Orthodox readings for 25 June 2026

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Romans, Chapter 11, verses 13-24

⁷ Some were elected, though the rest were hardened, ¹⁶ There is hope of their conversion, ¹⁸ The Gentiles may not insult upon them

¹³For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

¹⁴If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.

¹⁵For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

¹⁶For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

¹⁸Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

¹⁹Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.

²⁰Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

²¹For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

²²Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

²³And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.

²⁴For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?

Read more:Romans, Chapter 11

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11

11:13 I magnify my office - Far from being ashamed of ministering to the gentiles, I glory therein; the rather, as it may be a means of provoking my brethren to jealousy.

11:14 My flesh - My kinsmen.

11:15 Life from the dead - Overflowing life to the world, which was dead.

11:16 And this will surely come to pass. For if the first fruits be holy, so is the lump - The consecration of them was esteemed the consecration of all and so the conversion of a few Jews is an earnest of the conversion of all the rest. And if the root be holy - The patriarchs from whom they spring, surely God will at length make their descendants also holy.

11:17 Thou - O gentile. Being a wild olive tree - Had the graft been nobler than the stock, yet its dependance on it for life and nourishment would leave it no room to boast against it. How much less, when, contrary to what is practised among men, the wild olive tree is engrafted on the good!

11:18 Boast not against the branches - Do not they do this who despise the Jews? or deny their future conversion?

11:20 They were broken off for unbelief, and thou standest by faith - Both conditionally, not absolutely: if absolutely, there might have been room to boast. By faith - The free gift of God, which therefore ought to humble thee.

11:21 Be not highminded, but fear - We may observe, this fear is not opposed to trust, but to pride and security.

11:22 Else shalt thou - Also, who now "standest by faith," be both totally and finally cut off.

11:24 Contrary to nature - For according to nature, we graft the fruitful branch into the wild stock; but here the wild branch is grafted into the fruitful stock.

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Matthew, Chapter 11, verses 27-30

²⁵ and, praising his Father's wisdom in revealing the gospel to the simple, ²⁸ he calleth to him all such as feel the burden of their sins

²⁷All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

²⁸Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Read more:Matthew, Chapter 12

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11:27 All things are delivered to me - Our Lord, here addressing himself to his disciples, shows why men, wise in other things, do not know this: namely, because none can know it by natural reason: none but those to whom he revealeth it.

11:28 Come to me - Here he shows to whom he is pleased to reveal these things to the weary and heavy laden; ye that labour - After rest in God: and are heavy laden - With the guilt and power of sin: and I will give you rest - I alone (for none else can) will freely give you (what ye cannot purchase) rest from the guilt of sin by justification, and from the power of sin by sanctification.

11:29 Take my yoke upon you - Believe in me: receive me as your prophet, priest, and king. For I am meek and lowly in heart - Meek toward all men, lowly toward God: and ye shall find rest - Whoever therefore does not find rest of soul, is not meek and lowly.The fault is not in the yoke of Christ: but in thee, who hast not taken it upon thee. Nor is it possible for any one to be discontented, but through want of meekness or lowliness.

11:30 For my yoke is easy - Or rather gracious, sweet, benign, delightful: and my burden - Contrary to those of men, is ease, liberty, and honour.

NOTES

The path Israel, God's chosen people, walks is difficult. Often this path is "against the goads" (to quote the Lord's words to Paul himself), a path of resistance to God's will. The apostle has already said much about this in his letter, and...

The path Israel, God's chosen people, walks is difficult. Often this path is "against the goads" (to quote the Lord's words to Paul himself), a path of resistance to God's will. The apostle has already said much about this in his letter, and his pain for his kinsmen according to the flesh, for his brothers and sisters, is very great. And yet, speaking about the reasons that led to Israel's falling away from God, Paul persistently reminds us: yes, they fell away, but God did not take His election from them; God calls them, and Christ died for them as well. More than that, it is very important for the apostle to convey to the Roman community, and through it to all other Christians converted from paganism, an essential warning: one must remember the fate of those who fell away from God and draw the proper conclusions from it. And the chief thing from which he wants to protect the newborn Church is the disease of boasting.

Our personal encounter with the Lord is always an immense gift. At first we walk around stunned by grace unexpectedly received. I think we all remember the happiness of realizing divine love and forgiveness, on the one hand, and the undeservedness of this gift, our unworthiness, on the other. Yet human beings are made in such a way that they easily and gladly remember the first, and just as easily forget the second. And when we look at our brothers and sisters who for one reason or another turn away from God and fall away from the Church, we want to say to ourselves: well, that will not happen to me; it cannot happen.

And here it is, the message to us from the apostle Paul: "They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be proud, but fear." Do not look at your brother's path; "before his own Lord he stands or falls" (Rom. 14:4). He has his own relationship with God, and the Creator's design for each of us is completely unique. Look at yourself, watch yourself, and fear falling away from the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Jesus sometimes describes the Kingdom in a completely astonishing, paradoxical way. What, for example, are we to make of a "good yoke" or a "light burden"! And yet such definitions very accurately describe what the Kingdom is for fallen humanity.

Jesus sometimes describes the Kingdom in a completely astonishing, paradoxical way. What, for example, are we to make of a "good yoke" or a "light burden"! And yet such definitions very accurately describe what the Kingdom is for fallen humanity.

For a normal person, hardly anything positive can be associated with a yoke: in the original sense of the word, a yoke is a collar symbolically placed on an enslaved person as a sign of the person's new condition. And a burden is more readily associated in our minds with a weight that must be carried simply because it cannot be thrown off, and certainly not with the lightness of being. Yet for fallen human nature the Kingdom really is a burden, just as the fallen person can walk the path into the Kingdom only by taking upon himself what the learned rabbis of those times called the "yoke of the Torah."

On Jesus' lips, the "yoke of the Torah" becomes the "yoke of the Kingdom," for the same inner struggle is in view, the struggle characteristic of every fallen person who wants to walk the way of righteousness. It is no accident that Paul also said that through the Torah comes the knowledge of sin: it is precisely the attempts to walk the way of righteousness, to follow the Torah, that reveal to a person his true sinful nature, and then the way of righteousness becomes hard, and the Torah becomes a yoke voluntarily taken upon oneself.

But Jesus speaks of more: He brought into the world not the Torah, which the world knew before His coming, but the Kingdom, where the one walking the way of righteousness could finally receive relief by reaching the goal. Now even the burden of one's own sinfulness, which begins to be felt only when one tries to keep the commandments, becomes light, for now not only the fallen world is real, but also the Kingdom with its life; and the heavier one's own sin becomes, the more one senses the breath of the Kingdom easing its weight. This duality is inevitable. It will remain until the end of time, until the complete transfiguration of human nature. But this duality itself inspires hope, for it testifies that the Kingdom entering the world is not fiction, but reality.

It is strange to hear that what is inaccessible to the wise and prudent is revealed to infants. Of course, we are already used to the fact that Jesus' words contain not only a direct meaning but also a parable. And yet: how can infants contain what proved beyond the strength of the wisest?..

FAQ

Why did the people of Israel leave their homeland, and can this be regarded as a punishment for this nation, sent by God because they did not accept His Son and the New Covenant?

You are almost right, with the exception of the word "punishment." It does not reflect the essence of the matter, and indeed the Lord, through the prophets, rejects such a way of reasoning...

You are almost right, with the exception of the word "punishment." It does not reflect the essence of the matter, and indeed the Lord, through the prophets, rejects such a way of reasoning. The Gospels quite definitively link the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent wave of the dispersion with the rejection of Christ. However, this was not a purposeful retribution for what the Jews had done; rather, I would call it the result of rejecting the Lord Jesus. It is highly significant that the Lord Himself speaks of this with tears, thereby setting an example for all His disciples for all time. The Jews themselves (non-Christians) of the second half of the 1st century AD associated the destruction of Jerusalem with the murder of James the Just, the brother of the Lord, the first bishop of Jerusalem.

The entire history of biblical faith (both Old Testament and New Testament) testifies that the betrayal of Christ's love and the substitution of faith with lesser things always leads people to disaster. So it was in the days of the fall of Samaria and the first destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; so it was in the 1st century AD; and so it has been in the history of the Church. The issue, in fact, is not about punishment... Simply put, if we are not with God, we are defenseless against the evil that reigns in this world, and we ourselves only multiply it. However, two important points must be noted. On the one hand, the Bible tells us that the Lord judges each person individually, and not entire groups and nations. On the other hand, His relationship with the chosen people, judging by the words of the Apostle Paul, remains special, comparable (though not identical) only to the relationship between God and the Church. As far as the Apostle Paul can be understood, in his view the conversion of Israel will be the final, culminating moment of Salvation History, and through this the chosen people continue to serve God and other people.

Finally, the traditional notion that the Jews did not accept Christ is highly biased. After all, the Most Holy Virgin and Joseph the Betrothed, John the Baptist and all the apostles, and the majority of the early Christians were Jews. A portion of the Jews accepted Christ, and a portion did not; but was this not the case with everyone else as well? And to accept the New Covenant "collectively," as a nation, is fundamentally impossible; the Lord establishes it with each person individually.

If the way to God is through Christ, what will happen to Israel?

Unlike the Old Covenant, the New Covenant is made with each person individually, regardless of a person's origin...

What human characteristics should a chosen one (bride) possess for a long and happy family life?

It is rather curious that you ask this question on a biblical website. But since you have, the answer must be sought not in human experience, but in the Bible...

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