Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
Romans X, 1 – ‘εμης’ – ‘emes’ – ‘my’ (heart).
Romans X, 8 – ‘ρημα’ – ‘rhema’ – ‘the word, or rather the content, the essence of the matter in question, what is communicated’.
I have written before, and I will quote here:
It is necessary to dwell at least on the verses of Romans X, 9-10,
which are especially often misunderstood by various Christians, citing
them to justify the image of their own godliness (as the apostle
prophetically warns at the beginning of the chapter). The key is to
understand
faith of the heart” and confession with the mouth
. Faith
of the heart
here is synonymous with righteousness, and thus with the
Gospel purity of the (whole) heart, and mouth
is not only the mouth,
but everything that manifests outwardly in a person’s life. This passage
does not have the sense of sufficiency only
of a narrow understanding
of the heart and lips, it does not allow what all other Scriptures do
not also allow, but uses key concepts
to emphasise accessibility and
expressive imagery – all people can be saved, Jewish
righteousness is
not fundamentally different from Hellenic
or Scythian
righteousness,
because all people are alike, and righteousness is a gift of God to all
people in Christ.”
(end of quote)
In other words, Paul is not in any way reducing or cutting down
what is said in Scripture, but emphasising what is involved (that faith
is concerned with the heart and confession with the mouth in the
broadest sense), that a combination of faith and confession of faith,
genuineness and righteousness, holistic wholeness and openness is
required.
One could say: If you are genuine in your righteousness to the
deepest parts of your soul, and show your true sincerity in goodness, in
deeds, in words, you will be saved.
There is another way to put it: If
you have wholeness in Christ, being righteous both outwardly and
inwardly, and you show this wholeness by being open to people and their
salvation, showing apostolic love and the gospel of Christ, you will be
saved.
Examples like this can be continued, and they convey the same meaning in slightly different expressions and slightly more complex and modern phrases.
Matthew IX, 1 – ‘εμβας’ – ‘embas’ -
having entered, having descended
(into, on) (a boat).
The miracle of the exorcism of demons from the Gadara demon-possessed. This is a well-known story, but I will focus on the fact that the demons recognised Who Jesus is. This can be understood in the sense that they knew Who He is (the Lord revealed it to them), or that they guessed (the Lord did not reveal it to them), or even tried to deceive the listeners by pretending to know (although this is generally unlikely). The conclusion from this is that we should not trust evil spirits, even if they may sometimes tell the truth.
Many people also point out that the Lord allowed demons to enter the herd of pigs, which means that demons cannot harm even animals (and even more so humans) without God’s permission.
It may seem strange that God allows the herd to drown. But what is important here is that people come to know who He is in this way, and another Gospel describes that the preaching of a healed men from demons later created a good ground for the later acceptance of Jesus.
There is also the question of whether it was one demon-possessed man or two – more likely that there were two, just one of the evangelists recorded the story from the mouth of a witness who described the event in a simplified way (this often happens in witness stories).
To the Mother of God in honour of Her icons:
See here:
21042023.html
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!