🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
Continuation of the reading, which is
referred to here:
15042023.html
Paul speaks of the relationships between Christians within the
congregation, emphasising that it is God who judges the outsiders
.
He rebukes the judgement before the Gentiles, because then the sinful Gentiles have the opinion that Christians are not only no better than these Gentiles in virtue, but even worse, since they need to be judged (to judge, to sort out) by the (sinful) Gentiles. In fact, this refers to the belittlement of Christians by such behaviour before the Gentiles themselves, which the Corinthians themselves were not all aware of.
Paul goes on to say that the faithful (saints) will judge the world (and even the angels). This is the only place in Scripture where this is said, so it remains mysterious. Most people think that the saints will reveal the sins of people in God’s Judgement by their virtues and example of life, and thus become participants in God’s Judgement as witnesses (not judges). At the same time, there is Jesus’ promise to the 12 apostles to judge Israel. Again, this is understood to mean that the words and deeds, the virtues of the apostles will reveal the good and evil among people in general, they will be a kind of criterion for people.
Paul also believes that belittling in front of the Gentiles who were sinners is worse than suffering something from brothers and sisters and forgiving them (and he considers it best and advises to turn to a wise believer who can decide the case), if there is no one who can wisely judge the matter.
Paul also reminds us that unrepentant sinners will not inherit the
kingdom of God. For example, the criminal who repented on the cross
entered heaven first, but not as the son of God, but as a forgiven
sinner. Children, heirs, not just people, inherit
. Therefore, the
apostle’s words directly mean that unrepentant sinners will not be God’s
children and do not deserve the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless, this is
not an absolute and final verdict; there is still hope for God’s
immeasurable mercy. Nevertheless, this hope should not stop a person
from repentance, and one should not postpone repentance, thinking that
God will save him or her out of mercy anyway. Such a thought is evil
(deceptive), because it teaches one to despise God and His holy
will.
I would also say that not to communicate
with sinners means not to
build good relations with them, not to create the appearance of
well-being for them, so that they do not lose the awareness of the need
to repent. If the faithful were to pretend or actually build good
relations with unrepentant Christian sinners, the latter would lose the
social call to conversion and repentance. This would be a sinful thing
to do.
Paul also speaks of the forgiveness and cleansing of sins in Christ.
Some of you were
, but were cleansed
.
It should be noted that brothers and sisters
were known among the Jews not only to mean siblings, but also more
distant relatives, including cousins and first cousins. Christ did not
have any siblings of his own, because the Virgin Mary always remained a
Virgin, even as the Mother of God.
Christ did not do many miracles in His homeland because people did not believe. Christ does not want people to base and build their faith (only) on miracles. Instead, we might think that faith should be built on relationships. Jesus’ countrymen had Him before them, but they did not seek a relationship with Him. They did not recognise God in Him (even if they had seen the miracles, they would not have seen God in Him), they did not build this relationship with Christ, with God, on the basis of trust and faith, cognition. Therefore, such an attitude is superficial, and in the long run they would be like the seed in the parable of the sower that did not fall on good ground but somewhere else. If Christ, through their desire for miracles, had awakened in them the appearance of faith in Him, then these people would have always expected… miracles. This would mean that the meaning of their faith would be not God, not Christ, not a relationship with Him, but miracles. This is in fact a deception that even the evil one can take advantage of if the Lord permits it.
That is why the Lord did not do many miracles
(perhaps not even one
there, in contrast to the many miracles He had done elsewhere). Instead,
He builds faith on Who Christ is. He is like the prophets here.
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!