🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
Philippians I, 2 – ‘ημων’ – ‘emon’ – ‘us’ (our).
Philippians I, 5, 6 – ‘ημερας’ – ‘emeras’ – (of the) ‘day’.
Philippians I, 7 – ‘εμοι’ – ‘emoi’ – (to) ‘me’.
The reading from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians begins. This church was the mainstay of Paul’s preaching in Europe, in Greece, and Paul writes this letter not because of any difficulties they are having, but because of their communion and sharing of joy and encouragement.
The letter begins, as is typical of apostolic letters, with greetings and praise. It also includes thanksgiving to God and the Philippians for their support in all things and an expression of faith that they will continue to walk well in the way of life in Christ.
I wrote a little earlier, but I also need to
clarify what I wrote there, so I quote: Simon was a godly and
intelligent Pharisee who had kept the Law since childhood, but he did
not believe in Christ, perhaps even wanted to test Him.
I would like to point out that Jesus’ apparent reversal of forgiveness and love may have another explanation. Jesus is talking to Simon from the perspective of… Simon himself. Or rather, a reasonable person who may be facing the same question as Simon. Jesus also gives an answer to this question.
Simon (another reasonable person in his place) saw first Jesus’
forgiveness, and then, after Jesus’ words about love, he saw love
itself. In his eyes (in the eyes of another reasonable person), she was
forgiven
– why – because she loved
. That is, forgiveness precedes
love according to the logic of vision, according to the order of
awareness. But this does not mean that the woman was first forgiven by
Jesus and then loved Him.
But we can also think from another point of view that yes, indeed, Jesus had forgiven the woman before she loved Him, because He had given her grace as the God Who knows the hearts so that she could love Him. The previous sentence could be explained more fully like this: Did God love that woman? Yes, as His creation, as a being created to be the daughter of God. Out of His love, He called her by grace to repentance, to conversion, to love Jesus Christ. Did the woman obey? Yes, she did. Did she love? Yes. So, her love was added to God’s love, or we can also say that she entered into the love of God by her love, by her repentance. Is this love great? Yes. Therefore, out of His love, God forgave the woman’s sins through her participation in love.
Did Jesus forgive Simon’s sins? This is not explicitly stated. But it is clear that Jesus visited him and taught him. And it is also clear that forgiveness can be more important than teaching.
I’ll also talk about another thing.
Simon was tempted by the fact that a woman who had sinned in the past touched Jesus as if she could seduce Him. But Jesus was not tempted by this. Why: God looks at the heart of a person, and the woman had no intention of seducing Jesus. So He does not look at her past, but at her heart. If we hypothetically imagine that the woman did intend to seduce Jesus in her heart, would Jesus have acted in the same way? From what we know, He would not have allowed Himself to be tempted by a woman unless there was God’s permission (for example, the temptation by the devil in the desert was God’s permission until Jesus overcame all temptations, and the Lord did not want to allow Peter to think in the way he tried to convince Jesus to give up His intention to go to Jerusalem for suffering).
To the Apostle James the Alphaean:
For more frequent readings from the Apostle, see this link:
06102023.html
For readings from the Gospel, see here:
24062023.html
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!