By: Micah

Micah — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:09:04 +0000

Interesting point. "the less monastic in lifestyle and world view a local church is, the more immorality has seeped in and propagated." This is divine wisdom. The most important role of a Christian is the proclamation of Christ's Gospel, and the eternal Truth that we must love one another. All else is of this world.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:32:57 +0000

Father, Bless, Thank you for another thought provoking post. I always thought the story of The Emperor's New Clothes was interesting but unrealistic. In this story the vain, proud emperor is convinced by con artists posing as tailors that they will make him the most beautiful royal robes. ever--but they will be made from magic cloth that could only be seen by wise and intelligent people. So neither the king nor any of those around him would admit that they didn't see the 'emperor's new clothes' for fear of being proven to be foolish and stupid. When the emperor paraded through the town in his supposed royal garments, all of the townspeople were also too embarrassed and proud to admit that they didn't see the magical cloth that only smart people could see. It was only when a little child cried out, "The emperor has no clothes!" that suddenly everyone else began laughing and admitting that the emperor indeed had no clothes. This is a great story but it was the ending that I found to be unrealistic. In real life, when a lone person stands up to point out some embarrassing or uncomfortable truth that the crowd is ignoring, usually that person is cast out or punished. Holy Proto-Martyr Stephen was the child standing up and telling the Pharisees that they had no clothes. People, especially proud people of power (pride and jealousy go hand in hand), do not like to be confronted with ugly truths--especially ugly truths that threaten their positions of power, prestige and comfort. So what do you do to rid yourself of uncomfortable truth? You kill the messenger. This is what I do whenever I close my eyes, ears and mind to the truth that God has come to reveal to me---the truth about my sins and what must be done about them. When I shut out the Truth, I have shut out God. And each time I shut out the Truth, it is like casting a stone at it. If I were to continue, eventually the Truth within me would die, slowly killed by my stony, hardhearted resistance to repentance--- I would have crucified Christ all over again (Hebrews 6:4-6). The Reality is that I must choose between stoning, or being stoned for His sake, between crucifying or being crucified. I am either with Him, following Him all the way to the Cross--a literal death for His sake or the continuous daily 'living martyrdom' and crucifixion of the flesh--or else I am one of the ones casting stones to kill the Truth, one of the crowd shouting, 'Crucify Him!'

Comments on: Stoning of Holy Proto-martyr Stephen. Third Monday of Pascha – Acts 6:8-7:5, 47-60.

By: Micah

By: Deborah