingdom, that suited him best.

Rom 14:1

NOTES

"For now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed." From the moment of our conversion to Christ, we look at the world with different eyes. For each of us something changes in life. And, receiving Communion, we become...

Today's reading from the Letter to the Romans is one of the most important passages of Scripture...

Today's reading from the Letter to the Romans is one of the most important passages of Scripture, if among them there can be any more or less important than others. It should lie at the foundation of Christian ideas about which means of spiritual life should be used and how they should be regarded. In practice, divinely revealed religion differs from idolatry first of all in that its means do not become its goal. To the question of what must be done to inherit eternal life, the apostle twice says "put on" (ενδύω, endyo, means to put something on oneself or to give oneself wholly to something): put on the armor of light and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Not "bring the flesh into the proper condition" through a vegetarian diet or other means, but put on the armor of light. A person's material nature requires a certain care; its powers must be sustained, and it must also be restrained so that it does not become the main thing. But: do not turn care for the flesh into lusts. Unlike the Stoics and Epicureans, the apostle asserts that a good life and wise care (πρόνοια, pronoia, wisdom, prudence, care) for the flesh do not automatically lead us to the goal. Strictly speaking, this text approves neither a lack of control over the fleshly side of the person nor mortification of the flesh as the chief meaning of life. In our time, however, as in the apostle's time, the first danger is more pressing than the second.

The second and no less important point in today's passage is this: receive the one who is weak in faith, without disputes over opinions. The apostle affirms that we should not argue about the means of spiritual life (specifically, the issue is fasting). We give account for them before God, not before one another. Incidentally, one cannot help noticing that throughout our history, as also at the present time, fulfilling these words is an impossible task for many of us. On the other hand, the apostle extends this freedom to the realm of the means of spiritual life, but by no means to the content of the faith, as some sometimes try to present it.

Finally, it is useful to hear the word in the original: in the first verse of chapter 14 the apostle says, "the one who is weak in faith..." Άσθενής τή πίστει, astenis ti pistei, asthenic in faith. And there arises before the eyes, as in a mirror, a gaunt asthenic figure with a bloodless face and limp, hanging hands. In Russian we call this a pale infirmity. That is how we believe. And that is why we concentrate on ourselves, on our own spiritual infirmity, and on the outward manifestations of piety. This is overcome, as is known, only by the Blood of Jesus Christ.

“Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself for what he approves.” To condemn oneself is to fail to carry out what...

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