Spiritual Contemplations for those who serve the Lord |
People needs guidance from servants. They get teaching from their mouths considering it the Church teaching. Therefore, we need to observe the purity of our teachings which we give to people lest we offend those who put their trust in us. St. Paul mentioned this in his talk to servants saying, “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:21-22) In his trial when St. Paul was talking to the chief priest who gave an order to strike him on his mouth, St. Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?” (Acts 23:3)
1. To be out of pure conduct “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct” (Hebrews 13:7) This is according to what our Lord said, “First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye” (Luke 6:42) The plank in your eye is hindering you from clearly seeing the mistake in your brother to guide him. Therefore, Lord Jesus Christ likened whoever does this with a blind leading a blind. This is the wrong teaching of the Pharisees which people observed in them and about whom Jesus Christ said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46) Therefore, St. Paul said to his disciple, “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine” (1Timothy 4:16). Our fathers, the Church teachers, had this good conduct, which is righteousness, otherwise their teaching would be abstract theological theories that only increase one’s knowledge (knowledge puffs up) It is hard when people feel that our teachings are directed meaning they are connected to certain persons, certain benefits, or compliments. Therefore, we accept the teaching of a certain person because of his rank while we refuse the same teaching from another person as our teacher St. James says, “My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality….. and become judges with evil thoughts? ……. but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:1-9) Therefore, the Holy Bible warns us not to fall under the curses of this contradiction. In such case, we take a curse from the Lord instead of taking a blessing, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20) 2. To be paired with good deeds Our Lord said, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) What matters is not what we say but if we do what we say. When the Lord gave a metaphor of those who do and those who do not, He gave the parable of the wise man who wanted to build a house, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27) Whoever notices the difference between the two will find no outward difference as both built two houses seen by people. But the difference between them is a hidden difference that people cannot see which is the foundation. Is the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Rock, the foundation of our teaching? The only thing that illustrates the difference between the two buildings is the coming floods (the tribulation). Sometimes, God allows tribulations to come upon us to purify His church from impurities (strange teachings), to characterize the believers and saints and to steadfast them. Our teacher St. Peter emphasizes this meaning in his saying, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (1Peter 4:12) In the first book of Samuel, we find David the prophet talking with assurance about his trust that God would give him victory over Goliath. This trust is coming from a practical experience he got when he struggled with a lion and a bear. There is a huge difference between a servant who talks out of practical experience in God’s work with him and another one who talks without this experience. 3. To be taken from the Church In the book of Acts, when the Council of Jerusalem was held, the apostles said nice words, “Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment” (Acts 15:24) What the Fathers said shows that the sound teaching must have reference from the Church. St. Paul himself presented his Gospel to the Apostles, who seemed to be pillars, lest he taught his own teaching instead of the Church’s. St. Paul reminds us that we were handed an unshakable kingdom. Preaching the Kingdom is a tradition handed to us by the church. He warns us to be carried not by strange teachings, “Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines” (Hebrews 13:9) Unfortunately, teachings are plenty nowadays. Some of them are cheap and others are precious. But among all these teachings, we must know those of the Church. Even the sayings of the Fathers, although they are deep and dense, yet we must understand them through the Church understanding. If the sayings of St. Paul were distorted by some people who do not understand or study well (as our teacher St. Peter said), we would rather be cautious when we study and understand the sayings of the Fathers. 4. To acquire the virtue of discernment This is one of the most important virtues through which we can discern the teaching offered to us and to discern the one we give to people. We ought not offer everything, and you may mention sound information and right words that are not convenient to the listeners. Therefore, St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able” (1 Corinthians 3:2) Our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked the Pharisees because they were able to discern the face of the sky and were not able to discern the times. In the book of Acts, there is a nice story about a servant named Rhoda. This girl was able to discern the voice of St. Peter although she did not see him as he was behind the door. Yet, she entered inside telling everybody that Peter was outside. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “My sheep hear My voice” (John 10:27) Job did not accept the words of comfort from his friends because he did not feel they were God’s voice to him. Therefore, Job’s friend became like students who memorized the curriculum and rules without understanding how to apply what they knew. May the Lord grant us to be honest in our teachings and to observe its purity. Amen *Adapted from the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States - Monthly Message for the Consecrated May 2021
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We are able to change and distort the meaning of the words making their meaning matching with what we want them to mean. The most obvious example on this is the word peace. Communists used to call themselves “The countries that love peace”. The church also calls for peace. Yet, there is a great difference between the meaning of peace sought by communists and the peace the church calls for. Peace built upon piracy, fighting against God, and killing one another is not a peace. Therefore, words mean for them what they want them to mean! For them, freedom means piracy, peace means war, and democracy means slavery. One of the well-known psychiatrists wrote in one of his books saying, “We invented some good respectful words instead of the bad words of some life circumstances. We called the drug addict or the alcoholic a chemically dependent person, the harlot a call girl, and adultery is considered to be a personal freedom. They also called the unclean relationships living together, homosexuality a reciprocal life style, stealing a white color crime, and killing babes abortion that is widely practiced in hospitals! This is one of the deceptions of the devil, who is the great deceiver, to not give sin its real name but giving it a nice innocent name. Yet, we cannot achieve salvation unless we confront our sins saying with David, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight”. I will mention here some example on the distorted meanings of some words: The word God : A student came to priest saying, “I decided to believe not in God”. The priest asked him then, “What is the reason lying behind this?” He then explained to him: this God Who kills nursing babes and bring illnesses upon people, then He prepared for them a place called hell to torture them in it. How can I believe in Him? The priest replied saying, “I too do not believe in this god”. How many people grew up carrying the same concepts of children about God?! We must talk about the real God, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). Jesus Christ is the One who is in the bosom of the Father and He said to us, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”; “I and My Father are one”. For we look at Christ as if from a window from which we see the Father. I mean that we see God through Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by the will of the Father, through the merits of His son and the grace of the Holy Spirit. The word Happiness : What is happiness? Happiness is not found in money, sex, drugs or alcohol. It is neither found in a cruise in the Caribbean Sea. Indeed, the way to happiness is full of erroneous goals. The only way to happiness is that people should know God, love Him and serve Him. Happiness is achieved when you know that God loves you. A Christian said once, “If I look at the past seventy years of my life, I get sure that my present happiness is because I am sure that God loves me. He loves me personally with an eternal love. Nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ”. The word Love : The true love, Agape, means to deeply care for serving, to give your life, when necessary, to the one whom you love. The greatest example of love is the Lord who loved the world to the end up to sacrificing His only begotten Son!! Love can be misunderstood. It can be taking rather than giving! It becomes no more Agape but lust i.e. abusing the other to fulfill your desires. If God is not present in your life, then the word love will be totally lost. How can you know love in the absence of God who is love? Only in Christ love finds its real meaning. The word Sex : This word was used by the devil and then defiled and lost every good meaning. Yet, this word belongs to God Who created sex. After God created man as male and female, he said that He saw everything very good, very beautiful, very holy and worthy of Him. God created sex for an important thing, which is marriage, and blessed it. Sex is successful when we follow God’s conditions as He is the Creator of sex. Sexual love is a sign and seal of full commitment for absolute giving to the other beloved person. It is a perfect trust and union. Sex is a natural expression of a deep spiritual thing. It is an expression of a full giving to the other beloved person. It is loving the other with all the mind, heart, soul and power. It is a real icon on earth that expresses God’s love for us. If the natural work of love is not an expression of perfect giving from the side of the loving person to the beloved one, then it will be fake. It is a corruption of a holy thing. There is no meaning in a relationship that is not built upon complete commitment and love. Therefore, sex outside the frame of marriage is considered to be a sin. If a sexual relationship loses its holiness through pornography, how can then one express a perfect remaining relationship of love?! Thus, pornography is the death of love, and losing the sound meaning of sexual relationship. Love forced and guided by God must be the greatest and the most precious love in the world. Sex cannot achieve its meaning that God created it for unless it is achieved through God. Sex will neither be pleasurable, satisfying, nor meaningful unless it is according to God. Therefore, marriage became a sacrament in the Orthodox church. Thus, if we succeed to establish a relationship of sexual love built upon full giving, it will be then an icon on earth that expresses God’s love for man. The responsibility of the servant is to refer the word sex to God Who gave it its original definition. It must be purified and referred to God. Marriage is a sacred word that denotes a sacred love and a sacred relationship. The word Church : Many outsiders use the words Jesus and Church freely. They call themselves Jesus followers or the church followers. But what is the historical relationship that connects them to the Apostles or to the early church? In the Orthodox church, the word church means the live body of Christ Who works in the world today. It has a live history connected with the church of the Apostles through the Clergy. We thus talk about the apostolic Tradition. The church does not teach what one thinks about faith but teaches the whole Tradition handed to us by Christ Himself through the Apostles. How can I know if what a certain community teach is a real apostolic Tradition and not a mere personal interpretation of the meanings of faith? We are in great need to be connected historically with the early church to be sure that the Apostles’ teachings have not been reformed or altered but were handed to us unaltered. The word Jesus : There is no a name that is more precious than the name of Jesus for Christians. Jesus is the Lord, the eternal Son of God, the beginning and the end, the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, Who was in the beginning with God and all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:2-4). Jesus was neither a man only nor a God only. He is a man and a God in one person. God in the body of man. He approached man because he loves him, wants his salvation, and wants to lift him up and make him a partaker in the divine nature. Indeed, there is no other name under heaven given to people to get saved other than the name of Jesus Christ that at His name “every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). Let us name things with their real names not with mere innocent acceptable ones. Glory be to Our God. Amen. *Adapted from HGBY monthly Clergical letters
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