🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
To the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius of Kyiv Caves Monastery:
For more about these frequent
readings honouring the Venerable Saints, see the following links:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
22052023.html
1 Corinthians II, 7 – ‘ημων’ – ‘emon’ - ‘us’.
1 Corinthians II, 9 – ‘ανεβη’ – ‘anebe’ – (wherever the heart of
human being has not) ‘ascended’. For the continuation of this reading,
it was spoken about here:
11072023.html
Paul had previously said that the preaching of the apostles was not based on eloquence but on truth, the operation of the Holy Spirit, and various miracles and signs.
He goes on to say that in order to understand such a sermon, in order
to see wisdom in it, one must be mature, to a certain extent perfect
(not in the absolute sense of something special, extraordinary, but in
the sense of mature, having reached a certain depth of life
, this is
connected with knowing and living according to the so-called meaning,
the purpose of life
), for example, knowing well the testimony of one’s
conscience.
Then he says that the wisdom of the apostles is from God – the Lord intended to save people from the ages. The Church Fathers explain that the Son of God had to be incarnate in any case, because it is important for the deification of people, for people to become children of God by grace.
And then Paul talks about deification and Jesus Christ, even if he
does not name it directly. This is evident from the word ανεβη mentioned
above. That is, in joyful and solemn, majestic states, we can
figuratively say that the heart of a person is lifted up,
and here
Paul says that humans have never reached such a state as the Kingdom of
God will be, such an uplifting from God.
Matthew XXII, 17 – ‘ημιν’ – ‘emin’ – (to) ‘us’.
I wrote about this reading at the following links:
12082023.html
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
I will quote the latter here: ” The hypocrisy and pretended
righteousness of those who asked became apparent in their very question.
If Christ is a Teacher from God (in fact, He is God and Lord Himself),
why did they want to tempt Him? Shouldn’t they have obeyed? A tax is a
tax on a person or property, not a fee for using something. In ancient
times, people perceived money as belonging to the ruler. There was also
no concept of human rights
in the modern sense, although the Roman
state was in fact the first state governed by the rule of law in a sense
close to the modern one. If a person paid such a tax for themselves,
they showed their loyalty to the authorities represented by Caesar, in
fact, they showed their citizenship. And the Lord says to give the due
to the state, society, and the due to God. The order is important.
First, you need to identify what belongs to whom, and then give it to
them. This means that this is always a question for research (to a
certain extent), but at the same time Jesus’ answer shows that the right
answer to it always exists, and it must be chosen and fulfilled. At the
same time, it clearly shows that the existence of authority is generally
in line with the will of God. ”
I wrote more about the authorities in general, and in particular
about taxes, at the following link:
29072023.html
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!