Oleksandr Zhabenko

🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞

Dedicated to Emma Kok.

(Romans 15:1-7)

Romans 15:3 – ‘εμε’ – ‘eme’ – ‘Me’.

Romans XV:4, 5 – ‘παρακλησεως’ – ‘parakleseos’ – ‘comfort, encouragement, consolation, giving willingness and courage’. Hence the name of the Holy Spirit – the Comforter.

Romans XV, 6 – with one accord (unanimously) and with one mouth - an important detail – ‘unanimously’ is one word in the original Greek, and ‘with one mouth’ is two (three together with the preposition). This means that the culture of the Gentiles of that time (the Greeks, the Hellenistic culture) had a clear idea of unanimity as a state, as a phenomenon, as an event, so there was a separate compound word for the concept. But there was no established concept for one mouth – it was something new. Indeed, if an non-believer repeats something, they try to retell it in their own words, or even look for a way to be original in their words. But Paul is saying something else – if the believers in Christ have the same faith, they can formulate it in the same words, and this formulation is good, it testifies to this unity, which is deeper than just a single-mindedness and unanimity.

Paul writes that Christ, being God, served and serves people for their salvation. By this service He received men into the glory of God. God serves people! This is the glory of God!

And in this way Christ is the Example and Model for the faithful and for all in this. So, if a person is capable of something (in a very broad sense, good, strong, intelligent, rich, influential, etc.), then they can and are called to serve for the salvation of others, being like Christ Himself.

(Matthew IX, 27-35)

The healing of two blind men and a demon-possessed man, as well as a summary of the preaching and curing, and the ministry of Jesus Christ in general.

I wrote once before that the prayer of the blind is the first Jesus prayer, known in various versions. For example, a widely used version of the Lord’s Prayer is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! If we compare the prayer of the blind men and Jesus’ prayer, and remember that Son of David is a synonym for Messiah in the Old Testament faith, which in Greek is Christ, the parallel becomes direct and obvious. Thus, the Jesus prayer is the prayer of the healed blind men in the Gospels, combined with Peter’s confession.

Jesus strictly forbade the healed blind men to tell at that time, but they told everywhere anyway. The general consensus is that the prohibition to tell was intended to prevent people from believing only because of miracles, from building their faith on miracles. I wrote about this recently:
17072023.html

To Venerable Anthony of Kyiv-Pechersk:
(Galatians V, 22 – VI, 2; Matthew IV, 25 – V, 12)
For a frequent reading from the Apostle, see the link:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/

For the frequent reading from the Gospel, see the link:
26032023.html

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/