According to the church fathers works are necessary to do to know the truth but I’m not sure that is scriptural as many gentiles received the faith without such works. As it was said I was manifest to those who did not ask for Me. Rather God wanted to use him to witness to the truth to the gentiles for gospel to be spread and the gospel is for all. Jesus said everyone who seeks finds
As David the prophet says let the people’s know your salvation let your way be known on earth
But I agree that it is important to seek Christ to make sure you are born again and alive for bible says you will find Me if you seek for Me with your whole heart.
I believe God allowed differences for the sake of allowing different churches that appeal to people as long as such churches do not teach something you can know is not biblical and people can confirm the truth if they seek Him to know
Bede: “One does not attain faith by virtues, but rather one attains virtues by faith,” as the blessed Pope Gregory explains. Cornelius, he says, “whose almsdeeds before his baptism were praised by an angelic witness, did not come to faith by works but came to works by faith. For if he had not believed in the true God even before his baptism, to whom was he praying? Or how had almighty God heard this man, if it was not that he had been asking to be perfected in the good by this very God? Therefore he knew God as the creator of all things, but he did not know that the all-powerful Son had become flesh. He had faith, this man whose prayers and alms were able to please [God], and by his good deeds he earned the right to know good deeds he earned the right to know God perfectly and to believe in the mystery of the incarnation of his only begotten, so that he might approach the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, through faith he came to works, yet through works he was strengthened in faith.” COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 10.1.
Chrysostom: Did you see what assurance came from prayers and almsgiving to this man, whose whole life was spent in the cloak and belt of the soldier? Let them hear this who have enlisted in the army and let them learn that military service presents no hindrance to virtue for the one who is willing to be sober. Let them learn that one can take great care of virtue, even though he wears the soldier’s cloak and belt, even though he has a wife, the care of children, the management of a household, and even though he has undertaken a public duty. Look at this admirable man, who wore the soldier’s cloak and belt, who commanded troops, for he was a centurion! Of what care did heaven deem him worthy because of his good will, his sobriety and his vigilance? And that you may know clearly that grace wings its way down to us from on high only after we have first done our fair share, hear the story itself. After Cornelius had taken the first step by his frequent and generous almsgiving, he was devoting himself earnestly to prayer. About the ninth hour, the Scripture says, an angel stood beside him as he prayed and said, “Cornelius, your prayers and your alms have gone up and been remembered in the sight of God.”Let us not simply pass these words by, but let us carefully consider the virtue of the man. Then let us learn how loving and kind the Master is and how he overlooks no one. But where he sees a soul that is sober, there he lavishes his grace upon him. Here is a soldier who has had benefit of no instruction, who was tangled up in the affairs of this life, who has each day a thousand things to distract and bother him. Yet he did not waste his life in banquets and drinking and gluttony but spent his time in prayer and almsgiving. He showed such eagerness on his own initiative, he attended so constantly to prayer, he was so generous in his almsgiving, that he showed himself deserving of such a vision. BAPTISMAL INSTRUCTIONS 7.28–29.
Basil the Great: Are there even now some who work from the first hour and others from the eleventh, and who are they?Perhaps [the answer to this] is most evident to anyone from the events recounted in the divinely inspired Scripture that while there are many, in the words of the apostle, who have learned the holy Scriptures from childhood, many still, such as Cornelius, although making good use of natural movements, are slow in coming to perfection of knowledge because of a lack of teachers. “For how,” he says, “do they believe, if they do not hear?” If, therefore, it happens that some, like Cornelius, are engaged in nothing evil but rather are but rather are desirous of perfection and genuinely demonstrate the good that they can and that comes to their knowledge, to these God gives the same blessings as he did to Cornelius by not holding them culpable for the period of idleness, since it was not their fault, as I said, and he is content with their desire that was previously made manifest through their eager actions and what has been more diligently set right in relation to perfection. THE SHORT RULES 2.224.
As David the prophet says let the people’s know your salvation let your way be known on earth
But I agree that it is important to seek Christ to make sure you are born again and alive for bible says you will find Me if you seek for Me with your whole heart.
I believe God allowed differences for the sake of allowing different churches that appeal to people as long as such churches do not teach something you can know is not biblical and people can confirm the truth if they seek Him to know
Bede: “One does not attain faith by virtues, but rather one attains virtues by faith,” as the blessed Pope Gregory explains. Cornelius, he says, “whose almsdeeds before his baptism were praised by an angelic witness, did not come to faith by works but came to works by faith. For if he had not believed in the true God even before his baptism, to whom was he praying? Or how had almighty God heard this man, if it was not that he had been asking to be perfected in the good by this very God? Therefore he knew God as the creator of all things, but he did not know that the all-powerful Son had become flesh. He had faith, this man whose prayers and alms were able to please [God], and by his good deeds he earned the right to know good deeds he earned the right to know God perfectly and to believe in the mystery of the incarnation of his only begotten, so that he might approach the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, through faith he came to works, yet through works he was strengthened in faith.” COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 10.1.
Chrysostom: Did you see what assurance came from prayers and almsgiving to this man, whose whole life was spent in the cloak and belt of the soldier? Let them hear this who have enlisted in the army and let them learn that military service presents no hindrance to virtue for the one who is willing to be sober. Let them learn that one can take great care of virtue, even though he wears the soldier’s cloak and belt, even though he has a wife, the care of children, the management of a household, and even though he has undertaken a public duty. Look at this admirable man, who wore the soldier’s cloak and belt, who commanded troops, for he was a centurion! Of what care did heaven deem him worthy because of his good will, his sobriety and his vigilance? And that you may know clearly that grace wings its way down to us from on high only after we have first done our fair share, hear the story itself. After Cornelius had taken the first step by his frequent and generous almsgiving, he was devoting himself earnestly to prayer. About the ninth hour, the Scripture says, an angel stood beside him as he prayed and said, “Cornelius, your prayers and your alms have gone up and been remembered in the sight of God.”Let us not simply pass these words by, but let us carefully consider the virtue of the man. Then let us learn how loving and kind the Master is and how he overlooks no one. But where he sees a soul that is sober, there he lavishes his grace upon him. Here is a soldier who has had benefit of no instruction, who was tangled up in the affairs of this life, who has each day a thousand things to distract and bother him. Yet he did not waste his life in banquets and drinking and gluttony but spent his time in prayer and almsgiving. He showed such eagerness on his own initiative, he attended so constantly to prayer, he was so generous in his almsgiving, that he showed himself deserving of such a vision. BAPTISMAL INSTRUCTIONS 7.28–29.
Basil the Great: Are there even now some who work from the first hour and others from the eleventh, and who are they?Perhaps [the answer to this] is most evident to anyone from the events recounted in the divinely inspired Scripture that while there are many, in the words of the apostle, who have learned the holy Scriptures from childhood, many still, such as Cornelius, although making good use of natural movements, are slow in coming to perfection of knowledge because of a lack of teachers. “For how,” he says, “do they believe, if they do not hear?” If, therefore, it happens that some, like Cornelius, are engaged in nothing evil but rather are but rather are desirous of perfection and genuinely demonstrate the good that they can and that comes to their knowledge, to these God gives the same blessings as he did to Cornelius by not holding them culpable for the period of idleness, since it was not their fault, as I said, and he is content with their desire that was previously made manifest through their eager actions and what has been more diligently set right in relation to perfection. THE SHORT RULES 2.224.
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