| Mark also believes Jesus is deity: his reapplication of the «Lord» of Isa 40to Jesus ( Mark 1:3 ) can be understood in no other way. The Fourth Gospel " s independent tradition might even suggest that the Baptist used this verse to describe his own mission as preparing the Lord " s way. Mark does not challenge what had become the standard Christian reading of Ps 110which Jesus cites in Mark 12:36 ; indeed, the proximity of another Scripture exegesis in his narrative may indicate that Mark intends readers to connect this «Lord» with the one Lord of the Shema in Mark 12:29 . 2631 The tradition about Jesus being David " s «Lord» 2632 rather than his «son» 2633 (despite the early Christian conviction that Jesus was David " s descendant), 2634 and his use of Psalm 110 , almost certainly go back to Jesus. 2635 But other aspects of Christology are more critical to Mark " s portrayal of Jesus» mission. The exalted Lord who wrought miracles on earth now can work miraculously through the community (cf. Mark 3:14–15; 4:38–40; 6:4–13; 9:19,28–29 ). The Son of Man who suffered before his exaltation is the forerunner of the community of faith, his readers, now suffering great tribulation at the hands of hostile world rulers (cf. Dan 7:21–22, 25–27 ). Mark probably had other traditions available, and could have used some of those which emphasize Christ " s deity differently, but that was not Mark " s purpose. The closest he comes is the allusion in 6:48–50 to Job 9:8–11 ; the coincidence of rare images in a short space (God treading the waves and passing by) is so close that Mark surely intends an allusion to that passage here, 2636 and hence an allusion to Christ " s deity. 2637 Luke, writing Hellenistic historiography, presents Jesus more as a divine hero than as God in the flesh or an apocalyptic Son of Man. While not obliterating Markan emphases altogether, Luke may emphasize Christ " s deity less. Luke does not deny a view held in other early Christian circles–Peter " s sermon in Acts 2 builds on an identification of Jesus (cf. 2:38) as the Lord of Joel (Acts 2:21), 2638 thus baptism is offered «in Jesus» name.» 2639 Luke does not deny early Christian affirmation of Christ " s deity; he simply emphasizes what is most useful in his apologetic history. Luke thus provides the clearest evidence that different writers could stress different Christologies without opposing earlier Christologies in their sources. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Technology and the Spiritual Life Hieromonk Luke of Grigoriou 25 February 2014 Hieromonk Luke of Grigoriou Question: What is the goal of a monk’s life? Fr. Luke: The goal of life not only for monks, but for any person, is deification. St. Athanasius the Great testifies to this: “God became man, that man might become God.” The Lord Himself says in Holy Scripture: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father Which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48) and Ye shall be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44). In many places in the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles we are told that the goal of human life is deification. It was so that this goal might become attainable that the Lord became incarnate. Through the Mystery of Holy Baptism, we become members of the Body of Christ, and through the Eucharist we can attain deification. Monasticism is most conducive to achieving the goal of human life. This is due to the fact that the life of a monk is a life of repentance. This is the mystery of repentance. From the moment that we take monastic vows our life becomes an unceasing sacrifice to God. We are called to dedicate all our strength to the Lord, to give of ourselves without reserve. A monk’s only desire and aspiration is always to be with Christ. Question: What can prevent one from attaining this goal? Fr. Luke: The main cause of young people’s repulsion from the ascetic life is the spirit of worldliness. This spirit does not allow one to love the Lord with all the strength of one’s soul, to want to be with God at all costs. Previously, when the spirit “of this world” had not yet penetrated so deeply, Christians raised their children in an atmosphere of piety. Children saw their parents attend divine services, pray, make prostrations, and go to Confession… It was much easier for children brought up in such a spiritual atmosphere to set out on the path of Christian life. |
| For what was done would have seemed stranger as done by a boy, and there would have been time for twice or thrice as many, and much more. But in fact He did nothing while He was a child, save only that one thing to which Luke has testified Luke 2:46, that at the age of twelve years He sat hearing the doctors, and was thought admirable for His questioning. Besides, it was in accordance with likelihood and reason that He did not begin His signs at once from an early age; for they would have deemed the thing a delusion. For if when He was of full age many suspected this, much more, if while quite young He had wrought miracles, would they have hurried Him sooner and before the proper time to the Cross, in the venom of their malice; and the very facts of the Dispensation would have been discredited. To prove that He greatly respected His mother, hear Luke relate how He was subject to His parents Luke 2:51, and our own Evangelist declare how He had forethought for her at the very season of the Crucifixion. For where parents cause no impediment or hindrance in things belonging to God, it is our bounden duty to give way to them, and there is great danger in not doing so; but when they require anything unseasonably, and cause hindrance in any spiritual matter, it is unsafe to obey. And therefore He answered thus in this place, and again elsewhere, Who is My mother, and who are My brethren? Matthew 12:48, because they did not yet think rightly of Him; and she, because she had borne Him, claimed, according to the custom of other mothers, to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and worshipped Him. This then was the reason why He answered as He did on that occasion. For consider what a thing it was, that when all the people high and low were standing round Him, when the multitude was intent on hearing Him, and His doctrine had begun to be set forth, she should come into the midst and take Him away from the work of exhortation, and converse with Him apart, and not even endure to come within, but draw Him outside merely to herself. This is why He said, Who is My mother and My brethren? Not to insult her who had borne Him, (away with the thought!) but to procure her the greatest benefit, and not to let her think meanly of Him. For if He cared for others, and used every means to implant in them a becoming opinion of Himself, much more would He do so in the case of His mother. And since it was probable that if these words had been addressed to her by her Son, she would not readily have chosen even then to be convinced, but would in all cases have claimed the superiority as being His mother, therefore He replied as He did to them who spoke to Him; otherwise He could not have led up her thoughts from His present lowliness to His future exaltation, had she expected that she should always be honored by Him as by a son, and not that He should come as her Master. |
| Faith is a virtue like any other virtue. In the Bible, we see that Christ healed a People from a short distance and a far distance and the level of their faith, for example, in (Matthew 9: 20-22; Mark 5: 25-34; Luke 8: 43-48) we can see the hi-level of faith of the woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years, by touched the fringe of clothes of Christ and she has been cured of the disease. And we have seen how often Jesus Christ has said that your faith has healed you (Matthew 9:22; Mark 10:52; Luke 8:48; Luke 18:42). And in (Matthew 17:20) Jesus Christ said: “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (The Holy Bible, 1989) The Bible (Romans 12:3) said: “ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ” Here we understand that God has given each of us spiritual gifts, and from this point of view, we must preserve this blessing that He has given us and we should not exaggerate or underestimate it, but rather accept it as a spiritual power to directing our lives towards salvation and grace, spreading love and teaching the word of God. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Degrees of Faith Khader I. Alkhouri The degree of faith is a specialization in the psychology of religion and applied cognitive psychology. Where a degree of faith is influenced by the psychological effects of motives, desires, attitudes, values, behavior, religious practice, and external influences surrounding the environment and ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
| No, we by and large live comfortable and respectable lives in this world, perhaps going to church on Sundays, perhaps resisting some of the more egregious sins, but otherwise in most ways indistinguishable from the 53% of Americans who no longer see any reason to walk through the doorway of a church. And so if our society which is so obviously thirsting for truth and for holiness cannot find these things in Christianity, we must ask ourselves if this is not because they cannot find these things in us who dare to call ourselves by that most lofty and precious and exalted name. Yet, as I said earlier, God is extraordinarily merciful and compassionate, and even our worst mistakes and our most terrible sins He can turn toward our spiritual good and our eternal salvation in Him. “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20). It is precisely by death that Christ has trampled down death. And so I believe that it has come about by Providence that we are beginning to find ourselves in a situation where it is no longer quite so easy to be a comfortable and respectable Christian in this life. It is no longer quite so easy to imagine that we can have the best of both worlds, that we can enjoy happiness and success and prosperity and respect in this life, and then waltz easily and carelessly into the Kingdom of Heaven in the next. It is no longer quite so easy to forget the sure and certain word of the Lord that “whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). Not without good reason has it been said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” And of course, the word “martyr” simply means “witness.” And whether the time of physical martyrdom is soon approaching once again or not, it nevertheless now seems that the witness of being a Christian is no longer quite so easy for the world to overlook, no longer merely an inevitable part of the cultural backdrop of our society. And, my brothers and sisters, whether this will turn out to be a great and incomparable blessing for the world, or the cause of immense and unspeakable tragedy, depends entirely on us. If we bury our talent, if we squander the grace with which each of us has been entrusted according to our own measure, if the witness we make to the unbelieving world is one devoid of the love and mercy and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ, then truly it would be “better for [us] that a millstone were hanged about [our] neck, and [we be] cast into the sea, than that [we] should offend one of these little ones” (Luke 17:2). For “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). |
| The Great Fast , as the Orthodox also call it, begins not with parties, suppers or benders, but with one of the most moving services in all of Christianity. In the evening of Cheesefare Sunday, the church serves Forgiveness Vespers. At the tail end of this sung service of evening prayers, every individual in the parish, beginning with the priest, asks of and offers forgiveness to every other individual present. During this solemn and often deeply emotional portion of the service, the choir sings the bright, joyous hymns of Pascha, a foreshadowing of the glory to come. Still, it is easy to see, from a popular cultural perspective, why many, even Christians, see Lent as “deprivation” or some sort of dark period marked in ancient days by hair shirts, and even today by intentional discomfort, sadness, guilt and gloom. The switch from having what we want on a moment’s notice all the time to living merely with what we need, and in measured portions, comes as a shock to our bodies, wills and lifestyles. But Great Lent is the opposite of doom and guilt. It is our return from exile. It is the joy of forgiveness, which is our release from true guilt in repentance. It is our return from what has become a regular life of loose or riotous living in a far-off land, as it is described in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. If New Orleans’ famous Mardi Gras has any relation to the Christian Shrove Tuesday and the ensuing fast of Great Lent, it is this: It is a prime-time, public, regular and celebrated example of the way we live our day-to-day life: drunk, stuffed, self-interested, careless and promiscuous. From a Christian perspective, this is true actually as much as figuratively, if statistics are even remotely accurate with respect to alcoholism, obesity, divorce, crime and the like. Sadly and embarrassingly, the Christian statistics are the same as — or worse than — the secular culture in many of these areas. So following the example of our Lord , who entered the wilderness to pray and fast and to face the devil, we, too, do the same for 40 days. Our task is twofold: first, to see who we have become when left to our own devices: sinners who have distorted God’s creation, beginning with ourselves; and second, to become who we are called to be by the grace of God: merciful saints as we see in Matthew 5:48 and Luke 6:36. |
| When you dress, remember that the Immortal Word was clothed in human flesh, that you might be clothed in His Divinity. Seeing yourself clothed, think of Christ our Lord, Who let Himself be stripped, to be scourged and crucified for your sake. If a voice should seem to you sweet and attractive, transfer this feeling of fond attraction to your Saviour, into Whose lips were poured all grace and sweetness, as is sung in the psalms: ‘ Grace is poured into thy lips” (Ps. xlv. 2); through the sweetness of His tongue, the people were ever following Him, reluctant to cease listening to Him, as St. Luke says: “All the people were very attentive to hear him” (Luke xix. 48). When you hear the murmur and shouts of a crowd, think of the lawless cry of the Jews: ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him” (John xix. 15), which then assailed the ears of the Lord. When you see a beautiful face, remember that He, Who was ‘fairer than the children of man” (Pa. xlv. 2), our Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified out of love for you, ‘despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Is. liii. 3). Every time the clock strikes, let it bring to your mind the exceeding sorrow which filled the heart of our Lord Jesus, when in the garden of Gethsemane He was troubled at the approaching hour of His passion and death; or imagine that you hear the blows of hammers which resounded when our Lord was being nailed to the cross. In general, I would say that every time some sad occasion occurs in your life or another’s, bear in mind that every affliction, pain and sorrow of ours is nothing compared with the painful torment and wounds inflicted on the body and soul of our Lord during His passion suffered for our salvation Cap 23. How to translate sensory impressions into profitable lessons When you see things beautiful to the eye and valued on earth, think that they are all as nothing, as mere dust, compared with the beauties and riches of heaven, which you will certainly receive after death, if you renounce the whole world. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov on Reading the Gospel Source: The Catalogue of Good Deeds St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) 17 February 2021 When reading the Gospel, do not seek pleasure, exaltation or brilliant thoughts. Seek to see the infallibly holy Truth. When reading the Gospel, try to fulfil its commandments and live it instead of being satisfied with the mere fruitless reading. This is the book of life, so read it with your life. Do not think that the Four Gospels, the most sacred of the books, begins with the Gospel of Matthew and ends with the Gospel of John for no reason. Matthew teaches more about doing the will of God, and his instructions are especially fitting for those who begin their path to Him. John elaborates on the union between God and man, renewed by the commandments. His concept is accessible to those who have already gone far on their road to knowing God. Opening the Holy Gospel, remember that you are preparing to read the book that will decide your eternal fate. It is by this book that we will be judged and, depending on what our earthly lives were in relation to it, we will inherit either eternal bliss or eternal torment (see: John 12: 48). God revealed His will to a speck of dust as insignificant as man! The book that proclaims this great and all-holy will is in your hands. It is up to you whether to accept or reject the will of your Creator and Savior. Your eternal life and eternal death are in your hands: judge for yourself how careful and prudent you need to be. Do not trifle with your eternal destiny! Pray in contrition to the Lord that He will open your eyes to see the miracles hidden in His law (see: Psalm 119: 18) that is the Gospel. Your eyes will be opened to see the wonderful healing of the soul from sin, done by the word of God. Healing of bodily ailments was only a sign of the healing of the soul, visible to carnal people and their minds, blinded by sensuality (see: Luke 5:24). |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Watering Seeds of Virtue Now let me offer a suggestion that might be different to you. What do we have to give that has the potential of making the greatest contribution? We usually think in terms of money. One reason we say God gives to us is so that we can share what we have with those in need. You might say time, or belongings, or use many other examples, but there is something else we have to offer and that is our spiritual practice. Archpriest Antony Hughes 15 October 2011 Luke 6:31-36 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “As you would have men do to you, do also to them. If you love those who love you, what good is that? Love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and then you will be called the children of the Highest. Be merciful just as your Father in Heaven is merciful.” Jesus calls us to live up to our divine potential. The whole of what that means is summed up here. Love everyone and do good for them, even our enemies and give without expecting anything in return. Then we will begin to resemble our Father in heaven and the world will know that we are His children. To emphasize this I would like to quote a little further from the teachings of our Lord and then make a suggestion. This from Matthew, chapter 5 verses 38-42: “You have heard that they were told, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ But what I tell you is this: Do not resist those who wrong you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other also. If anyone wants to sue you and takes your shirt, let him have your cloak as well. If someone in authority presses you into service for one mile go with him two. Give to anyone who asks, and do not turn your back on anyone who wants to borrow.” And in case any should ask him what he meant by “giving” Jesus continues in verses 43-48. “You have heard that they were told, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But what I tell you is this: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors; only then can you be children of your heavenly Father, who causes the sun to shine on good and bad alike, and sends rain on the innocent and the wicked. If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? Even the tax collectors do as much as that. If you greet only your brothers, what is there extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much. There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father’s goodness knows no bounds.” |
| Dealing with attentional impulsivity is, for the fathers, an even greater struggle. Saint John Climacus advises, “constantly wrestle with your thought, and whenever it wanders call it back to you” ( The Ladder , Step 4, 92). For ascetics, such as Saint Isaac the Syrian, one needs to watch over one’s attention, because distraction gives rise to the passions and the passions give rise to sin: “As children are not born without a mother, so passions are not born without distraction of the mind, and sin is not committed without converse with passions.” Likewise when the passions are stirred, “your mind’s distraction and the pettiness and instability of your thinking will increase” ( Homily 48). In other words, a wandering, undisciplined mind will have many conversational partners, some of whom will lead the soul away from the love of God and into a trackless wilderness of sin in which the unstable mind becomes uncontrollable. Again, watchfulness is the answer, but in order for the soul to stay fixed on one thought, one worthy thought, it needs to be and feel like it is absolutely necessary to do so. A matter of life or death. Such a condition for real watchfulness and attention is provided only by genuine repentance, characterized by a hatred for sin, a love for God, and a desire for His mercy that leads to calling out like the blind Bartimaeus, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me!” and then receiving light from the Giver of Light Himself. Finally, dealing with planning impulsivity, the answer of the fathers is the Church, which according to Saint John Chrysostom, is “not only a place but also a plan of life: I mean not the walls of the Church but the laws of the Church” ( Homily 2 on Eutropius ). In other words, through the cycles of fasting and preparation for the feasts, one learns to make the most important preparation and plan that one will have in life: to meet one’s Maker. Christians are called to be like the person who “intends to build a tower and first sits down and counts the cost to see if he has enough to finish it” (Luke 14:28). |
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