Unlawful fire

Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, each took his censer, put fire in it and incense on the fire, and presented unlawful fire before Yahweh, fire which He had not prescribed for them. Then from Yahweh’s presence a flame leaped out and consumed them, and they perished in the presence of Yahweh. And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what Yahweh meant when He said: ‘In those who are close to Me I show holiness, and before all the people I show My glory.’” Aaron remained silent.

Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come and take your brothers far away from the sanctuary, out of the camp.” They came and carried them away, still in their tunics, out of the camp, as Moses had ordered.

Moses said to Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not disorder your hair nor tear your garments; you are not going to die. It is with the whole community that He is angry; it is the whole house of Israel that must lament your brothers, the victims of Yahweh’s fire. Do not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, lest you die; for the chrism of Yahweh is on you.” And they obeyed the words of Moses.

Leviticus 10:1-7 Jerusalem Bible

What are we to make of this incident? Those who believe in ‘our Grandfather who art in heaven’ would have us believe that this is just a story, a myth, a metaphor, an allegory, anything but what it is. Those who believe in the ‘religion of peace’ regardless of the religion they actually practice, will point to it and accuse those, who believe in the Holy Bible, of believing in a barbaric God who does cruel and violent acts, of believing in a Book that is full of such stories, and even of such laws, that are at total odds with the modern world, against peace, against freedom.

Well, what is described in this passage from the Bible really did happen. Its presence in the Bible gives us a glimpse of one of the aspects of the Divine Nature. The God revealed here and with whom we have to deal is certainly not the God we may have wanted and hoped for, not the God we expected. Why does He have to say such things? Why does He have to give us such commands? Why does He have to anoint us and take possession of us like this? Why does He insist on being with us, saying, ‘In those who are close to Me I show holiness’? This isn’t what we expected.

So it can’t be real, this God who does these things, mysterious and so unfriendly to man. This is not the God we expected. He’s turned out to be more, not less, than what we expected, and who can put up with that? The story must not be history, it can’t be. It must just be a story. Ah, what can we make of it? Let’s spiritualize it, let’s give it a meaning He never intended. Maybe He won’t notice. Oh, but wait! Not to worry, that God isn’t really there anyway. Our God is. Our man-friendly God who is ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’ and anything else we want Him to be.

This is how their minds think, but it’s all been foretold and written down, that they would be ‘always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (2 Timothy 3:7).

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the same Being, the same Divine Nature, that revealed Himself in the Hebrew scriptures, always through His Word,

who walked with Adam in the Garden,

who instructed Noah to build the ark
that would save all breathing life,

who instructed Abram in his journeys,
blessed him with a son, and gave him the Promise,

who brought the sons of Jacob down into Egypt,
and by Moses and Aaron brought them out again,

who led them in the wilderness
and from there to take possession of the land,

who spoke by the prophets, through His Spirit,
telling and foretelling by them His will for the nations,

and who is enthroned in glory upon the cherubim,

who receives all those who are offered to Him by His Son,

who penetrated the depths of all creation, even to Hades,
to capture men as tribute to His Father.

This is the Being who assembled for us the Book, the only divine scripture on earth, and did not hide from us His majesty or His humility, His might or His weakness. He is a terror to the kings of the earth, yet why do the poor still run to Him for refuge?
Does fire leap from His presence and devour them?

As C. S. Lewis writes in retelling the pagan myth of Eros and Psyche in his greatest novel Till We Have Faces, ‘The Divine Nature wounds and perhaps destroys us merely by being what it is,’ we have an honest God who has revealed to us in an ample historical record how existence works, that it operates by laws, that the harshness and danger of fallen nature is real but will have an end, but that we must place ourselves precisely before His mercy seat to enter into a relationship with Him, that transforms us into partakers of the Divine Nature. There will always be good reason to fear that Divine Nature until we allow ourselves to be immersed in it. No being is safe or can be safe until it is embraced by the Being.

Immersed in the Divine Nature, embraced by the Being?
How is this possible?

Go back and read the 3rd chapter of the holy gospel according to Saint John. For man, this is impossible, and history proves it. But for God, not just this, but all things are possible. Do not be like the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, wise in your own eyes, offering unlawful fire to the Being. Yes, what happened to them really happened, but God never does the same act twice. Though your thoughts are not His thoughts, your acts not His acts, your sacrifice as ineffectual as Cain’s, He doesn’t consume you with fire from His presence. What happened once, happened. Now, the story has ripened in mankind’s memory, and is there for your learning. Do not be like those who are ‘always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth’. Believe what is written, keep it, and Life will be yours.

Natural man

Click the cartoon for a clearer view…
“…this particular ‘natural man’ had pretty much given up on the idea that God could be anything but a hostile dictator, before seeing this cartoon.”

Funny, as an adolescent growing up in a traditional Catholic family where there were pictures on the wall of humans crying out with uplifted hands from the fires of purgatory to a glorified woman and baby sitting on a cloud and flanked by bodyless (read ‘heads only’) angel babies, I had this awful impression that God was a hostile dictator who would stop at nothing to roast me alive forever for my smallest breaking of His commandments (and I’d broken so many, even by the age of eight), but fortunately for me I didn’t have to wait for a cartoon like this one to deliver me from that perilous thought.

I found out who God really was and how He deals with us by picking up that dusty old family bible one day and actually reading it, yes, cover to cover, from gory start to gory finish, except that between all that gore (which I noticed, by the way, was always to do with man’s rebellion and selfishness), I also read of a God who loved us so much that He was willing to become one of us and join us in all our suffering (yeah, ‘I hurt myself’), and provide a way out of it forever. This is the God who says, “I will wipe away every tear from their eyes” and who has it as part of His plan to make “a new heaven and a new earth.”

Wake up, brother, and don’t wait for cartoons and fantasies to deliver you from real dangers. God is no more a hostile dictator than the natural universe is, but there is danger from both to the ‘natural man’ who has chosen by his intransigence to become flakes and cinders with the rest of the created order when the lights finally go out on our world. A door has been opened to you by Jesus Christ, Him who says ‘I am the Door.’ Don’t be like the men of Sodom who, lusting after angels’ flesh, could not find the door to open it. Instead, when you hear the Beloved knocking, run to open your door, and welcome Him, lest you like the woman in the Song of Solomon have to run through the city looking for Him and, even getting beaten by the guards, may never find Him again. They say, ‘opportunity only knocks once.’ Could this be the opportunity for you?

A new Narnia?

Christian mythology, and a very good one, simple, direct, yet imaginative and shot through with authentic theology expressed so even a child—especially a child—can grasp it. That is how I would describe The Chronicles of Narnia by author C. S. Lewis, an open door to another universe that is nevertheless the creation of the same God who created ours, where we can see how He interacts with people just like us—well, almost just like us, except that most of them are animals who can think and talk—and where He reveals His only-begotten Son in the form of a Lion. This Lion, named Aslan (Turkish for lion), is the Son of the great Emperor-over-the-Sea, and like His incarnation in our universe, in Narnia and for Narnia, He likewise has to trample death by death, as a ransom for someone's sin.

With The Chronicles of Narnia, as with the rest of the writings of Lewis, as well as of the other Church fathers ancient to modern (we know who they are), I am every bit as tenacious of the plain and intended meaning as I am with the Word of God, the Holy Bible. Nothing can be changed, added or subtracted. It is the whole or nothing: Make your choice. And why so tenacious? Because Truth can no more be divided than Christ's seamless robe. To the winner goes the prize. The stakes may be high, but I still want to gamble, and I play to win.

The BBC made a series of Narnia movies in the late 1980's. The technology wasn't as good back then, and to watch them now, in some places it almost seems like watching a home movie, something slightly naive, a bit amateur. But I still watch them, and love. Why? Because they faithfully portray on film what The Chronicles of Narnia are really about, even using the very dialog. Nothing, or very, very little, has been adapted. For manageable length some things have been left out, yet nothing essential was omitted. Watching those old BBC films brings the books to mind, and then I go and reread them, which makes me want to come back and watch the films. Everything is truthful and authentic, beginning to end, if somewhat primitive.

Starting in 2005, The Chronicles of Narnia were again presented in film. The visuals were grandiose, panoramic, even awesome, so far exceeding the BBC version that there's no comparison—on that level. I went and saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, same as everyone, and was immediately impressed with the visual presentation. Slowly, as the film progressed, though, I began noticing small changes, then larger ones, then wrong emphasis or worse, unfaithful rendering of the characters. Soon, I was shocked by the introduction of scenes that never occurred in the books. The magnificent scenery, action, photography, all were lost on me. Why? Because the story was now different. It was similar but not the same as the book. 'They could've done better,' I thought to myself. I found myself on the wrong side of the critical fence from my friends and family members. Everyone else had nothing but praise for it.

In 2008, when Prince Caspian was released as the second of this new series of The Chronicles of Narnia, against my better judgment I went to see it as well. Again, the visuals were stupendous, but the story was now interlaced with a new theme that was leading it in all the wrong directions, and the characters were shifting even further from the authentic personalities we read about in Lewis' books. I promised myself, never again, I had had enough. And now, here we are in 2010 and the next installment of a new Narnia is upon us. I almost went and saw it yesterday afternoon, just out of curiosity, but honestly, I know it will be over-the-top entertainment, and that is something I am just not interested in. Waiting for such a movie to end is even harder than being trapped in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic going 5 miles an hour for 2 hours. By choice, I try to avoid both.

I suppose I am not the only one who feels like this about the 'new Narnia,' though right now I know of no one who is not raving about having seen The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or raving about wanting to see it. Let me tell you, brothers, if I go, it will be an act of charity, of fellowship, to see it with someone I love, but not for the film itself. Leave me alone, then, to read the books themselves, or if I want to watch a film version, I will launch my copy of the old BBC version. As schmaltzy as it gets sometimes on the technological level, it's still a true depiction of the old Narnia.

I found this article on the internet that goes into great depth analyzing this 'new Narnia' that the current series of films portrays. If you want to read what others have to say, click the link right below the image of the Touchstone webpage.

Click HERE to read this article at Touchstone.

Who do you trust?

Lord, help me always to tell it like it is.

We witness to the Lord Jesus Christ wherever we are, as second nature, without thinking about doing it, without personal intention or expectation, only the unspoken prayer, “Give the increase.”

A co-worker calls to me from over the cubicle wall. “You gotta see this!” I get up immediately, drawn by the hint of incredulity in the speaker’s voice. I round the corner and sit in an empty chair near the PC screen, as my friend reads aloud to me what he’s found on the internet, “Man is willing to pay $50,000 to Jews willing to relocate to Dothan, Alabama!” and then, “Hey man, this is for you!”

Even though he knows I’m a Christian, there’s just something about the label “Orthodox” that makes this friend, and many other people I’ve known over the years, think that I’m some kind of Jew. It doesn’t help that I’m bearded. A short conversation sprang up between us on the subject of the news story that concatenated a whole string of facts and ideas. Jews leaving small town America for the big cities, then, the depopulation of Polish Jewry, leaving hundreds of abandoned synagogues and cemetaries all over Poland, then the instant celebrity of any Polish Jewish boy who actually wants to be bar mitzvah’d. Then, as invariably happens, food comes up. “Yeah, aren’t rubens tasty with kosher corn beef and swiss cheese? Uh, wait a minute, even though the ingredients are kosher, that combination isn’t. Why?”

Then the conversation moves along as to how the rabbis added layers of “kosher” laws to the original single injunction “You must not boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” and how ridiculous this is, in view of what Abraham and Sarah offered to God the Holy Triad at their campsite at Mamre. Maybe God didn’t like the taste of meat and dairy at the same dinner (which is what He was served up), and so the next chance He got, He laid down the law about the “mother’s milk and kid’s meat don’t mix” thing.
Then the talk moved on to what happened to the two angels that visited Lot in Sodom, and then what happened to the city, and how Lot escaped with his two daughters, his wife having looked back and been morphed into a salt pillar. And then how what happened next gave rise to the Orthodox saying, “Do not defile yourself in the wilderness, where in the city you were pure.”

I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I have to remark on the faithfulness of God, who does not let His Word go forth and return to Him void. Whether my friend identifies himself as a Christian or not, he could find meaning in, and welcomed the exchange of ideas and stories recounted on a colloquial level, in fact he initiated it. This is how we witness. We just remain willing to defenselessly and joyfully deliver the Message that He wants to send. He appoints the rendezvous, and it’s always, as Sergei Fudel calls it, “a miracle of unexpected joy” (Light in the Darkness).

Did I bring Christ into the conversation? Did I announce the “four spiritual laws?” Did I ask my friend if he is saved? No, not this time, because that’s not what happened. But I am ready to, whenever the Lord ordains it. “Not my will, Lord, but Thine!”
Another co-worker showed up with a question, and as I was actually on my way out the door when this conversation occurred, I just let it go with a “Good night, guys, have a good evening! See you tomorrow!”

On the drive home, I got to thinking. All these folks I work with are very nice people, and at least a couple of them have told me they were or are Christians, and in the past (I’ve known them several years) we’ve sometimes shared a little about our Christian lives, or at least our upbringing. I know what some of them reject. In fact, no one in my office “goes to church” except me. Yet, they’re all nice people. This is the product of religious Christianity. When C. S. Lewis said that Christ came not to make nice people but new men (Mere Christianity), he was writing about this very thing.
So, as I was driving home, I was turning over in my mind, what is the source of my belief, what does my life in Christ grow out of (for this is the only thing Christian life can really mean)?

I thought back to one of my favorite concepts, that though we have five sense organs to give us knowledge of the natural world, we have one sense organ to give us knowledge of God (I should say spiritual world, but that would not be enough). That sense organ is the brain, in which resides the mind. The mind is the eye with which we can see God—everything else we use it for are like “extras” thrown in by the Maker. The problem is that most people use the mind for very opposite purposes, either because they don’t know any better, or because they do, and they don’t want to see God (Romans 1:20-21). When people have asked me why I believe in God, I sometimes say, “Honestly, it’s not really belief per se. I just know He’s there. In fact, He’s here with us right now in this very room, as we’re talking. It’s like I can see Him, not with my eyes, of course, but with my mind. I guess you could say, with the eye of faith.”

Then as I drove along, I started wondering how people must see me, and others whom they know are followers of Jesus, or at least call “religious” folks. They sometimes know that we pray, or say prayers, or talk to God, or whatever. But they, even when they claim “to believe in a God,” simply don’t pray. They don’t really think that there’s Anyone there listening. I can see their point. On the purely natural level, there’s no evidence of anyone or anything that “hears” all our thoughts and words, and “sees” all our actions.

So where do we, where did I, get that notion in the first place?
I can see how people can accept the concept that there is a God, but not know anything about Him, because there’s nowhere to find “more information” except—in the Bible! And that Book has had the most wild history of promotion and defamation of any book known to man, not to mention a whole slough of writers intent on making us believe that though it’s God’s Word, it’s not perfect (implication, not reliable), and that it must be studied in the context of its time and place.

Back to the notion that Someone is there that knows everything about us, hears all we say and think, sees all we do. For me, that has come primarily from the book of Psalms, which is rich with detail on the nature of God, Who He is, what He loves, what He hates, what He does and can do (there’s nothing He can’t do, but there are things He won’t do). I’m sure there are many places in the Bible where God’s nature is revealed simply enough for anyone to understand, but for me the Psalms are that place.
Now this is where “faith” actually does kick in, even for me. It is by faith that I accept and believe that what the Bible says about God is true in the first place.

Yes, faith—this is the stumblingblock for those who may claim to “believe in a God,” but cannot bring themselves any closer, let alone confess Him before men. They may justify their disinterest by their agnosticism, and their agnosticism by their biblical illiteracy, and their illiteracy by the corruption of the institutions representing Christianity. But without taking the personal initiative to seek the Lord where and when He can be found (Isaiah 55:6), that is, in the Word of God, they cannot hope to be justified or become children of the Promise, putting false hope in the “goodness” they attribute to the “God” in whose existence they say they believe, but of whom they have no objective knowledge.

So then, though the mind can “see” God, only faith can tell us of His attributes, and “can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that at present remain unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). And that faith cannot be arrived at by any amount of human thinking or speculation. That was the heresy of the false gnosis of ancient times. Instead, we have been given (as the Jews say) “the precious Implement by which the world was created,” that is, the Word of God. We have been given it (again, as the Jews say) “not to be made into a spade to dig with,” in other words, not something to serve us, to bolster our opinions and thoughts. Instead, we have been given the precious Implement “through Whom all things were made” (Symbol of Nicæa), and Who alone can remake us, as the Psalms declare.
What is faith then?

Of course, in an everyday sense, it really comes down to trust. Without realising it, everyone lives their life day by day based on trust that “things are as they think they are.” This is like not being afraid to enter the highway and jump into a lane of fast-moving cars, because you trust that the fear of instant chaos, damage or death will keep everyone on the road in their lane. This is like not being afraid to fly to Japan on a jet airliner because you trust what the scientists have discovered about the laws of physics, you trust the pilots to know how to fly the plane, and you trust the entire apparatus of the airport maintenance system to make sure there’s fuel in the plane and so on.

In various other areas of life, we have come to trust, or have faith in the reliability of various human institutions, and so we are able to live our earthly lives and function in relative peace and stability. We know we can trust scientists, as long as they stay scientific. We know we can trust doctors and other professionals, as long as they stay true to their various disciplines. Why then this lack of trust, this absolute disdain of theologians and clergy, and of “organized religion”? Sorry to say, a large proportion of these people have not stayed true to their discipline, wandering where they don’t belong, or bending the Bible to fit their agendas. However, there’s nothing more I need say about it here.
What I want to say is one more thing. Just as we trust a scientist when he stays scientific, we should trust a theologian when he stays theological. What is the discipline of the scientist? To study the natural world, do experiments, get results and publish them, so others can duplicate them. What is the discipline of the theologian? To study the Bible, do experiments (follow Jesus), get results (the life of salvation) and publish them (make disciples of all nations). If a theologian can’t be found where you live, find them among the Church fathers, or become one yourself.

True science requires honesty, study and hard work, but it’s worth it. True theology, the same.

The true scientist trusts the natural world to be true, takes it at face value, tests it, confirms its truth, and himself can be trusted. The true theologian trusts the Bible to be true, takes it at face value, tests it, confirms its truth, and himself can be trusted.

Who do you trust?

The Siropoulos Project

Father Milovan Katanic published a series of posts about the False Union of Florence, an example of false ecumenism that happened in the early 15th century. To make them easier to read again and again, and to recommend them to all readers of my blog, I gathered them together in a specialised blog of their own under the same title. I have introduced only very minor edits to the text I received from Fr Milovan, and I have added many hyperlinks to help readers get additional information on concepts, persons and places.

The Siropoulos Project hyperlink can be found in the side bar under My Other Blogs, or by clicking HERE. I offer a hearty thank you to Fr Milovan for bringing this to our attention, and to the original publishers in South Africa.

The secret of true evangelism

The image above is a poster. Click on it to enlarge it, and when it enlarges click once more to maximize, then right click and Save Image As to you computer, so you can print yourself a copy.

Laboratory of myself

Christians express their faith in many ways. Some are religious, others are not. To those who are indifferent, anyone who is a Christian is classified as religious. That’s a self-defense mechanism for those who use it. Without looking into it, these people categorize as religious anyone who confesses Christ and follows Him, so that they have their excuse for not doing likewise: ‘I am not religious.’

But not all followers of Jesus are religious. I certainly am not. I am not a religious Christian, but a scientific one. I know that the Living God is not static, but personal, dynamic and interested in working with me, to bring me fully into the Truth. Having created me, He wants me to love Him in perfect freedom, to become by grace what He is by nature, and this requires a response on my part.

I am scientific in my approach to God, but it is not that I study God scientifically, but rather that I allow myself to be studied scientifically by God, and by myself under His direction. It is the scientific approach that works best for me.

In the laboratory of myself, experiments are done one after the other, following the instructions in the manual, that is, the Holy Bible.

Someone has called the Word of God the wiring diagram of the universe. I would not call it that, even in its written form as the Divine Scriptures, but I have found it to be the manual to the human species, full of experiments that anyone can do to find out who they are, who God is, and what we are created to be. To read the Bible and not do what it commands is like going to lectures and skipping lab.

I did that in college. Let me warn you, it doesn’t work.

We learn by doing, at least I do. We know we are the image of the unseen God, and that knowledge should launch us on a journey of exploration and experimentation to find our Source. This is not an individualistic pursuit, however, because essential to the scientific method is to work with others, compare results, help each other, and in the end all arrive at the Truth. Solitary scientists often lapse into fantasy.

What is the point of all this?

There are groups that call themselves ‘Christian Scientists’ but aren’t really scientists, it is only their name. There are Gnostics who claim salvation or at least superiority through the acquisition of knowledge, but they don’t really know a thing. There are those who call themselves ‘Catholics’ because they’ve agreed on doctrines that they say are universal, even though it’s obvious they aren’t. There are the Orthodox who believe they have the fullness of Christianity—and that they may have—but what good is it, if they guard it as a treasure to cache instead of spending it for what it can buy?

All these are mere names defining nothing and no one.

What defines us as followers of Jesus Christ is our willingness to let ourselves be disassembled and put back together again. We can’t know in advance the outcome of the experiments done in the laboratory of ourselves, but we want to do them anyway. We want to let ourselves be molded by the hands that made us, not the other way round, molding images that our hands, our thoughts, have made. Those we know would be only idols.

Formal idolatry has long ago vanished and been replaced by the idolatry of fantasy—religious fantasy, psychological and philosophic fantasy, deified opinion, mitered and sceptered personality cults.

Yet the Truth is always the Truth wherever it appears, even if it appears outside the gates, and we can never go wrong in following it, no matter what anyone says.

Fantasy always fades. Only Truth stays bright.

Jesus Christ, we know, is the Truth. For humanity there can be no other Truth, because Truth is One. Let Him enter the laboratory of yourself, do the experiments as He directs you, reading the instructions in His Book, performing what is written there, and learn what He has set aside for you to know, for though it may seem humble compared to worldly wisdom, it is the scientific Truth.

It is only what really is, and only what really is, is worth being.

The freedom of love

Our hearts have entrances only,
and no exits.

Worldly sayings are composed to comfort,
but they only rob.

Once love has entered the heart,
there it remains forever.

The beloved is now in our blood,
carrying life to us.

Always welcome to stay or go,
is why love gives life.

Trapped and held by greed or fear,
love suffers and the soul aches.

Letting go does not mean send away.
Letting go means set free.

Romanós
29 November, 2010

Not what you know, but Who

"No one will know more of the Father than he knows of the Son, nor will he know more of the Son than he knows of the Word."

— J. Dwight Pentecost

The first half of the saying echoes Christ's words to His disciple Philip, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9 NIV). Possibly, the second half of the saying is hinting at what the evangelist John wrote, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard…" (1 John 1:1-3).

The fact is, this saying of J. Dwight Pentecost is, without doubt, absolutely true. I want to challenge my friends, those that visit my humble blog, to realise for themselves how urgent this saying is.

How can anyone possibly hope to have the Father and the Son with them, if he does not know the Word? Yet people pack the churches to the doors sometimes, clamoring after words about who knows what, while the Word of God is treated as a sealed book. Who is worthy to break the seals? Well, then, what was prophesied by Isaiah is still being fulfilled,

"For on you has Yahweh poured a spirit of lethargy, he has closed your eyes (the prophets), he has veiled your heads (the seers). For you every vision has become like the words of a sealed book. You give it to someone able to read and say, "Read that." He replies, "I cannot, because the book is sealed." Or else you give the book to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read that." He replies, "I cannot read." Yahweh has said, Because this people approaches me only in words, honors me only with lip service while its heart is far from me, and my religion, as far as it is concerned, is nothing but human commandment, a lesson memorised…" (Isaiah 29:10-13 JB).

There once was a very talkative presbyter in my church. When he first arrived, I watched and listened to him closely. His eloquence was beyond almost anyone whom I have ever heard speak. He knew how to turn a phrase, how to elaborate, how to tell a story. After hearing him speak in a few different kinds of meetings, I began to understand something I hadn't grasped before. Eloquence can be used to obscure the Truth as much as to reveal it.

I began to notice more and more how a man's words can be lying words even when they say true things. How is this possible?

When speaking of God and spiritual things, any words which do not draw from and point to the Word of Truth are at best vanity, and at worst lies.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote (in The Cost of Discipleship, The Suffering of the Messengers), "It is all part of God's plan and the will of Jesus, and that is why they will be given power to make a good confession and deliver a fearless testimony even in the hour when they make answer before thrones and judgment seats. The Holy Ghost himself will stand by their side, and make them invincible. He will give them 'a mouth and a wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to gainsay' (Luke 21:15 ASV)."

Yes, it is not what you know, but Who.

Opinions and the Truth

In philosophy, in the field of theories, systems and hypotheses, each person can say anything and maintain whatever he likes. He can call his opinion whatever he likes. He can assign to it the most astronomical value, even to the point of saying that it has the value of “the truth.” In theology, however, this cannot happen. Orthodox theology is a different matter from beginning to end. It does not assert a proposition; it bears witness. It is not contradiction, but confession.

How frequently the Lord would stop people who wanted to start a “theological” conversation with Him. They ask, “Will those who are saved be few?” and the Lord replies, “Strive to enter by the narrow door” (Luke 13:23-24).

Again, with the Samaritan woman who is surprised when the Lord asks her for water, and explains her surprise, “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9), Jesus cuts short her comments on the relations between the religious communities with the command, “Go, call your husband” (John 4:16).

In a moment He leads the conversation into the field of personal life, of true theology. In every case He is interested in the person, not in theological discussion as an isolated occupation remaining out of touch with life and with the very person who is speaking.
“I seek not what is yours, but you” (2 Corinthians 12:14), says Paul; I seek the person and his salvation. And theology seeks the person and his salvation. Therefore, while the Jews of Christ's day were so eager for theological discussions, He let them go unanswered; “But He was silent.” For He did not come to discuss, He came to seek out and save the one that had gone astray (Matthew 18:11).

— Archimandrite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry, pp. 32-33

Handing it over

…this baptism into patristic study brings what we need, which is not an additional load of patristic references and the memorizing of other people's opinions, but the acquisition of a new and clear-sighted sense which enables man to see things differently and rightly.

If we limit ourselves to learning passages by heart and classifying them mechanically—and teach men likewise—then we fall into a basic error which simply makes us fail to teach and make known the patristic way of life and philosophy. For what is altogether distinctive about the patristic creation is that it is conceived and held together, it is formed and grows, as a result of the grace and power of the freedom of the Spirit.

… Communicating the patristic word, the word of the Holy Fathers, is not a matter of applying their sayings to this or that topic… is not conveyed mechanically, nor preserved archaeologically, nor approached through excursions into history. It is conveyed whole, full of life, as it passes from generation to generation through living organisms, altering them, creating “fathers” who make it their personal word, a new possession, a miracle, a wealth which increases as it is given away.

This is the unchanging change wrought by the power that changes corruption into incorruption.

… How beautiful it is
for a man to become theology.

— Archimandrite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry, pp. 34-35 passim

True Man

True man is he who doesn’t want to live long in this world. He wants to give his testimony and return as soon as possible, return home to Christ. He isn’t concerned about living a long life; he only wants to live on earth as long as his Lord wants him to live. Why? Because he is already living with Christ in His kingdom. He knows it with perfect certainty. He is redeemed, delivered from every desire and ambition that snares men and chains them to this world, and he is impatient to be free of this body of death, because he no longer lets it use him to sin. He is already living in heaven with Christ; all he wants is to be living there completely. If he must continue living in this world, he knows it’s only to do here what Christ wants him to do, to do what he sees Jesus doing in this world. He wants only to follow Jesus who, though living visibly in heaven, is alive invisibly on earth. And so, true man lives invisibly in heaven while he is living visibly on earth, following Jesus.

True man lives in the Word of God, and that Word is everything to him, and it makes him a child of the Kingdom, it makes him a disciple of Jesus. And Jesus and the Father come and live with him there, making him one of them by giving him the Spirit to live inside him. The Word of God is everything to him, it is his home, his food, his covering, his companion, his teacher, his protection, his inheritance. He is never without it, whether the Book is in his hand or not. The Word of God becomes his words, becomes his thoughts, becomes his actions. It is his strength, it guards his purity, it is his defense against all the lures and snares of the enemy. The Word of God proves His unalterable faithfulness to him and in him, and makes him faithful to God. The Word of God never leaves him, never leaves him alone, becomes a hedge around him, and makes him a hedge around the Kingdom in which he lives with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

True man is the implacable foe of the evil one, and doesn’t yield for a moment even an inch of territory, because the Word of God lives in him, and he lives in the Word. That is his world, and that world is the Kingdom. His citizenship is there while in the body he lives here. He is an unregistered alien in this world, which either shuns him as it goes along with its trifling affairs, pretending not to see him, or when it can’t help but see him, he is seen as a threat, he is seen as dangerous, and he is opposed with every injustice that can be brought against him in the name of the world’s justice. Because he obeys another Law, fulfills another commandment, that of His Lord, he falls under the condemnation of the laws of men and suffers with His Lord, who is put to death every day by the world. This too is an earthly evidence of his heavenly citizenship. He has nowhere to lay his head, no place in this world where he is comfortable, seeing that everywhere is under the dominion of the evil one, and with Jesus he is turned away at every inn, turned away because he is a God-bearer.

True man is too strong for the men who seek their home and their security on earth, and so he finds no friends among them. His strength is not from himself. He seems to wear his strength effortlessly, while others who claim to be strong or who try to be, make excuses for their weakness. But his strength is not from himself, it is from Christ who lives with him and who supplies him from His armory. His eye looks stern and unfriendly to men who have eyes only for the world, because his eye is single, and it looks always upon heaven, and from heaven where he already is living with Christ. His strength is from his Lord, and it shows in his walk and in his stance, in his speech and in his silence, in what he does and in what he does not do. All of this is a threat to other men who seek their strength only in things of this world, in things man-made, in what will not endure.

True man is in the world, but not of it. Why? Because he lives already in the Kingdom of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He lives there and he knows it. He has his proof of citizenship in the Word that never leaves him. He has his passport ready and can come and go through a door that to him is never shut between worlds, a door which, if he chooses to shut it, no one can open, and if he chooses to open, no one can close. He has been given this kind of authority because he can be trusted. Why can he be trusted? Because he has proven himself faithful to his charge, because he renews his faithfulness every day in the presence of his Father, by following the Son of God, by doing only what he sees Him doing. He has already been given the crown of life, because he is willing to lay down his life in this world, because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Brothers, this is our call in Jesus Christ. This is the guarantee of our salvation. This is the life that has no end. This is the treasure hidden in the field that a man finds and then sells all that he has to purchase the field. This is the true man that has been recreated in the image of the Holy Triad who said, “Let us make man in Our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters…”

Brothers, this is true man.

Difficulties

It is difficult when there is a problem close to home, especially in one’s own family, a horrid, dangerous problem, and yet one is not allowed to help because what one offers will not be accepted. People stray so far by gradual removals from the path of Christ, all the while not noticing the drift, until they cannot even remember who Christ is, or worse, think they have Him all the more within their grasp while at the same time they are murdering others all around them.

It is pure insanity, yet that possibility cannot be admitted, nothing can be admitted that does not glorify and bolster the imaginary self, and so where healing would be possible, even salvation, it is not allowed to approach at all, but it is demonized in the person of one hated and despised. And for what? Though helpless to help the one who needs help, a blind guide wills rather to pull others into the ditch rather than accept a sighted guide, it simply incubates a lifeless egg.

No activity, not reading or study, not even the scriptures, nothing material outside the self, can help when you are faced with such difficulties, when you are not allowed to intervene by either the victim or the perpetrator of strong delusion. You cannot hide yourself in any activity, yet you cannot be anxious, even knowing that irreversible catastrophe can steal the life of one beloved, one who refuses to admit that you exist, let alone that you have loved.
All you can do is pray.

And this seems like doing nothing, yet it is all you can do. You enclose yourself in the refuge of prayer, and others, and even yourself, mock you as weak and ineffectual. The prayer itself, the talking to the Father, the laying bare your soul’s anguish over the helplessness of the situation, you know may do nothing to prevent the catastrophe, it may still occur, your soul may still have to face the darkest moment, and yet continue to live. Still, all you can do is pray.

Not the hundreds of common cares that come and go, with which you deal successfully or not, they matter not at all compared to this problem which continues moving toward chaos, mutely and unresponsive to what might prevent it, and like physical pain, cuts you off in time and space from all other human beings who are happy. Stories no longer satisfy, tales no more encourage or inspire, when before you lies the reality of what cannot be, yet is.

Father, You alone know all, You alone know us and all our afflictions, You prepare a table for us before the face of these sightless enemies who cry war when all we want is peace, and to whom peace is only seeing us defeated and destroyed. Help us, Father, in this hour of trouble, when Your family is in such need of salvation, yet runs from it into the dark solitude where the evil one, having despoiled the flock, seeks the life of Your young ones, caught in his traps.

I can do nothing, Lord. I can do nothing. Even my prayer is only a moan, yet You know my heart, and let my afflictions drive me into the wilderness, pursued by accusers shouting out crimes I have never committed, so that You alone exist for me. All that You have given me, I wanted to give back to You, but not like this. I wanted to give You not the one talent You entrusted to me, but that and even more. But even what little I thought I had has been taken from me.

Do not let the evil one have the upper hand, Lord. Do not let him ravage the family You have planted. Visit us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and dispel the hatred, the doubt, the accusations, the delusions, the false hopes, the sickness of heart, the unforgiving memory, every evil thing that has come to nest like rats in a forsaken ruin. Deliver us, let us call you again ‘our Father’ and deliver us, from evil, from the evil one, from each other and from ourselves.

Let us wake in the morning, filled with Your love, and sing and be happy all our days. Make our future as happy as our past was sad, those years when You were punishing us, those years when we were punishing ourselves. Let Your servants see what You can do for them, let their children see Your glory. May the sweetness of the Lord be on us! Make all we do succeed. (Psalm 90:14-17). Yahweh, do not desert me, do not stand aside, my God! Come quickly to my help, Lord, my Savior! (Psalm 38:21-22).

Hebrew ikon of Eliyahu ha-Navi

The ikon of holy prophet Elijah, Elías, or Eliyahu, that illustrated the post Hebrew Orthodox Christianity can be downloaded as a PDF file with Hebrew inscriptions in various script styles.

The inscription reads in Hebrew, Eliyahu ha-Tishbi ha-Navi, ‘Elijah the Tishbite, the Prophet’.

Then, the text of 1 Kings 17:4 is written in smaller script under the prophet's name and title, ‘You can drink from the stream, and I have ordered the ravens to bring you food there.’

There are six versions of this ikon with Hebrew inscriptions. Download and print a full-sized ikon by clicking the link beside the detail image. These ikons were adapted from the standard Greek ikon by removing the Greek text and replacing it with the Hebrew.

Torah Sofer script
16th Century AD






Isaiah Scroll script
2nd Century BC






Moabite Stone script (brown)
9th Century BC





Moabite Stone script (black)
9th Century BC





Yavneh Yam script
7th Century BC






Standard Hebrew script

Holy Trinity Monastery Panorama

Panorama > Greek, pan = all, orama = seeing, hence, ‘to see it all.’

Visiting Fr Milovan's blog Again and Again this morning before liturgy, I found this wonderful link to a panoramic view of the Holy Trinity Monastery, in Jordanville, New York.

Click the linked monastery name above, and the panoramic view will open. You can control the views with your mouse, or let the panorama start rotating all on its own. You can zoom larger to see details better using the + button on the far left. You can also control the view precisely by clicking the button with the hand on it: The symbol will change to a navigation sign, and then with your mouse you can rotate the panorama in any direction. The other keys, up, down, right and left, work as you would expect. Plus and minus keys zoom in (larger) and out (smaller).

I hope this visual visit to the monastery chapel will bless you.

Thank you, Fr Milovan!

Hebrew Orthodox Christianity

It was at least two years ago that I discovered Av Aleksandr Winogradsky Frenkel on the internet through a webpage that I think is no longer online. Av Aleksandr is a Greek Orthodox priest ministering in modern Israeli society, in effect, within what can be termed a Hebrew Orthodox Christian environment. I was very interested in learning more, and even exploring the possibility of going to Israel and join him in his work. I contacted him, but his response was to discourage me from thinking that I could put up with the hardships of the apostolic call in the Holy Land. Perhaps he also thought I was too naive, despite my facility with languages. But that's exactly why I wrote him, to test the waters. Since his response was negative, it's not what the Lord wants me to do, at least not now.

Nevertheless, I haven't forgotten Av Aleksandr, and this morning I rediscovered him on FaceBook, along with many photos, and a list of his webpages. He is a busy man, in the good sense I mean, busy with the Lord's work, online and in the real world. Some of his webpages are in French, but three of the English ones, I have added under Hebrew Orthodox Christianity in the sidebar of my blog. I still find it very interesting and encouraging to know that a Hebrew Orthodox Church is being restored in the land of Israel, picking up, even prophetically, where the Jerusalem Church left off with the invasion by the Romans and the destruction of the Second Temple.

Orthodox Christianity in the land of Israel is predominantly Arabic speaking under the leadership of Greek hierarchs and priests (who also can speak Arabic), along with a growing number of other Orthodox nationalities, some of them of non-Jewish heritage, but some literally Jewish by descent. My interest in the restoration of a Hebrew Orthodox Christianity comes primarily from my studying and reading the Tanakh (Old Testament) in Hebrew, but there is also a hereditary interest as some of my ancestors may have been Polish Jews, as my surname is Jewish. I also just love the Jewish people, and the land of Israel.

These are times in which much prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes without our knowing it, sometimes we are in fact walking in the paths of prophetic fulfillment without knowing it. These are times in which we must pay close attention. “I shall come like a thief. Happy is the man who has stayed awake…” (Revelation 16:15). What is Good News for those who believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior will be bad news for those who do not believe, but this belief is not just head knowledge or agreement, it is trust in the Living God that moves mountains. “The kingdom of God is not just words, it is power” (1 Corinthians 4:20).

“Because the time is close” (Revelation 1:3), I want to encourage you all as I am encouraged by the knowledge that the Lord is doing such works as these among His hereditary people, the people of Israel, by the hand of His servant, Av Aleksandr, and I invite you also to learn more about this ministry by visiting his webpages. How much is done in secret for the Lord, but He will reveal everything when He comes, “and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3).

No turning back

Και ηκουσα φωνην μεγαλην λεγουσαν εν τω ουρανω Αρτι εγενετο η σωτηρια και η δυναμις και η βασιλεια του θεου ημων και η εξουσια του χριστου αυτου οτι κατεβληθη ο κατηγορος των αδελφων ημων ο κατηγορων αυτων ενωπιον του θεου ημων ημερας και νυκτος.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.

Revelation 12:10

An Orthodox Christian sister of mine wrote me today about a young friend of hers who is zealous against Israel and ‘Zionism’ and has posted a gruesome account of (apparently) the martyrdom of a Christian by ‘Zionist settlers.’ I have heard nothing about such an incident, but this was my response to her, covering some other points she wrote in her letter as well.

I do not get involved with Christians, Orthodox or otherwise, who have an ax to grind. Zionist settlers murdering someone, so he is now a martyr. Well, if it's true, so be it. The whole idea of categorizing people as "Zionist" is an implicit indictment against them.

The word "categorize" comes from the Greek word meaning "accuser" as in, satan being the accuser of the brethren.

It is very disappointing that Orthodox Christians are by and large siding with the Palestinians against Israel, and that they take the viewpoint that the Church has replaced Israel. That is a majority view in the Church all through history, but we will see who is right when Christ Himself returns. He is not a Christian, but a Jew, and we'll see what He has to say about it all.

There are so many better things to do with our time than tear people down, criticize them, categorize them, objectify them, divide them and condemn them. Even if we start only by loving them, Christ would reveal to us all the other good things we could do for them and for Him, none of which belong to the order of this fallen world.

When He says “love one another as I have loved you” and when He says “love your enemies” someone can always find an excuse why not to follow these simple instructions. But alas! There is no excuse. When Christ prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” He wasn’t kidding, and He isn’t kidding about loving our enemies and even each other. Or are we rebels and enemies start to finish, blind, deaf and dumb to His precious and all-knowing Word?

When the accuser strikes a chord in our hearts, let’s stop our ears so as not to hear him and agree with what he says about our brothers. To believe him, and find a reason not to love, is to lie to Christ, to trample His love, to trample not death as He did by His love, but on love itself, to trample Him.

What do you think He will say to us on the Day of His return, if we have denied Him by our judgment, our slander, our suspicion, our hatred of each other?

There is no turning back, if you have responded to the call of Jesus, there is only one thing to do, follow Him. That means to do what we see Him doing in the scriptures, and to follow His commandment, and it is only one—to love.

Pray for me, Romanos the sinner.

Love, respect, and awe

When I set foot in an Orthodox church for the first time probably as a young man of about 22 or 23 years, it was a small, rustic country church in the Ukrainian village of Bellis (“White Woods”) Alberta, and I was overcome at first by the utter simplicity of the house of God itself. Then, the service began, and from behind an ikonostasis made of white-painted garden trellis a deep voice chanted in a Slavic tongue that reminded me of my native Polish, and a sweet fragrance and clouds of smoke emanated from there as well. As the service continued, my earthly eyes saw many things that were strange, though beautiful. At one point the priest emerged with two covered golden vessels and walked carefully through the small crowd of farmers and their families kneeling with heads deeply bowed or down on the floor. As he passed through them, he seemed to hover the cups over each of their heads, and he looked at them with love, respect and awe, as if to say by his actions, "these are the people for whom Christ died." Throughout the rest of the service, that was what struck me the most—love, respect and awe—not just for God, but for one another. This was before I had even come to that point where I was ready to follow Jesus. To me up till now Christianity had been nothing more than a religious exercise with little meaning. I remember thinking to myself, "If Christ is real, and if Christianity is true, this has to be it."

At the age of 24 years, I "accepted" Christ, or rather, accepted His will for me, and promised to follow Him. At the age of 37 years, I "returned" to the Orthodox Church. Returned? What is that supposed to mean? Well, that's what Fr Elías said to the congregation by way of introducing us on the morning we were chrismated. He said we had struggled hard to get back here. I never forgot his words. What was I doing between the ages of 24 and 37 years? Well, let's just say that I was a catechumen for 13 years. Actually, right from the beginning I believed myself to be an Orthodox Christian, identifying with that radiant cluster of Christians I had seen worshipping the living Christ in the village of Bellis, and I hadn't yet grasped that Orthodox Christians belong in the Orthodox Church. I thought the Episcopal church was as close to Orthodoxy as I could get. After all, there were even Greeks going there (at my first parish, Good Samaritan, in Corvallis, Oregon). So the Lord was patient with me. He didn't mind waiting 13 years for me to gradually come to my senses.

But back to the topic. What I experienced when encountering Orthodoxy for the first time was not a "one time" event. The same thing hit me when I entered the Greek church of Aghía Triás (now my family church) for the first time, an incredible sense of mercy, experienced as—love, respect and awe—not just for God, but for one another. This initial impression became the foundation of what Orthodoxy essentially means to me. After being joined to the Church, and growing up in it, as it were, I came to realize what everyone does who becomes an Orthodox Christian—it cannot be learned from books: only in living the life can it be truly comprehended in all its mystery. Theology is a practical science. A trinitarian God may be incomprehensible to the mind, but He can be experienced and understood by the heart of one who lives in the Body of Christ. It is because Christ is in our midst that the Holy Triad also is. Praying for the Church, Jesus says,

May they all be one, Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realise that it was you who sent me and that I have loved them as much as you loved me.
John 17:21-23 Jerusalem Bible

Sometimes brethren who are not Orthodox are surprised, even put off, by the kind of love and respect that we show not only to God and the saints of old by venerating (bowing towards and kissing) their ikons and the book of the Holy Scriptures, but also by the fact that we bow down in front of, embrace and kiss one another. Sometimes, even our language seems "a bit too much" for them, as we address the saints that have gone before, as well as the ones that are living now in words and gestures that seem "over the top." Why are you doing that? Don't you know that only One is worthy of worship, only One is Lord? Well, yes, we do. We are not doing to them and to each other what can be offered to God alone, no, we're really not. But what we are doing, loving one another in Christ, and loving Christ in one another, accounting all that Christ has redeemed by His precious Blood to be worthy, everyone and everything worthy, is the preparation for, and the proof of, our divine worship.

The relationship that the brethren share in the Body of Christ with one another is in fact and must be the primary qualification of the Church. This is what we learn from overhearing the high-priestly prayer of Christ recorded in the 17th chapter of the gospel according to John. How we are to treat one another with love, respect and awe is found throughout all the apostolic writings of the New Testament, but particularly in the first letter of the evangelist John. Yet, even in the Old Testament we are taught how to love one another.

We read of Jonathan entering into a covenant with David (1 Samuel 18:1-8). This is a prophetic image of what relationship should be like in the body of Christ. "Jonathan's soul was knit to the soul of David." The word for 'knit' (נקשרה, niksheráh > "was knit") is the same root word (קשר) used in Nehemiah 4:6, which describes the wall of Jerusalem being built (ותקשר, vatikashér > "was joined") so there were no gaps in it. Jonathan's heart was knit with David's without a gap—no space between their hearts for the enemy to come through. Jonathan loved David as himself. This is our calling in the body of Christ too, "that they may be one as we are one," such that there is no gap between us of misunderstanding, jealousy, or suspicion through which satan can slip to divide us.

Jonathan made a covenant with David and, as a symbol, removed his royal robe and placed it on David. This act symbolized Jonathan's desire to die to himself as the next king of Israel and to make David king. The holy apostle Paul writes, "Love each other as much as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other" (Romans 12:10 JB). We are to die to ourselves and sincerely long that our brothers will be regarded as greater and higher than ourselves—we even take our "robe," if necessary, to cover a brother's nakedness, wherever it is seen. Thus can we make our brothers glorious in the eyes of others. This is the kind of relationship we should have with one another in the body of Christ.

If we can have this kind of relationship, by all means we must.
Love, respect and awe—because Christ is in our midst.