Do not be envious of evil people, nor desire to be with them; For their heart devises violence, and their lips talk of troublemaking. (Proverbs 24:1-2) Do not envy a person of violence and do not choose any of his ways; for the perverse person is an abomination to the LORD, but the upright are in his confidence. (Proverbs 3:31-32) Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day. (Proverbs 23:17) In all three of the above quotes from Proverbs we are told not to be envious of evil people, sinners or the violent. Some of us might think this is obvious wisdom ..read more

The rich and the poor have this in common, the Lord is the maker of them all. (Proverbs 22:2) While we humans have many ways to categorize people or distinguish between different social groups (such as gender, ethnicism, race, nationality, social class, language, etc), when one strips away all of these human conventions, we are left with human beings created in God’s image and likeness. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs accor ..read more

Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard.  He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor.  (Proverbs 21:13, 21) While the Scriptures call us to be righteous, our argumentative nature places the emphasis on our being right instead. We are more eager to prove we are right than to show we are righteous. As a race, we are much more likely to want to be right than to want to be good. However, the Gospels do not call us to be right, but to be righteous.  (Fr Meletios Webber, STEPS OF TRANSFORMATION, p 110 ..read more

And they did not thirst when He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them; He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out. (Isaiah 48:21)  Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 457AD) comments on the event of God bringing water from the rock to quench the thirst of the Israelites sojourning through the desert which St Paul interprets as prefiguring baptism and communion.  Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all accepted baptism into Moses in the cloud and in the sea ..read more

Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45) Christ both showed by example as well as taught us that we are to serve others. Greatness in Christ’s terms means serving others, meeting their needs and laboring for the good of others (which Christians who want to make America great should keep in mind – be great as Christ defined greatness). All the work ..read more

Today the Church commemorates the Apostle Zacchaeus, the tax collector who converted and became a disciple of Christ. In the Gospel narrative of Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus says to Jesus: “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:8-10) The biblical text is usually interpreted to mean that Zacchaeus at that moment repented of his p ..read more

Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1-2) St Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444AD) reflects on what turmoil God’s command to Abraham must have had on that poor old man. Scripture itself is uncomfortably silent about what Abraham was thinking or feeling. The situation caused consternation for ancient commentators as w ..read more

Articles that I have read about the Russian Church document, “The Present and Future of the Russian World”, have deeply saddened me for that document portrays a Church which has abandoned its Gospel mission in favor of a nationalistic and imperial agenda. That document raises the Gospel question: “For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” (Mark 8:36). The Church is supposed to equip each of its members to “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesia ..read more

During the first week of Great Lent, and then again on Thursday of the 5th week of Lent, the singing of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is prescribed. Fr Alexander Schmemann comments on the Canon: It is important that we return now to the idea and experience of Lent as a spiritual journey whose purpose is to transfer us from one spiritual state into another. . . . At the commencement of Lent, as its inauguration, as the ‘pitch’ which is to begin the entire ‘melody,’ we find the great penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete. Divided into four parts, it is read at Great Compline on the ..read more

A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)  Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established. (Proverbs 19:21)  One piece of wisdom found in Scriptures, as in the quotes above, can be rephrased as “Man proposes but God disposes.” Or, paraphrasing what poet Robert Burns wrote in 1786, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.” St James offers us the same idea: Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain ..read more