An Ancient Practice: Scamming the Church

Christ is risen!  Truly He is risen!

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:1-4)

Among the earliest Christians were a married couple, Ananias and Sapphira.  They are famous for being one of the few Christian married couples named in the New Testament. They are infamous for having gotten caught up in their self-derived scheme to deceive the early church. Apparently, they were amazed by their fellow Christians who were selling their properties and giving the proceeds to the church to support its mission and charity work – or more truthfully, they were enchanted by the praise given to those who did such deeds. Unfortunately, they were more concerned about looking good than being good. They did not share the generous spirit of some of their fellow parishioners, but wanted to appear as if they did. So, they concocted a scam to sell their property and give a portion of the sale to the church community, feigning that they had given all the proceeds to the church while pocketing some of the proceeds for their own use. In another words, they engaged in a shameless, lying scam, even in apostolic times.

St Peter is stunned and dismayed by their attempt at deception. His point to them is no one commanded you to give all the proceeds from the property sale to the church. Even if you gave a small portion of the proceeds, that was totally acceptable. But to lie about and pretend that you gave it all, was really the work of Satan. It apparently hadn’t occurred to Peter that some might be tempting to cheat the church in order to collect the praise and admiration of the apostles or to curry their favor.

We are not under compulsion to give to the church, nor is donating to the church some type of competition with others where we have to “one up” what others are doing. We are not supposed to do good deeds just to get others to think highly of us. We are to give freely and be as generous as our hearts allow, but to do it “secretly” so that only God knows how much we give. We aren’t under judgment for how we give, there is to be no pressure to give from the church leadership. “Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

In Matthew 6:2-4, Christ does exhort us about our giving:

“Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

St Justin the Martyr reminds us God is not asking us Christians to sacrifice everything we own – there are appropriate times for us to enjoy the blessings God has bestowed on us and then to offer God thanksgiving:

We have learned that the only honor worthy of him [God] is, not to consume by fire the things he has made for our nourishment, but to devote them to our use and those in need, in thankfulness to him sending up solemn prayers and hymns for our creation and all the means of health, for the variety of creatures and the changes of the seasons, and sending up our petitions that we may live again in incorruption through our faith in him. It is Jesus Christ who has taught us these things…  (EARLY CHRISTIAN FATHERS, p 249)

God blesses us with good things so that we in turn can both offer thanksgiving to Him for our blessings and to share our blessings with those less fortunate than we are.

From Death to Life

Christ is risen! 

Indeed He is risen! 

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. (John 5:24-25) 

Our Lord Jesus tells us that if we believe His word we will escape judgment on the last day and will move from death to life. This we celebrate every year at Pascha as we sing: 

This is the Day of Resurrection. Let us be illumined, O people. Pascha, the Pascha of the Lord. For from death to life and from earth to heaven has Christ our God led us, as we sing the song of victory. Christ is risen from the dead! (Matins of Pascha) 

St Ephrem the Syrian believed that “the Scriptures and Christ himself are a bridge which God’s love provides over the ontological chasm that separates created beings from their Creator.” (Sidney Griffith, FAITH ADORING MYSTERY, p 21) 

Christ spans the universe including both that distance between Hades and Heaven as well as the chasm between God and creation. All things are united in Him. This is our Paschal message and celebration. 

Authoritarianism Opposes The Gospel

Christ is risen!  Truly He is risen! 

So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:18-20)

The Jewish religious leaders had a real problem on their hands. They wanted to be in their position of authority, yet did not want to be held accountable for their actions. This was their same dilemma when Jesus was alive and preaching to the people (see Mark 11:18, 12:12 and parallel passages in Matthew and Luke). They were afraid of the people whose understanding of and affection towards Jesus were vastly different than their own. As we see in the Gospel, they could not honestly answer the straightforward question Jesus posed to them regarding John the Forerunner (Mark 11:30 and parallel passages) but only because they feared the people – their rationale for their true thoughts went directly against popular public opinion. They were controlled by appearance not by substance.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Apostles are preaching Jesus and doing miracles in His name which the authorities couldn’t deny they were doing (Acts 4:16). What concerns these authorities the most is that the Apostles are making clear who was most responsible for Christ’s death. “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us” (Acts 5:28). The authorities were in fact responsible for the death of Jesus, but they had done their best to try to pin the guilt on the Romans and certainly did not want the populace to place the blame on them.

The apostle creates a conundrum for the authorities – Peter doesn’t tell these authorities that they are wrong in ordering the apostles to stop proclaiming Christ, he only tells them to judge for themselves whether it is more correct to listen to them or to listen to God. The “authorities” cannot answer that exactly because they assume they represent God’s point of view and don’t want to undermine their own authority which is already being eroded among the people they are trying to control. This is a great challenge to establishment authority, the institutional “church” which believes it needs to control the membership or the message proclaimed in God’s name. The “authorities” are trying to rule by absolute reason, and yet have to twist and contort their logic to maintain their “reasonable” position. As Bishop Alexis Trader notes:

In other words, autonomous rationality is not a characteristic of human nature, but of the fallen human will. It can be healed by humble submission to God through the virtues and mysteries of the Church.  (ANCIENT CHRISTIAN WISDOM AND AARON BECK’S COGNITIVE THERAPY, p 42)

Abusive authority in which some humans dominate others is part of the fallen world and not how God originally intended humans to live. We were intended as the Lord Jesus has it to live by loving God and loving neighbor – we all are to be neighbors one to another. [Read the Good Samaritan parable in which the ungodly religious authorities fail to be neighborly toward the stranger, but one identified as an ‘enemy’ of God proves to be a neighbor (proves himself to be truly human to the stranger).] When in the church we rely on ‘authority’ we destroy the notion that we are all equally neighbors living by love for each other, owing each other nothing but love (Romans 13:8), not by claiming authority over others or by forcing others into submissive roles (which is the way of the fallen world not of the Kingdom). The “authorities” summon the Apostles Peter and John commanding them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. The apostles recognize that these “authorities” are in fact misusing authority – their power comes not from God but results from the consequences of the Fall of Eve and Adam into sin. Institutional authority is an abuse if it demands or commands one to do things opposed to God’s love. [And I can’t resist noting that is how I see the Russian Orthodox Church in its recent document “The Present and Future of the Russian World.”  Patriarch Kirill and his synod have chosen authoritarianism and nationalism in opposition to the Gospel and like the “authorities” in the Gospel they are trying to bludgeon the flock into submission. You can find criticisms of that document: “When Theology Fuels the War” or “The Russian Orthodox Church Declares Holy War on Ukraine” or “The Legacy of Alexei Navalny“]

St Sophrony writes that St Silouan taught:

The noblest mission of the Church of Christ lies not in the acquisition of material well-being or political power – ‘For what is a man advantaged, if he gained the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?’[Mark 8:36] – but in the raising of her faithful sons ‘unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ [Ephesians 4:13]. (THE MONK OF MOUNT ATHOS, p 87)

What is the Russian Church which wishes to gain the whole world, but has lost its soul? It is not the Body of Christ, but a soulless, Spiritless corpse.

God’s Plan for Our Salvation: Death and Resurrection

Christ is risen!  Indeed He is risen!

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:17)

St Methodius (3rd-4th Centuries) makes an interesting commentary on the role both of death and resurrection as God’s means for saving us. First though, he reminds us that the Old Testament, the Law, must be read as a shadow or a type of things to come. His criticism of Judaism is that the Jews read the Law as the reality, fulfilled in its own right, and thus their attention is on the past. For Methodius, Christ has shown us that the Law and the entire Jewish scriptures were actually future oriented – looking to the Christ and the coming Kingdom of heaven. He teaches that if the Jews would understand their own scriptures appropriately, they would see their scriptures pointed to Christ and the Church. For Methodius Christ and the Church have fulfilled the Jewish Law (which was a temporary custodian or trainer for the Jews until the Christ should come – Galatians 3:24) and thus supplanted it. The Law was a shadow and type of the reality which we now have in Christ and the Church. Our interest in the Law is only in how Christ interpreted it.

Methodius writes:

Let this then stand as an instance to prove that the Jews, by misinterpreting things present as types of things that are already past, have foundered their hopes of the good things to come, unwilling as they are that their types should foreshadow images, and that these images should represent the truth. For the Law is a shadow and a type of the image, that is to say, of the Gospel; and the image, the Gospel, represents the truth which will be fulfilled at the Second Coming of Christ. Thus the ancients and the Law foretold and prophesied to us the features of the Church, and the Church foretells those of the new order. And we, who have accepted the Christ, who said I am the Truth, are aware that the shadows and types have come to an end, and we press on towards the truth, proclaiming it in vivid images. For as yet we know in part, and, as it were, through a glass, for that which is perfect is not yet come to us, the Kingdom of heaven and the resurrection, when that which is in part shall be done away (John 14:6; 1 Corinthians 13:9, 12:10).

Then will all our tabernacles be established, when our bodies rise again, their bones once more fixed and compacted with flesh. Then shall we celebrate to the Lord the day of joy in a pure manner, receiving, now eternal tabernacles, never more to die or to be dissolved into the earth of the grave.

[For Methodius death is God’s way of stopping us from continually sinning, so death is God’s first mercy to us. God does not want us eternally to be sinners.  However, God does not allow us to remain dead forever, rather in the resurrection God brings an end to the power of death and raises us up to eternal life. So even death was part of God’s plan for our salvation and the removal of sin from our lives.]

For our Tabernacle of old has been firmly made; but it tottered and fell by the Fall. And God put an end to sin by man’s death, lest man become a sinner for all eternity, and, since sin would be living in him, be under eternal condemnation. And this is the reason why man, though he was not made mortal and corruptible, dies and his soul is separated from his body, in order that his transgression might be destroyed by death, being unable to live after he was dead. Thus with sin dead and destroyed, I can rise again in immortality and sing a hymn of praise to God who saves His children from death by means of death; and in accordance with the Law I celebrate the Feast in His honor, adorning the tabernacle of my flesh with good works, just as the prudent virgins there with their five-flamed lamps.  (THE SYMPOSIUM: A TREATISE ON CHASTITY, pp 134-135)

God uses our own death and then our resurrection as two steps in the same process of salvation for all humans. God becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ to use both death and resurrection to accomplish salvation for all.

Prophets and the Restoration of All Things

Christ is risen!  Indeed He is risen!

… that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. …  Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. (Acts 3:20-21, 24)

There are a couple things I glean from the above passage. All the words come from a speech by the Apostle Peter. Peter in the last sentence is telling us what we can learn from the Old Testament prophets, and probably is using the word prophet in the broad sense of those who were “forth telling” of what God is doing in the world – they were not speaking about history and the past but were oriented to the future when God would restore all things. We read the Old Testament not so much to learn history as to become oriented to the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the Christ, and then to the eschatological end of the world of the Fall. “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

The entire Old Testament was geared towards Christ and then towards the coming Kingdom of God (“all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days“). No matter how else we might read the prophets, St Peter says they all were really speaking about the coming of the Messiah.  As for the Law, it was given by God to serve a purpose for a time, but now that the Christ has come, the Law is not our guide in life Christ is. [For example those who think they can justify war, revenge or justice based on the Old Testament’s “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life” (Exodus 21:23-25; Leviticus 24:19-21; Deuteronomy 19:21) ethic need to read Matthew 5:38-48 in which Christ repudiates that thinking and the morality of the Law. For Christians, Christ’s Beatitudes supplants the ethics of the Old Testament Law].

Another idea from Peter’s sermon is his reference to the “restoration of all things” (Greek: apokatastaseos panton). Of course, this refers to that time in which all created things will once again be God’s and all things will be transfigured so that they become ways for us to experience God in everything. It is something to be hoped for and prayed. Many saints taught us that we should hope, pray and work for the salvation of every human being because God Himself works for the salvation of all. God offers salvation to saints and sinners.

Some believers and even some saints also held to an idea that in the end all people would be saved as no one would be able to resist God’s love for ever. This idea, as wonderful as it might be, has never been the official teaching of the Church. The Church hopes for and works for the salvation of everyone, but the Church has also held firm to the idea that each of us has free will, and God will not violate our free will if we decide to reject God and salvation or if we embrace Satan and evil.

Saint Silouan who hoped and prayed for the salvation of everyone, recognized that people have the freedom to reject this salvation. His biographer who finds Silouan’s love for everyone so inspiring, notes that didn’t lead the saint or the Church to conclude that salvation will be embraced by everyone.

It was their recognition of this abyss of freedom which prompted the Fathers of the Church to repudiate the determinist theories of the Origenists. Belief in Apocatastasis, understood as universal salvation predestined in the divine purpose, would certainly rule out the sort of prayer that we see in the Staretz.  (Archimandrite Sophrony, THE MONK OF MOUNT ATHOS, p 68)

The church fathers thought that human free will was an undeniable fact of our existence, which even God would not compromise. Faith is a choice. God does not impose on us faith or salvation or damnation. We make our choices. God loves everyone in the world and offers salvation to everyone, but in the end it is our free will choice which decides our eternity.  God wishes salvation for everyone in the world, and offers it to all, but imposes it on no one. God loves even the sinner and unbeliever, but respects their choice to reject His love, even for all eternity. In the end, every one of us will be in the God Who is Love’s presence, but what we experience will be for us either heaven or hell.

When A Faithful Disciple Doubts

Christ is risen! 

Indeed he is risen!

Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29)

The Gospel writers give us realistic portrayals of Christ’s chosen apostles. They are presented to us as being quite human with normal frailties and foibles. They are not described as perfect, faultless saints. This should give each of us hope that we too can be Christ’s disciples despite our own sinful failings, faults and foibles.

The Apostle Thomas fails to believe that Jesus is risen, yet it is not held against him eternally. He is not condemned to hell for his lack of faith or failure to believe. The Lord Jesus does not harshly rebuke or condemn Thomas. Despite his failure to believe, Thomas is still looking to Jesus for help and salvation. Fr Alexander Yelchaninov comments:

Turning our eyes from the radiant scenes of the Gospel to ourselves, we are thrown into confusion. Not only do we not move mountains, we lack even the tranquility, the stability, the joy, afforded by faith; melancholy, fear, a troubled heart are our common condition. In our despair we often pray for some sort of proof, some trifling sign of God’s presence near us – for the slightest hint of his solicitude for us.

But the expectation of a proof of God’s existence is a refusal to accomplish the heroic feat of Faith.

God does not exercise constraint, does not seek to violate us. Faith is an act of love that chooses freely.

Yet, we may object, our Lord gave Thomas a tangible evidence of His reality. But this would not help a sinful soul: we may see and not believe, as did the Pharisees. We too know of miracles which happen in our days (miraculous cures, miracles in our family, incidents in our own life which cannot be explained otherwise than by a miracle). So let God help us to remember the innumerable manifestations of His love, that we may attain to that confirmation in our faith which gives strength, joy and peace.  (A TREASURY OF RUSSIAN SPIRITUALITY, pp 445-446)

From Russian Orthodoxy to Russian Orthodystopia

I previously noted that I was very troubled by what I see the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate becoming especially based on their recently published document, The Present and Future of the Russian World.  posted Has the Russian Patriarch and Church Abandoned Christ and the Gospel? To me they have abandoned the Gospel because they prefer Russian militaristic nationalism. Such nationalism from Christians in any nation is incompatible with the Gospel. They favor a worldly kingdom, guided by worldly values to fight a worldly war, all things rejected by the New Testament. There has been decent Orthodox theological criticism of that document and of the Russian Patriarch and Synod for supporting it and the war of aggression in Ukraine. Sadly, so far there has been little “official” Church response to the document or statements from the Patriarch from the other Orthodox primates or synods around the world.

I was troubled again when I read Chris Ferrero’s article, Are Nuclear Weapons Moral?  It was further confirmation that the Russian Church has moved from Russian Orthodoxy to Russian Orthodystopia. Ferrero cites another book which points to the same disturbing ideas being promulgated by the Russian Patriarch and Church. He writes:

Dmitry Adamsky wrote Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics, and Strategy, one of the most well-documented and stunning works I have read in my field. Adamsky chronicles the relationship the Russian Orthodox Church has built with the country’s nuclear establishment since the 1990s. At the heart of this relationship is a narrative that Russian nuclear weapons were foretold by Saint Seraphim and gifted by God through his intercession. The proof is that Russia’s nuclear weapons were developed at Sarov after Church property including Seraphim’s monastery was expropriated by the Soviet Union and incorporated into a secret military installation code-named Arzamas-16. Latching onto this coincidence, the ROC has decreed Seraphim the patron saint of Russia’s nuclear forces. The Church legitimizes nuclear deterrence as a moral method to defend Orthodox civilization (embodied in the Russian state) against a satanic liberal West. One may suspect that the Kremlin coerced the Church to promulgate this narrative, but in fact, the ROC under Patriarchs Alexei and Kirill has created it and driven its internalization in the Russian government, military, and society. Kirill publicly reaffirmed his belief as recently as October 2023, stating during an award ceremony for a top Russian physicist that nuclear weapons are “ineffable divine providence,” and that Russia may not exist were it not for the nuclear deterrent provided by God and Soviet physicists.

I do not have any experience in global politics so can’t say much about how nations should think regarding the morality of nuclear weapons, but the Orthodox should at least bring to the discussion on the morality of nuclear weapons Matthew 5:38-48 from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I know this thinking cannot help policy makers whose countries are committed to defense at all costs and guaranteed retaliation for any first strike against them. They all feel the greatest deterrent to war is when others fear if they strike you, you will retaliate 10-fold and so initiating a war is not worth the risk (It is the thought which has been called MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction). But Christians could never justify this based on the Gospel. The eye for an eye morality of the Old Testament many feel tried to limit retaliation and revenge.  It still is not the morality of Jesus Christ who rejects such thinking completely.  I can’t see our Lord Jesus blessing nuclear weapons on any level or for any reason. Christians are supposed to be the salt of the earth – which I think implies we are not the earth nor are we to be of the earth (worldly) but rather we are to bring something to the earth (salt) which it is lacking, namely the Gospel. Nations may in fact decide nuclear weapons are needed, but Christians should never bless such thinking. Christians should know that you cannot achieve the good by using evil, rather you have to overcome evil with good.

Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)

The recent document accepted by the Russian Church and that church’s embracing a war of aggression and blessing nuclear weapons, goes against what the Russian Church itself used to proclaim in its document, “Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the ROC”.  As Serhii Shumylo in his devastating criticism of the Russian Patriarch, “Ordinary Fascism,” or The Russian World of Patriarch Kirill, writes about the older “Fundamentals” document:

in the eighth chapter entitled “War and Peace,” it is noted that “war is evil”, and “killing, without which wars cannot happen, was regarded as a grave crime before God as far back as the dawn of the holy history.” (para. VIII.1), therefore “clergy and canonical ecclesiastical structures cannot assist or cooperate with the state” in matters of “political struggle”, “waging civil war or aggressive external war” (para. III.8.2), since “the Church endeavors to perform a peacemaking ministry…, also opposes the propaganda of war and violence, as well as various manifestations of hatred capable of provoking fratricidal clashes” (para. VIII.5).

The Russian Church has abandoned not only Christ and the Gospel, but its own moral ideals as well.

Self-Love Vs. Loving Neighbor as Yourself

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3: 30) 

St John the Forerunner famously shows his humility in understanding his unique role in revealing the Messiah to Israel and the world. The baptizer John understood he was not the Messiah and his God-given role was to point out the Messiah to others. He willfully accepts his role and upon fulfilling it he knew it was time for him to disappear from the public scene. He shines his light on Christ so people’s attention would be turned to Him, and then humbly turns his own light out so that everyone would be looking to Christ, the Light of the world (John 8:12).

It is obvious in the 4 gospels that the Baptizer’s appearance created a buzz in Israel and attracted a lot of attention (see for example: Mark 1:5, 6:20). But he never tried to turn that fame to his own advantage or glory. He knew he was in the supporting cast, not the main character. He was signage pointing out the way to the main event. He faithfully fulfilled the task because he was humble, not narcissistic. He had a task to perform in love and didn’t allow self-love to shape his actions. He is a good example of how the early church understood the difference between self-love (Greek: philautia) and true, godly love for others. Bishop Alexis Trader writes:

“ … the monastic fathers in general and Saint Maximus in particular view philautia or love of self (lit., friendship with self) as the ‘very essence of morbidity… and the root of all the passions.’

Saint Basil the Great provides the simplest definition of philautia [Lat., amor suus]. Someone with philautia ‘supposedly loves himself…  Whatever that person does, whether in accord or in conflict with God’s commandments, is done for himself with disregard for others.’

Although human beings are fashioned to be behaviorally active, mentally concerned, and temperamentally loving, they are also free to choose to direct that active concerned love in the wrong direction, that is, toward self rather than toward God and neighbor.

Insensitivity to others coupled with a hypersensitivity to satisfying one’s own desires are two aspects of philautia that give the impression that it is reasonable to hate those who thwart one’s plans.  (ANCIENT CHRISTIAN WISDOM AND AARON BECK’S COGNITIVE THERAPY, pp 90-94)

The issue of self-love (philautia) which the early Christians believed to be spiritually dangerous and debilitating is a very specific notion not to be confused with modern ideas of self-esteem. Self-esteem has a positive denotation in the modern world as it helps us deal positively with others as in Christ’s words in Luke 10:27 – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” It is clear in this command of Christ that you have to care for yourself and believe yourself worthy of love before you can love others properly.  This love though has nothing in common with the narcissist’s love for his/her self-image (Remember in the legend of Narcissist, he is completely focused on and enamored by his own image which he sees reflected in the water. No one else sees what he sees or understands what has entranced him about himself.  He believes everyone else sees him as he sees himself and should be just as entranced by his self-image.  He is not in love with himself but with the image of himself which he is projecting and sees reflected in the waters).

The early church’s understanding of self-love is much more closely related to self-centered narcissism which is particularly common in a society which emphasizes the individual self over and above everything and everyone else. In America sadly enough, we sometimes glorify the person, celebrity or politician, who is narcissistic. Narcissism (philautia) is a spiritual affliction which is directly opposed to Christ’s teachings on loving one another. Note Bishop Trader’s signs that someone is afflicted with the spiritual disease of self-love: “insensitivity to others coupled with a hypersensitivity to satisfying one’s own desires.” We should not be electing such people to public office.

Spiritual Reality: The Body as Temple

Christ is risen!

Indeed He is risen!

So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:18-22)

The above passage is a perfect cautionary example of why interpreting the Scriptures literally (even the sayings of Jesus) can lead to misunderstanding God. This is not to say a passage should never be interpreted literally, but a warning that even the most apparently straight-forward sayings of Christ can be misinterpreted.

In another Gospel passage in which the temple is being discussed, we encounter the same theme of the people misunderstanding Jesus:

And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.'” (Mark 14:57-58)

As in the above passage from John 2, those who heard Jesus speak are confused by what Jesus means when He speaks about the temple, this time however they realize He is speaking in some spiritual sense (a temple “not made by hands”) but they do not comprehend to what temple He is referring. Their literalist understanding however causes them to bring legal charges against Jesus rather than to try to grasp his meaning and intent.

The great Jerusalem Temple was certainly made by hands, though it too has a spiritual dimension for it was built based upon a heavenly pattern revealed to Moses by God (Exodus 25:8-9; Numbers 8:4), a heavenly or divine prototype (Acts 7:44; Hebrews 8:5). Christ enters this heavenly Holy Place (which Moses saw) only once He has a body (is incarnate), the temple not made by hands, an act that means salvation for the human race:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place… thus securing an eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11-12)

St Gregory of Nyssa comments:

Taking a small clue from Paul., who has partially revealed the mystery involved here, we shall say that by this symbol Moses was instructed in anticipation of that Tabernacle which embraces the universe: and this is Christ, the Power and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), Who being in his own nature not made by human hand, received a created existence when he was to build his tabernacle among us.  . . .  It is God, then, the Only-Begotten, Who encompasses in Himself the entire universe, Who has built His own tabernacle among us.  (FROM GLORY TO GLORY, p 132)

Thus, these three are the same one reality: 1] what Moses saw of the heavenly temple, 2] the Jerusalem Temple which was built upon the pattern of what Moses saw, and 3] our Lord Jesus Christ Himself (a temple not built by hands). This cannot be comprehended through a literal reading of Scripture, but only when we open our hearts and minds to the spiritual reality being revealed to us. And we each also personally participate in this same spiritual reality for the temple/house “not made with hands” applies to our bodies as well:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

Baptized into Christianity

Christ is risen! 

Truly He is risen!

Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6)

The New Testament is clear that baptism is an essential part of one’s spiritual sojourn. It is not merely a ritual but more truthfully is a mystery in which we encounter God. As is seen in the Acts 2 quote above, the call to baptism was part of the Apostolic proclamation from the very beginning of Christianity.

However, baptism is not a private experience, for it incorporates us into the Body of Christ which in turn makes us responsible for loving all the people of the world. Olivier Clement writes:

For the early Church salvation is not at all reserved to the baptized. We repeat: those who receive baptism undertake to work for the salvation of all. The Word has never ceased and never will cease to be present to humanity in all cultures, all religions, and all irreligions. The incarnation and the resurrection are not exclusive but inclusive of the manifold forms of this presence.

‘Christ is the first-born of God, his Logos in whom all people share. That is what we have learned and what we bear witness to . . .  All who have lived in accordance with the Logos are Christians, even if they have been reckoned atheists, as amongst the Greeks Socrates, Heraclitus and the like. (St Justin the Martyr) (ROOTS OF CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM, p 296)

Christ Jesus as God’s Word (Logos) is always available to every person in the world whether or not they are Christian or baptized. He draws the entire world to Himself to unite us to divinity (John 12:32)