STAGES OF DISCIPLESHIP

Citizen of the Kingdom · Jul 27, 2017

Arsenios said:
He sent His forerunner and baptist John ahead saying "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"
Repentance is the purification of the heart from sin...
And the baptism of John was unto repentance, yes?

Then John was beheaded and from that time Jesus Himself began proclaiming: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

And when Christ was Crucified, His Chief Disciple, Peter, proclaimed: "Be ye repenting and be ye Baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit."

Plus the Beattitude: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God..."
The corollary is: Those not pure in heart shall NOT see God...

And God Himelf became incarnate NOT in the womb of a harlot, but in that of the Blessed Virgin, that the harlot should annoint His Feet and kiss them and wipe them with her hair... Christ was birthed in purity, and when Christ is birthed in YOU, He is also birthed in purity, and without the purity of heart begun in repentance, He is not born in you, because that repentance is what leads to purity of heart that He GIVES to you when His servants in His Holy Body Baptize you into His Body, the Church...

That came later, if I recall correctly...

The early Christians knew that their mortal lives were at stake in their becoming followers of the Way... And they were martyred unsparingly in the early persecutions... Christ said "Not yet unto blood have you resisted sin..." and this clearly means unto death...

And my goodness, the descriptions of the attendees of the first Council at Nicea in 318 refuting Arius - I mean, have you READ them? They showed up, elders, bishops and priests and deacons, with eyes gouged out, hands cut off, limbs missing, tongues cut out, covered in burns and livid scarrings of being scourged and dragged over rocks - It was a who's who of leaving everything behind as they led the Body of Christ into martyrdom... And the Latin Popes all the way through the first millennium - To be elected Pope was, throughout this period, in the wilderness of the Western Church, a sentence of death by martyrdom, following the martyrdom's of Peter and Paul in Rome...

And when Christianity "went public" under Constantine, the total committment of leaving everything behind simply moved to the desert in monastic communities, and men and women found their Salvation in obedience and labors and prayers that sustained the Body of Christ that was not as dedicated as they were... Which is still true to this day and hour... Even now in the decline of the Christian Faith...

Arsenios

There is a lesson to be learnt in Acts 18 where Apollos was abounding with knowledge of John the Baptist's baptism but was not knowledgable in the way of the Lord which when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him to themselves and expounded the way of God to him more accurately.
God is always advancing His way so disciples should be humble enough to hear His leading individually in their lives. I think the way for that has been dealt with sumwhat within this thread and elsewhere in this disciple of Jesus forum.

“Paisios” · Jul 27, 2017

Arsenios said:
They are given in these Mysteries [Sacraments]... There are exceptions which prove the rule - eg the Baptism by blood of martyrs not Baptized by the Church... And God did say: "I will have Mercy on whom I WILL have Mercy." So that God is not limited by the Church...

I understand your meaning I think, but I like best that last sentence..

Arsenios said:
As you forsake some sin - Say you shoplift candy bars somewhat regularly - And you find yourself walking by the display, and you slip your hand secretly around a snickers [my old favorite], and you stop, and you say to yourself: "What the hell am I doing - This is over, and it is over here and now, and I will never steal another candy-bar again - Good grief! What have I been thinking?" And you put it back, and maybe even decide to forsake even eating candy bars again - A good decision... You have just purified your heart of the sin of stealing candy bars, [and especially snickers!]... And in this, you will have purged your conscience of the guilt of this sin, and especially so as you may then go about and make amends for having done this sin for so many years, or months, of even just this once... You give alms, or serve at the Salvation Army's soup kitchen... And you confess the sin to someone in the Church...

So that a purged conscience is the RESULT of the purging of the heart of a sin... You then walk in the gratitude of having overcome that one sin, and in the fear of doing it again, and in vigilance of soul in the NOT doing of it again... And you WILL be challenged in that repentance - You may wake up desperately wanting a candy bar, and yes a SNICKERS candy bar, at 3:18AM, and find yourself driving to the AM/PM, of eating a spoon of sugar, or making cinnamon toast with too much butter and sugar at 3:19AM, alone, unseen, in the kitchen - And there had BETTER be plenty of really COLD milk! Yes?... And you need to know what to DO when under that kind of attack, and that teaching is a part, although granted a reasonably miniscule part, of the discipleship that is provided by the Church...

Thank you. That is a very clear explanation of what you mean, and I can readily relate to such temptation.

Arsenios said:
What one seeks after Baptism is to work on the desires we have to sin, and to utterly forsake the deliberate decision to commit some sin, and IF we fall, as we so often do, in this decision, then God is Just to forgive us if we confess to the Church and repent (again and again as needed) from a sin that we are not yet successful in overcoming... The walk of this quest is fraught with pitfalls - The serpent can wound the heel of the one stepping its path... And there is no substitute for an eye-ball to eye-ball confession, and the receiving of corrective helps from the one with whom you are confessing... We do confession normally with our Priests in Orthodoxy, for they have the Apostolic power to bind and to loose sins... But outside this Faith, having someone you trust with whom you have an ally in this quest against sin for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven is unutterably valuable...

Yes, I long for the condition in which I have no desire for sin. Our church also encourages confession to our priests, though doesn't require it and recognizes confession directly between ourselves and God...I must say that I have not taken advantage of our church's offer as often en as I should.

Arsenios said:
Establishing the habit of self denial is notmally not prescribed... Most of us eventually have a prayer rule which we pray whether we feel like it or not, and if not, we confess... We fast from dairy and meat, wine and oil, Wed and Fri, or forsake receiving Communion the following Sunday... If not, we confess it... All these fasts forsake marital relations those days... And we have the three 40 day fasts, and the Apostles' Fast, - Such that they are constantly intruding into our lives, and we get used to self-denial regularly, to whatever degree we are willing and able to do as we live our secular lives in the world... We work to establish this habit of self denial, planning our meals for it, and living the life of the Church Calendar as we slowly across our lives raise our children and live our lives... Each home is a mini-Church where morning and evening prayers are prayed together, and the family blesses the food and eats together... and we slowly grow in denial of self and the overcoming of sin and being right with God...

Lent is the primary time of our church calendar in which such visible manifestations of self-denial are encouraged, and I have found such times of prayer and fasting to have great benefit. It seems the Orthodox strive to incorporate such living more deeply into daily life.

Arsenios said:
My hope is that you will take the bit, as the equestrians like to say, and pursue what this kind of Life looks like in a local parish community, read more, and speak with a priest or three... The local Church is where the rubber and the road become one...

Perhaps, when the time is right, I will visit such and speak with the priest. But tell me, what would you have me read in the interim?

Arsenios said:
The goal, you see, is complete immersion in Christ through living a discipled and accountable life...

Arsenios

I believe we share this goal, though perhaps I have a lot to learn about the means. As always, I thank you for your teaching and patience. Eastern thought is new to me.

ripple the car · Jul 27, 2017

Arsenios, all I do is pray. Prayer has been, for me, the key to saying no to sin, understanding how messed up I am, and loving Christ more. And understanding that apart from His love, I am not able to love and obey Him.

yeshuaslavejeff · Jul 27, 2017

Gracia Singh said:
all I do is pray. Prayer has been, for me, the key to saying no to sin, understanding how messed up I am, and loving Christ more. And understanding that apart from His love, I am not able to love and obey Him.

When YHWH says "CHOOSE" today who you will serve,
WHO do you choose ?

Arsenios · Jul 27, 2017

~Cassia~ said:
There is a lesson to be learnt in Acts 18 where Apollos was abounding with knowledge of John the Baptist's baptism but was not knowledgable in the way of the Lord which when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him to themselves and expounded the way of God to him more accurately.
God is always advancing His way so disciples should be humble enough to hear His leading individually in their lives. I think the way for that has been dealt with sumwhat within this thread and elsewhere in this disciple of Jesus forum.

Apollos was TEACHING the Way, and for that reason needed correction, because he and others had come forth from John, and the story continues in 19, where the 12 did not know if there WAS a Holy Spirit, and Paul had them baptized, and then, when he annointed them in the laying on of his hands, they received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and prophesied... So that this is an historical account of the unification of the Faith where some had been left aside, and were found and brought mainstream, in this case by the Giving of the Holy Spirit by the hands of Paul...

Arsenios

Arsenios · Jul 27, 2017

Gracia Singh said:
Arsenios, all I do is pray.

Then you have found the better part yourself, and from that experience, you tell people to pray...

Most people do not know how to pray... That is a whole discipline in the disciplleship of the Church... At the beginning, we substitute quantity of prayers for the quality of ceaseless prayer... I know a woman who prays every three hours without fail 24/7 who is not Orthodox, nor is she under direction, but has pretty much holed up to keep her prayers... Her life is between herself and God, where is beongs, and yet she cannot disciple others in her Way of Prayer... It is idiosyncratic to her personal history, rather than an attainment via the obedience of the faith... She has not gotten to where she now is by obedience, so how can she give someone else obedience...

Prayer has been, for me, the key to saying no to sin, understanding how messed up I am, and loving Christ more. And understanding that apart from His love, I am not able to love and obey Him.

God Bless You...

Arsenios

Arsenios · Jul 27, 2017

Shoetoyou said:
Yes, I long for the condition in which I have no desire for sin.

That only comes in the Age to Come...

Christ Himself asked God the Father that His Cup be taken from Him, but then added, "Thy Will be done..."

Our church also encourages confession to our priests, though doesn't require it and recognizes confession directly between ourselves and God...I must say that I have not taken advantage of our church's offer as often en as I should.

Confession direct to God is a first step, and in most small sins, a sufficient one... You do not need to pester your Priest with long litanies of minor sins... I usually confess them as a group after confessing the not-minor ones...

Lent is the primary time of our church calendar in which such visible manifestations of self-denial are encouraged, and I have found such times of prayer and fasting to have great benefit. It seems the Orthodox strive to incorporate such living more deeply into daily life.

The Great Fast, as we call it, the Lenten Fast, is arduous each year, and we normally set up some podvig of Spiritual intent for its focus that is between our Spiritual Father, ourself, and God. The first week of the Fast we get two bread and soup lite meals after the Pre-Sanctified Liturgies of Wed. and of Friday... A surprising number of people are able to keep it the first week... Then two lenten meals a day for most of the 40 days, plus the fasting from meat on the lead-in, and the strict fasting of Holy Week leading up to the Pascha Resurrectional Service at Midnight that begins 10 days of no fasting and the Feast of Pascha [your Easter]... And these prescriptions are understood as minimums for the whole Church, and we can go much deeper if we can and desire to do so... But the very intrusiveness of the Fasts is a great benefit, for we cannot just eat as we choose, ecept when it is prescribed, which is always being interrupted... The Latin Church has made the Fasts optional - We keep them voluntary, but prescribed...

Perhaps, when the time is right, I will visit such and speak with the priest. But tell me, what would you have me read in the interim?

The Way of a Pilgrim teaches the Jesus Prayer, written in the late 1800s in Russia, because that was all that the Church would have during the persecutions that were prophetically forseen as coming under the Atheists...
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Pilgrim-...01194234&sr=1-4&keywords=the+way+of+a+pilgrim

Father Arsenii is the one that got me my Baptismal name, and shows a holy life surviving the Gulags in Russia...
https://www.amazon.com/Father-Arseny-1893-1973-Narratives-Concerning/dp/0881411809

A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain Contemporary author - Greek - I have met him...
A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a Hermit on the Jesus Prayer: Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos Vlachos, Effie Mavromichali, Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery Archimandrite George: 9789607070319: Amazon.com: Books

I believe we share this goal, though perhaps I have a lot to learn about the means. As always, I thank you for your teaching and patience. Eastern thought is new to me.

The Way of Christ in the Eastern Orthodox Church has been faithfully preserved...

Their literature is vast...

The Philokalia is a compendium of 1500 years of Spiritual Writings, mostly originally written in Koine Greek, but translated into English...

Arsenios

“Paisios” · Jul 27, 2017

Arsenios said:
The Way of a Pilgrim teaches the Jesus Prayer, written in the late 1800s in Russia, because that was all that the Church would have during the persecutions that were prophetically forseen as coming under the Atheists...
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Pilgrim-...01194234&sr=1-4&keywords=the+way+of+a+pilgrim

Father Arsenii is the one that got me my Baptismal name, and shows a holy life surviving the Gulags in Russia...
https://www.amazon.com/Father-Arseny-1893-1973-Narratives-Concerning/dp/0881411809

A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain Contemporary author - Greek - I have met him...
A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a Hermit on the Jesus Prayer: Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos Vlachos, Effie Mavromichali, Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery Archimandrite George: 9789607070319: Amazon.com: Books

The Way of Christ in the Eastern Orthodox Church has been faithfully preserved...

Their literature is vast...

The Philokalia is a compendium of 1500 years of Spiritual Writings, mostly originally written in Koine Greek, but translated into English...

Arsenios

Thank you for the recommendations. I have read The Way of a Pilgrim, but perhaps am due for a re-reading. I have read some of Philokalia in English translation, and will continue to work my way through it. The others I will seek out. Yes, there is much literature...hence my desire for recommendations.

(I will try to come back to comment on the remainder of your last post, and I thank you for your comments. I should mention that I am not in the Roman Church; just for clarification, though, some of our practices are similar to Roman Catholic and Anglican ones. I feel blessed that this discussion came up at this time when I am on vacation and have more than usual time to spend on this site.)

Arsenios · Jul 27, 2017

~Cassia~ said:
The proper use of the nous of the human spirit is indeed the organ needed for properly following the Holy Spirit guidance. I did an indepth study on the topic that can be found on this thread
The Nous of human spirit that relates to the Holy Spirit

Actually, the nous in Aristotle is the same as that in the New Testament, which is the same as that found in professional football... [or pro sports of any kind, and on the beaches of Iwo Jima in US Marines - An utter calm in the face of absolute opposition even unto death... A calm and focus and consecration of mind excluding all things but what is set before it - The difference is that Christians place God before themselves, and it is only in this stillness that He can be heard...

In ancient times, the nous was a well known concept - Its meaning has only really been lost in the last several hundred years... And this because under Scholasticism, it became known merely as intellect, eg as the process of conceptual thinking... In the Orthodox Faith, it is normally understood as the Director of the Intelligence, and the Eye of the Heart... It is one's ability to discern identities, and it can be directed inward or outward... The Flag of the Roman Empire in Constantinople carries the two-headed Eagle, one looking left and one right, signifying the nous... The old Roman [Latin] God Janus looked foreward and backward, and was given to Janu-ary, which sees both ways...

The peculiar feature of the nous is that it is our means of apprehending God, but for most, it is dissipated in its worldly concerns, which is its darkening, and no longer is able to apprehend God without God's intervention... The whole of discipleship can be understood as the concentrating of the nous on God, as one systematically detaches it from worldly cares, learning to scorn the pain of the flesh in the narrow and straited Way, where the violent sieze the Kingdom of Heaven by force... As Christ said...

John the Baptist type of repentance followed by baptism of the Holy Spirit which is found at the throne of grace. One must go to Christ not just to the Jorden. Many a band of vipers gathered there.

The Jews came to hear John, the greatest of the Prophets... He regarded the Jews as a brood of vipers who had somehow been warned to come to him, and he preached repentance, and baptized into repentance... Baptism into Christ came later, after Christ had been Baptized, thus changing the very nature of water unto Baptism into Himself... But that only after He died and was Resurrected...

Repentance does plant the uncorruptable seed.

I thought Christ is the Sower...

Coming boldly to the throne of grace daily to be yoked with Him in our living holds us to a life sacrificed.

The heart then is the conscience of one's spirit plus the mind of one's soul. The heart is the administer for our spirit to express everything that is of the Spirit. And the soul, including what it feels from the outside, connects to the heart also where all things are pondered. Yet we do not always do as we ought to do so .....
Therefore at this great 'meeting of the mind of the heart' our true self is revealed to us.
Psalms 4:4
Consider in your heart upon your bed, and be silent.
Proverbs 4:23
Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta was approached by a left-path adept of the Vishnu eastern tradition, who had pity on her, and told her he could teach her to visit people far away, or on the moon, or anywhere he so desired, if she would become his chela (disciple)...

And she said to him,
"Your journeys are small and inconsequential...
The longest journey you will ever take...
Is the Journey from your head...
Down into your heart...

Psalm 4:4 reads, as I am remembering it:
Weep upon your bed
For your thoughts of the day...

So I looked it up, and it actually says [lxx translation] 4:5

Be angry and sin not.
Feel compunction upon your beds
For what ye say in your hearts...

This is repentance by tears, you see...

That once evil man speaking to Mother Theresa is now an Orthodox Christian...

His book: Born to hate. Reborn to Love.

https://www.amazon.com/Born-Hate-Reborn-Love-Spiritual/dp/0977498395

Arsenios

ripple the car · Jul 27, 2017

Arsenios said:
God Bless You...

Arsenios

God bless you, too, Arnesios! Thank you, too.

Arsenios · Jul 27, 2017

Shoetoyou said:
I feel blessed that this discussion came up at this time when I am on vacation and have more than usual time to spend on this site.)

Glory to God!

Two sites of note:

THE ROMANS Ancient, Medieval and Modern Fr. Romanides wrote his doctoral thesis in Athens under the Latins there, against scholasticism and for Patristics, and overturned the University teaching regimen with it... Metropolitan Hierotheos and many others were under his tuteledge... You can read much there easily at no cost...

The other:
Fr. Thomas Hopko | Ancient Faith Ministries
Free podcasts, a great lecturer, former dean of St. Vladimer's Seminary...
He retired, did a ton of podcasts, and died...
Pick and choose - He did a lot...

Arsenios

Arsenios · Jul 28, 2017

If anyone would like to encounter the Spiritual writings of the Church on man's place in the kosmos and how he is being restored to it by the discipling of the Church - It is the best book on that subject I have encountered - see: "The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church" by Vladimir Lossky.

https://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311

He gives the overview of what the purpose of man is in God's Creation...

We have to remember in John 3:16 that it is because God loved the KOSMOS that He sent His Son to Man that whosoever should believe into him, would find Life Eternal...

eg: He did not send His Son for the sake of man, but to save man for the sake of the Kosmos that He loved...

A huge distinction...

Arsenios

“Paisios” · Jul 28, 2017

Arsenios said:
If anyone would like to encounter the Spiritual writings of the Church on man's place in the kosmos and how he is being restored to it by the discipling of the Church - It is the best book on that subject I have encountered - see: "The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church" by Vladimir Lossky.

https://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311

He gives the overview of what the purpose of man is in God's Creation...

We have to remember in John 3:16 that it is because God loved the KOSMOS that He sent His Son to Man that whosoever should believe into him, would find Life Eternal...

eg: He did not send His Son for the sake of man, but to save man for the sake of the Kosmos that He loved...

A huge distinction...

Arsenios

Thank you for another reading. But could you explain what you mean by, and your evidence for, that last statement, please?

Arsenios · Jul 28, 2017

What I am trying to present to you here is a radically different way of understanding what it is that we are doing as Christians... We are, by the simple acts of repentance that we do, IF done according to Apostolic Discipleship, gaining our original inheritance, and this inheritance is to have the place between God and His creation... In this regard, primordial powers are involved, wherein if we have enough faith, we can ask a mountain to move to the sea, and it will do so... Paul in the ship knew it would be lost in the storm... These are NOT the focus of discipleship, which is repentance from sin, the overcoming of sin... The engagement of primordial powers that create creation and control it, to whatever degree, even if at all, are merely consequences of the engagement of God's Grace that conjoins Himself with us in Salvation... And the degree and kind of that Grace will vary according to God's purposing IN us... And our job as Christians is not to engage these powers, but to DO the WILL of God IN us...

For the Mystery of the Faith of Christ is: God IN us...

That means something...

The shadow of Peter passing over the sick brought healing...

Western Salvation theories have trivialized what Salvation actually IS...

It is the Marriage of the Lamb...

It is Union With and Within God...

It is not merely imputed Holy words...

Arsenios

Arsenios · Jul 28, 2017

Shoetoyou said:
Thank you for another reading. But could you explain what you mean by, and your evidence for, that last statement, please?

It is a simple exegetical reading of John 3:16...
God loves His Creation, the Kosmos...
"For God so loved the WORLD (kosmos)"
And it is because of His Love for His Creation that He sent His Son, the Only-Begotten...

This does not mean that He does not love man, but that man is a part of God's Kosmos, and it clearly entails the understanding that man's relationship with God's Kosmos is the reason He sent His Christ for man's Salvation... It is not that He loved man so much that He sent His Son, but the whole Kosmos...
God's Curse in the Garden of the serpent and Adam and Eve was immediately followed by his cursing of the earth itself, to be bearing thorns and death... Creation fell BECAUSE Adam fell...

Creation cannot be restored until Adam is restored...

THAT is the point of Salvation...

Here and now...

In an earnest, as Paul writes...

Any help?

Arsenios

Citizen of the Kingdom · Jul 28, 2017

Arsenios said:
Back from Services, only to find yet ANOTHER rotten-child definitional theological question...

No good deed ever goes unpunished, I say!

Sanctificaiton is the making of Godliness in a person...
God alone can give Sanctification...
When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, His Sanctity is imparted unto us, according to our stage of purification of the heart, and according to His Purposing... It is not merely SAID of us because we claim to believe in the One Who Sanctity IS - eg Jesus Christ - but is because of the presence of God IN us - And only God HAS this to give TO us... If we turn back and re-claim our prior ways of sinning, this imparted Sanctity will depart from us, even though the Holy Spirit has been Sealed in us at Baptism...

This is why Paul writes in Hebrews:
Heb 6:4-6
For it is impossible
for those who were once enlightened,
and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift,
and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
And have tasted the Good Word of God,
and the Powers of the Age to Come,
IF they should fall away,
to renew them again unto repentance;
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,
and put him to an open shame.

This repentance is that repentance which leads to Baptism, wherein all one's sins are forgiven and in the purity of that washing, one is reborn and given the Seal of the Holy Spirit... The sins one commits AFTER Baptism must be confessed and repented - They are not subject to re-Baptismal washing away... For we are Baptized INTO Christ, and INTO His Crucifixion on the Cross, INTO His Death, and live in the hope and epectation of His Holy Resurrection, as we:

"Run with patience the race that is set before us,"

Not to lose, but to win... By God's Holy Grace...
Whose Strength is perefected in our weakness...

We emerge from the Baptismal Waters of Regeneration fully Justified, and in the purity of that Justification we are Sanctified by the Holy Unction that imparts the Seal of the Holy Spirit within our souls... This, you see, is what the Old Testament Holy Ones did not have... They were much more Sanctified than most of us will ever be, but that saturation of the Holy Spirit was not Sealed in them by God as a part of their hypostasis/person... THIS is what came with Christ's Incarnation, this UNION with Himself, within His Holy Body, the Church, this New Creation IN Christ, of those of us who have been joined together with Him in Holy Baptism, and who then as a part of that Baptism, have been Chrismated [eg 'Christed'] with the Holy Spirit...

And the better prepared by repenting the pereson being Baptized is when he or she is Baptized, then the more Sanctified will that person be when emergent from those Sanctified Waters...

This is how the Early Church approaches these matters...

Not from the point of view of legal requirement...
But from that of the ontology of restoration to God...

Arsenios

There is another stage after sanctification or is it part of the process as the down payment with the full inheritance to follow?

Acts 20:32
And now I commit you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who have been sanctified.
Acts 26:18
To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.

Arsenios · Jul 28, 2017

~Cassia~ said:
There is another stage after sanctification or is it part of the process as the down payment with the full inheritance to follow?

Acts 20:32
And now I commit you to God and to the word of His Grace,
which is able to build you up
and to give you the inheritance
among all those who have been sanctified.
Acts 26:18
To open their eyes,
to turn them from darkness to light
and from the authority of Satan
to (the authority of)God,
(in order) that they may receive forgiveness of sins
and an inheritance among
those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.

The Inheritance among the Sanctified?
That is the Marriage of the Lamb...
The Inheritance common to the Sanctified...

In the second, Christ is giving it to Paul...
In the first, Paul is giving it to his appointed Clergy...
With a very stern warning to be vigilant...

I have to think that those Bishops and Presbyters already were in possession of the Gift, or as it is called here, the inheritance - For the Bridegroom Son IS the Inheritor, and His Bride His Co-inheritor...

In our fallen state, we can only see in a fallen manner, and not as we shall see...

Arsenios

Citizen of the Kingdom · Jul 28, 2017

Arsenios said:
The Inheritance among the Sanctified?
That is the Marriage of the Lamb...
The Inheritance common to the Sanctified...

In the second, Christ is giving it to Paul...
In the first, Paul is giving it to his appointed Clergy...
With a very stern warning to be vigilant...

I have to think that those Bishops and Presbyters already were in possession of the Gift, or as it is called here, the inheritance - For the Bridegroom Son IS the Inheritor, and His Bride His Co-inheritor...

In our fallen state, we can only see in a fallen manner, and not as we shall see...

Arsenios

There's many aspect to what you say.
First that according to ordainment grace is upon the heirarchy complete but laypeople must wait for eternity.

That rather leaves out the mirror of glory growing from dim to brighter as the new day dawns. Rather it leaves the glory in the hands of the few.

Too much like bitter wine for my taste.

yeshuaslavejeff · Jul 28, 2017

~Cassia~ said:
Rather it leaves the glory in the hands of the few.

Too much like bitter wine for my taste.

Perhaps Jesus' Prayer in John 17 ?
Still only "a few", as always,
as always throughout Scripture,
as always throughout history,

but very sweet truth "for taste",
while still upon the tongue speaking and/or meditating,
though
still, yes ,
perhaps bitter when it reaches the stomach (understanding?) ....

Citizen of the Kingdom · Jul 29, 2017

yeshuaslavejeff said:
Perhaps Jesus' Prayer in John 17 ?
Still only "a few", as always,
as always throughout Scripture,
as always throughout history,

but very sweet truth "for taste",
while still upon the tongue speaking and/or meditating,
though
still, yes ,
perhaps bitter when it reaches the stomach (understanding?) ....

Bishops as His Grace trickles to the Lordship of Sarah. Few indeed.

STAGES OF DISCIPLESHIP

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simple truth, martyr, disciple of Yahshua

Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

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Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

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Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

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Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

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Russian Orthodox Winter Baptism, Valaam Monastery,

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simple truth, martyr, disciple of Yahshua

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