“The story of Mary of Egypt emphasizes that her prostitution as not a formal one. As the liturgical text puts it in the first person: “For nearly seventeen years I lived as a fire for public depravity but not at all for money. … I wanted to do it and I did it for nothing.” One day she followed male pilgrims to Jerusalem aboard ship from Alexandria, hoping to seduce as many as she could. In Jerusalem she wanted to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the appointed day for veneration of the Cross but could not, an invisible force seeming to hold her back. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with tears of contrition and began to pray. Returning the next morning, Mary was able to enter the church and venerate the cross. Then she quit the city, crossing the Jordan River with a little bread and a water jug, where she lived as a hermit in the desert caves for forty years.” Benedicta Ward

St Mary of Egypt is a proper example of the transformation of the Christian life because her story didn’t end there; she “struggled with wild beasts, desires and passions” for 17 years out of the 47 years in the desert. May we battle our lust with ferocity in our striving for purity, through repentance, fasting and praying, until we can say with St Mary “a calm and sweet light descended and enlightened me and chased away the thoughts that possessed me.” Transformation through repentance and the sacraments looks more like a journey than a destination. It is not a one-time event but a mode of existence. Even after we experience victory, in the wise words of my spiritual father, may we never cease to “respect our weaknesses” lest we assume that we are less of a prisoner to the same passions.

Lord God, cause my heart, soul, and mind to be so overtaken by Your grace that I share the testimony of the sinful woman who anointed Your feet. You said of her, “I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

Lord, I willingly admit that I am weak in my natural self. I used to offer the parts of my body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness. I now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. (Romans 6:19)

Lord, Your Word says how I can keep my way pure: by living according to Your Word. I will seek You with all my heart; help me not stray from Your commands. Help me to hide Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You. (Psalm 119:9-11)

Holy God, turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to Your Word. Take away the disgrace I dread, for Your laws are good. (Psalm 119:37-39)

Lord God, teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in Your commands. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees. (Psalm 119:66-68)

Lord God, guard my course and protect my way as I pursue a righteous, victorious life in You. (Proverbs 2:8)

Lord, help me not despise Your discipline and not to resent Your rebuke, because You discipline those You love. (Proverbs 3:11-12)

Lord God, Your Word says that You bless the home of the righteous, but Your curse is on the house of the wicked. (Proverbs 3:33) Lord, please help me cleanse my home of any kind of materials that support or fuel wickedness. Make this the kind of home You can fully bless.

Lord, help me to keep my eyes looking straight ahead and fix my gaze directly before me. Make level paths for my feet and strengthen me to take only ways that are firm. Help me not to swerve to the right or the left; keep my feet from evil. (Proverbs 4:25-27)

Lord God, help me to guard my heart above all else for it is the wellspring of life. Help me to put away perversity from my mouth and keep corrupt talk far from my lips. (Proverbs 4:23-24)

According to Your Word, a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and You examine all our paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cord of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own folly. (Proverbs 5:21-23)
Lord, self-discipline is a fruit of the Spirit. Please fill me with Your Spirit and empower me with a self-discipline only You can give. (Galatians 5:22-23)

God, please help me to love You with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength for this is Your priority for my life. (Mark 12:30) Help me also to love others so that I will not want to engage them in any kind of dishonoring activity. (Mark 12:31) Break my heart when I even think of doing what is dishonorable, my God, You who had no sin to be sin for me, so that in Him I might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Lord Jesus, Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – help me to think about such things. (Philippians 4:8-9)

Lord God, make me into a pure virgin emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and even set this body apart to be used as an instrument of righteousness from now on. Please help me not to be deceived by the serpent’s cunning and allow my mind to be led astray from my new commitment of sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:2-3)

Lord, who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?” (Proverbs 20:9) Lord, I am powerless to possess a pure and clean heart on my own. Only You can do it for me. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. (Psalm 51:10, 12)

Lord, I admit that I reaped absolutely no benefit from the things I am guilty of. Those things result in death. But now that I have been set free, the benefit I am reaping leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:20-23)

Thank you, God, for promising that no temptation has seized me except what is common to man. And You, God, are faithful; You will not let me be tempted beyond what I can bear. But when I am tempted You will also provide a way out so that I can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Father God, through constant use of the solid food of Your Word, help me to train myself to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14)

Lord God, since I have a Great High Priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus Your Son, help me hold firmly to the faith I profess. For I do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with my weaknesses, but I have one who has been tempted in every way, just as I am, yet without sin. Help me then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me in the time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Lord of glory, You have a plan for me that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived. Your Spirit reveals this awesome plan to those who love You. (1 Corinthians 2:9) I acknowledge that Satan’s ploy is to keep me from fulfilling Your plan for my life. Please help me to resist him and overcome his assaults on my life. I want to do Your will, O God.

Lord God, I don’t want to remain a carnal Christian. I want to be a spiritual believer to whom You can speak and through whom You can minister. Please activate the mind of Christ in me daily that I may live in victory. (1 Corinthians 2:16; 3:1)

Lord, help me to rid myself of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like a newborn baby, help me to crave pure spiritual milk, so that I may grow up in my salvation, now that I have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1-2)

Since I have a Great Priest over the house of God, help me to draw near to You, God, with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having my heart sprinkled to cleanse me from a guilty conscience and having my body washed with pure water. Help me to hold unswervingly to the hope I profess, for He who promises is faithful. (Hebrews 10:21-23)

I am one of Your chosen people, O God, part of a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that I may declare the praises of You who called me out of darkness into Your wonderful light. I have now received mercy. You urge me as a stranger in this world to abstain from sinful desires, which war against my soul. (1 Peter 2:9-11)

God, You demonstrated Your love for me in that while I was still a sinner, You died for me. (Romans 5:8) Lord, help me to understand that You gave Your life to pay the debt for even the most heinous sins I could have committed. Your grace covers all sin if I will repent and receive.

Lord Jesus, You Yourself bore my sins in Your body on the tree so that I might die to sins and live for righteousness; by Your wounds I have been healed. For I was like a sheep going astray, but now I have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of my soul. (1 Peter 2:24-25)

Lord God, You grant Your incomparably great power to those of us who believe. This same power is the mighty strength You exerted when You raised Christ from the dead. (Ephesians 1:19-20) If You can raise the dead, You have all the power I need to live victoriously over every stronghold!

I have been crucified with You, Christ, and I no longer live, but You live in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in You, the Son of God, who loved me and gave Yourself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)

These prayers are an excerpt from ‘Praying God’s Word’ by Beth Moore.

“You remind me…what I dare not speak of. For when I recall all the dangers which I overcame, and all the violent thoughts which confused me, I am again afraid that they will take possession of me.” 

From a canonical account of St. Mary of Egypt

(Photo courtesy of Evgeny Tchebotarev)

The unfolding of your words gives light. (Psalm 119:130)

We all know how important it is to read the Bible in our journey towards union with God. It’s right up there with fasting, praying, and partaking in the Eucharist. As St. Clement of Alexandria puts it, “for those who have chosen to major in holiness, there is special training in the Word.”

But what if you don’t feel like it…

You feel like you have too many things to get done to read today
You’re too tired or are feeling lazy and just want to put it off

Well St. John Chrysostom has this to say to you:

What on earth are you saying? … that’s the very reason why you need to read the Bible! The more worries you have, the more you need the Bible to keep you going! People like monks and nuns who have left the troubles of the world behind are quite safe; they are like ships sailing on a calm sea, or moored in a quiet harbor. But you are in the middle of this godless world’s stormy sea, and so you need spiritual help and sustenance far more urgently. They live far from the battlefield, out of the sound of gunfire; but you are in the front line, face to face with the enemy, and you are bound to suffer frequent blows and be severely wounded. So you need the medicine-chest close at hand.

But let’s not just focus on why we should do it… let’s also remember why we want to do it.

There are more quotes than you can believe on this topic basically saying the same thing:

Constant meditation upon the holy Scriptures will perpetually fill the soul with incomprehensible ecstasy and joy in God

-St. Isaac the Syrian

I don’t know about you but ecstasy and joy in God sound like things worth pursuing!

So we know that we should read the Scriptures and even maybe want to read them, but now let’s turn our attention to how one should read.

Pray Before

Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the Scriptures without prayer and without asking for God’s help. Say, “Lord, grant that I may receive an awareness of the power that is within them.” Consider prayer to be the key to the understanding of truth in Scripture, says St. Isaac the Syrian.

The Church teaches us the importance of praying before reading the Scriptures as this concept is built into the liturgy itself. Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes in his book, The Eucharist:

The celebrant reads the prayer before the gospel, in which he asks God to send down the “pure light of Your divine knowledge. Open the eyes of our mind to the understanding of Your gospel teachings.” This prayer, which is now read silently, occupies the same place in the sacrament of the word that the epiklesis, the supplication for the Father to send down His Holy Spirit, occupies in the eucharistic prayer. Like the consecration of the gifts, understanding and acceptance of the word depend not on us, not only on our desire, but above all on the sacramental transformation of the “eyes of our mind,” on the coming to us of the Holy Spirit. The blessing that the priest bestows on the deacon as he is about to read the gospel testifies to this: “May God…enable you to proclaim the glad tidings with great power, to the fulfillment of the gospel…”

Read with the Fathers

The Church believes that it has one source of revelation: the Tradition of the Church.

It is important to understand that the Scriptures were given to us as part of this One Holy Tradition. If someone were to say, “I believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures” we should respond, “me too, but as long as they are explained by the fathers and lived by the saints.”

Throughout the ages, heresies have occurred when someone interprets the Scriptures using their own mind outside of the Tradition of the Church. This is why we need to read the Scriptures with the Church Fathers, and with consensus patrum, the agreement between the Fathers as to the correct interpretation.

St. Ignatii Brianchaninov sums up the matter nicely:

You ask: Why is it necessary to read the Holy Fathers? Is it not enough to be guided by the Holy Scriptures as the pure Word of God, without any admixture of human words?

And I reply: Reading the Holy Writ, one also has to read the Holy Fathers of the Church. St. Peter says this concerning Scripture: “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:20,21). So how do you wish to interpret arbitrarily the spiritual words which were uttered not from one’s own will, but as prompted by the Spirit and which, as such, prohibit any arbitrary interpretation. It is the Spirit who uttered the Scripture, and it is he alone who can interpret it. It was committed to paper by men inspired by God, the prophets and the apostles; and men inspired by God, the Holy Fathers, have interpreted it. Therefore, everyone who wished to have the true understanding of the Holy Scriptures must also read the Holy Fathers. For should you confine yourselves to reading the Scripture alone, you will try to understand and interpret it arbitrarily. And misconceptions will be unavoidable, because “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God… neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (I Cor. 2:14,11)… The Universal Church…has always had particular respect for the patristic writings, for they preserved the common Church tradition which had to have a commonly accepted, true and grace-giving interpretation of the Scriptures…

Read Between the Lines

The goal of reading the Bible should not be to read the Bible.

Reading the Bible should be a means to bring us into closer intimacy with Whom it is about.
We don’t worship the words of the Bible but rather the Word of God Himself.

When you read the Scriptures, do not have in mind to read page after page, but ponder over each word. When some words make you go deep into yourself, or stir you to contrition, or fill your heart with spiritual joy and love, pause on them. It means that God draws near to you.

St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain

Just as God became incarnate and met us where we were, God veils Himself in the different versions and languages of the Bible. There is really no ‘correct’ version or proper language in which to read the Bible (although some are preferred because they are closer to the original translation). St. John Chrysostom affirms this by saying

“As when God became man in Bethlehem the eternal Word became flesh, so in the Bible the glory of God veils itself in the fleshly garment of human thought and human language.”

What’s more is that just as we eat His flesh and drink His blood in the Holy Eucharist, we partake of Him in the same way in the reading of the Scriptures. Paul Evdokimov writes, “While reading Scripture, the Fathers read not words, but the living Christ, and Christ spoke to them. They consumed words in the manner of the Eucharistic bread and wine, and the word appeared to them in its Christ dimension.”

So let us read the Scriptures with a new desire for Him and a yearning for Him to open our understanding that we might comprehend them.

I will leave you with the following passage from Kallistos Ware’s, The Orthodox Way,

The real purpose of Bible study is…to feed our love for Christ, to kindle our hearts into prayer, and to provide us with guidance in our personal life. The study of words should give place to an immediate dialogue with the living Word himself. “Whenever you read the Gospel,” says St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, “Christ himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with him.” In this way Orthodox are encouraged to practice a slow and attentive reading of the Bible, in which our study leads us directly into prayer.

Check out Part VI

(Photo courtesy of Justin Sebastian)

Many of the quotes from this post came from this book: Philokalia: The Bible Orthodox Spirituality and if you want to learn more about the One Holy Tradition of the Church I encourage you to check out St. Cyril’s Society Online Certificate in Orthodox Mission

How does this have to do with you and me, you ask?

Well Satan hates God and everything that has to do with Him, including us. Because we were made in the image of God, Satan loathes us and will do anything and everything in his power to destroy us with himself by keeping us disconnected from the Bridegroom of our soul.

This would be a cause for great fear if it were not for Him who is for us, who holds the world in His loving hands.

Satan may roar like a lion but he is nothing compared to the Lion of Judah. He may be the prince of this world, but he has to ask permission from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before doing anything. Satan may even be able to transform himself into an angel of light to confuse some, but our God is the Unapproachable Light who enlightens those who seek after Him.

Satan is an expert at waging war against mankind and his tactics are ruthless. He has had many thousands of years of experience and the war against him should not be taken lightly. However, God has not left us alone and has even allowed this warfare for our salvation. What follows are four tactics essential in fighting the enemy:

1. Never Rely on Yourself

“Not to rely on oneself is so necessary in our struggle, my beloved, that without this, be assured, not only will you fail to gain the desired victory, but you will be unable to resist the smallest attack of the enemy. Engrave this deeply in your mind and heart”

The first step is to realize that your enemy is just too strong for you. Never ever think you are safe but always expect temptation until your last breath. One of the crafty wiles of the devil is to withdraw for a time giving you the false sense that you have overcome some sin after much struggle. Then, when you have let down your guard he attacks with such fierceness that your fall is so great you cannot fathom how it happened.

It is important to remember the words spoken to St. Anthony when he asked who could overcome the snares and traps laid by the enemy. “The humble” came the gentle reply. Pride is detestable to God so He will withdraw His grace if He sees our hearts lifted up in pride when we think it is we who have overcome in our own strength. We need accountability and vulnerability with those we are fighting alongside and those who are leading us if we are to advance on the battlefield.

2. Have a Perfect Trust in God

“Together with complete renunciation of ourselves, we should plant in our heart a perfect trust in God and a complete confidence in Him”

In addition to understanding we can do nothing of ourselves we have to remember the power, wisdom, and love of God. If we hold fast to the following three truths we can establish an unwavering trust in Him:

God is Omnipotent, or all-powerful, and can do all that He chooses. Therefore He has all the power to help us in absolutely anything.

God is Omniscient, or all-wise, and knows all in the most perfect manner. He knows fully what is best for the salvation of each of us.

God is infinitely Good and comes to us with ineffable love. He, as a Good Shepherd and True Father, is always ready to help us as soon as we run to Him with firm trust in the protection of His arms. Because He loves us with an incomprehensible love, we have to know and trust that He will lead us in all things for our good and for His glory.

3. Strive without ceasing

“War should be waged ceaselessly and courageously”

There is no rest on this side of eternity. To ‘take a break from God’ is to surrender to the enemy.

“So this spiritual warfare of ours must be constant and never ceasing, and should be conducted with alertness and courage in the soul”

Never stop crying out to God saying:

“rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.” (Psalm 142:6)

Continue using weapons proven to work:

“Flog the foes with the name of Jesus for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or on earth”

Get up every time you fall with hatred for those things which ensnare you and for the love of sin which lingers in your heart. Never give up. Never surrender. Your General, your King, your Father looks with joy at your efforts. Your struggle for His Name brings sweet pleasure to His heart, and that’s worth fighting for.

4. Remain constantly in prayer

Prayer doesn’t come in one shape or size.

There was actually a heresy in the 4th century that was condemned because it taught, among other things, that the only way to salvation was solely by praying.

Prayer’s ultimate goal is union with God and there is no formula for that. There is only relationship. Here are a couple of points to drive the point home:

St. Peter of Damascus says:

The Apostle says, “Pray without ceasing.” That is, he teaches men to have the remembrance of God in all times and places and circumstances. If you are making something, you must call to mind the Creator of all things; if you see the light, remember the Giver of it… If you put on your clothes, recall Whose gift they are and thank Him Who provides for your life. In short, let every action be a cause of your remembering and praising God, and lo! you will be praying without ceasing and therein your soul will always rejoice.

We can indeed pray unceasingly if, in addition to saying prayers we become prayer. Paul Evdokimov writes, It is not enough to say prayers; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should offer not what one has, but what one is.

You can practice the presence of God, sing and make melody with your heart to the Lord, serve the poor and sick for the sake of Christ, stand or even sit in silent awe at the excellence of His beauty, meditate on how great are all things that His hands have made, write or type out prayers, and talk with family and friends about His goodness.

These are all forms of prayer.

Do all things with the intention to please and love Him more, and not to please yourself. Do not approach Him out of a feeling of guilt as if you must talk to Him in order to relieve yourself of some burden. Let your heart yearn for Him! Be consistent and faithful in coming to Him because you want to.. because you get to.. not because you have to.

Let us ask Him to give us this beautiful and blessed desire to love Him and yearn for Him all the days of our lives.

So to review, the four things we can do the wage war against and overcome the enemy are:

1.) Never rely on yourself

2.) Have a perfect trust in God

3.) Strive without ceasing

4.) Remain constantly in prayer

With that being said though, let us remember the point of all of this: to grow in virtue, holiness and in the love of God. Fighting the enemy is not the goal; it is just a means to the goal, which is to grow in the knowledge of the love of God until we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.

“You don’t become holy by fighting evil. Let evil be. Look towards Christ and that will save you. What makes a person saintly is love.”

— St. Porphyrios

This post was inspired by reading Unseen Warfare. I highly recommend it!

(The photo is courtesy of Wildo Cagliani)

Dear Future Wife,

This is my love letter to you. I don’t know who you are or whether I’ve met you or not. I haven’t yet stared into your glistening eyes or ran my hands through your beautiful hair. I don’t know what type of music you’re into or what you like to do in your spare time. I don’t even know if you like Nando’s (oh God, please like Nando’s) or if you’re as obsessed with animals as I am. There’s so much I don’t know about you, and I look forward to that season of discovery, but there is one thing I’m sure of about you.

I know you love Jesus. I know that you love Him deeply. So many people may think I’m crazy for being so sure about that, but haters gone hate and potatoes gone potate, right?! When I read this to you one day; maybe on our tenth date, when I’m down on one knee, or on our wedding day, I know that you’ll hear these words and it’ll all make complete sense to you.

When I turned twenty-one, a friend of mine jokingly told me “it’s time to start praying for a wife now”, and though I could hear the room echo with joyous laughter, the loudest sound I heard that evening was the Holy Spirit’s whisper, piercing my heart, convicting me to pray for you from that moment on until the day we wed. So open your ears and listen as I utter a prayer for you my beloved;

Lord,

I pray for my beautiful wife-to-be. As I approach you I’m very aware that it is your precious daughter that I’m talking about here, and I know that no-one will ever begin to love her and protect her as you do, not even I Lord, and I thank you for that. I pray for her walk with you Lord; that you would continue to reveal yourself to her in this moment as you’ve done in the past. When she falls, stretch out your hand and lift her from the depths of Sheol onto your holy mountain. For you delight in showing mercy O Lord, and mercy triumphs over judgement. When she thirsts for you in a dry and barren land, quench her with droplets of your living water Lord. When her heart is overwhelmed and filled with despair I pray that you O Holy Spirit, who reminds us of all that you have said, would remind her of the promises that you so gracefully gifted her with through your holy Word. Bring to her remembrance O Lord that for as long as she hopes in you, she will never be put to shame.
I pray for the purity of her heart Lord; guard her, shield her and encamp her with your holy angels, that she may meet with you face to face all the days of her life. When the enemy viciously attacks her, desiring to tear her to shreds, may the earth be shaken and may it tremble as you, O Lord, thunder from heaven and draw her out of many waters. Deliver her from her strong enemy. I pray that just as you’re guiding me through a spiritual journey of self discovery and awareness, that you would hold her hand tightly today and walk beside her on the road to liberty, where healing and renewal collide. Finally O Lord, I pray from the depths of my heart that you would make known to her your deep, unfiltered, raw love for her. Because you O beautiful Father don’t give your heart in pieces. You don’t hide yourself to tease us.

Amen

Beloved, though I  know not who you are, today I proclaim my everlasting love for you. I believe that Love is an active choice, and from today til we dance to the melodies sung by the cherubim and the seraphim for all eternity in the presence of our Creator, I actively choose to love you. I speak not of trivial ‘hollywood-style’ love where our eyes meet and we fall head-over-heels ‘in love’ with one another. No, my love. I pray that I can love you with the true love of the Trinity. A wild love that isn’t shy, but is proud to be seen with you. A love that is uncontrolled and uncontained; a fire burning bright for you. I want to love you with a love that is not fractured, not anxious and not passive. For true love keeps its promises, it keeps its word. It honors what’s sacred because its vows are good. I desire to love you with a love that is not broken, not insecure. Not selfish, but pure.

Yes, that is how I desire to love you. I want to be able to give you every part of me whenever, wherever, however you desire. But I’d be a liar if I promised you that. Though I desire to gift you with the perfection you deserve, I fall short. I cannot promise to be your Prince Charming or Knight in Shining Armour. I cannot promise to possess all the incredible qualities that you see in your earthly father or heavenly Father. I cannot promise to lead you on smooth paths all the days of your life. I cannot even promise that I’ll be a husband you’re proud of in every season. The thing is my love, I’m an imperfect, broken man, in dirty rags, leaning on his Saviour. There is an old man within me, tirelessly waging war against me, daily.

You see, I can’t be all that you desire for yourself, but there is One who is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose; and He is worthy of your love and affection. One who rejoices over you with singing, who remains faithful even in your unfaithfulness, who is willing to give up everything to gain your love and who is secure enough to remain unchanged from the beginning til the end. The Lord God Almighty, the Lord is His name. El-Elyon (God Creator and Possessor of All Things), Jehovah-Mekoddishkem (The Lord Who Makes You Holy), Jehovah-Rophe (The Lord Who Heals You). You see, as a man I will always fail to love you the way you deserve to be loved. But, praise God! For “the Holy Spirit stands in the same relation to my soul as air stands in relation to my body” St. John of Kronstadt. For as long as the Holy Spirit dwells within me, I am able to love you through Him; and His love is perfect. Therefore seek Him and not I. Seek Him wholeheartedly. So that even when I stand before you as a shattered mirror, in a thousand pieces, your reflection is not distorted. Lay your identity, your whole being, in Him, for He alone is whole forever and ever. I will strive with all my being to be present for you spiritually, emotionally and physically but I will fall short. However kingdoms come and kingdoms fade, but He remains. Ages pass and seasons change, but always He remains the same.

Dear Future Wife, I pray that we would learn to accept each other, striving not to alter one another to fit into the boxes we constructed for ourselves long ago, with our skewed visions of an ideal spouse. I pray that the Lord would work within us from now to teach us what it means to love each other unconditionally, despite our shortcomings and weaknesses; to live out 1 Corinthians 13 daily. I pray that as we grow old and wrinkly I may remain madly in love with My Lord within you, and that you may love Your Saviour within me.

Til we meet.

Joyfully yours,

Michael

How can one make sure of correct doctrine? How does this relate to how I live my life? What does it really mean to study God? 

These are all great questions I want to touch on as I share three things that are essential to studying theology:

A Genuine Desire

The first thing one needs to have in order to learn about God is a heartfelt desire to seek after Him. The hearts of too many of us are callous and unfeeling. We have eyes but do not see God inviting us to learn from Him. We have ears but cannot hear Him whispering great and mighty things which we do not know.

In today’s world, more people are familiar with professional athletes and their statistics than with the books and contents of the Holy Bible. Bishop Kallistos Ware says the following in his book, The Orthodox Church:

“Today, in an untheological age, it is all but impossible to realize how burning an interest was felt in religious questions by every part of society, by laity as well as clergy, by the poor and uneducated as well as the Court and the scholars. Gregory of Nyssa describes the unending theological arguments in Constantinople at the time of the second general council:
The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask ‘Is my bath ready?’ the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.”

How great would it be to talk about the things of God and His kingdom on a daily basis?! How freeing would it be to not worrying about being politically correct or “offending” our neighbor by engaging in a conversation about things that matter! Instead of studying and learning about things that will pass away, “let us study while we are on earth that Reality which will stay in our minds also when we are in heaven” (St Jerome)

Correct Dogma

Another thing that is essential to studying theology is a proper method of knowing what is true and what is not. How can someone be sure that what they are learning is what Jesus Christ taught?

Simple!

Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls.'”

Said another way, what Christ taught, the Apostles preached, and the Church Fathers preserved

Correct dogma is that which stands the test of time and dates back to when Jesus Christ was on earth Himself. There have been all sorts of perversions and deviations from the faith since then, but again the true Orthodox faith is that which Christ taught, the Apostles preached, and the Church Fathers preserved.

Why is correct dogma important?

A sentence in a letter from a monk on Mount Athos to Fr. John Meyendorff answers this question:

When the church teaches the wrong theology it a church of activities at best, but when it teaches the right theology it is the church of being and becoming

That is a powerful statement! The difference between just doing spiritual activities and being conformed to the true image of God and becoming like Him is dependent on our theology!

An Experience with God

Theology can be defined as the “study of God” but true theology must be lived out.

The point of theology is not so much to learn about God as it is to know and experience Him intimately.

The last thing we want to do is be so consumed with a doctrine or ideology that we completely miss why we’re learning it in the first place.

Fr. John Romanides says it best in Empirical Dogmatics Volume I when he says salvation is not simply believing in Orthodox dogmas. If that is all it is for us then:

“We are like idolaters who take dogmas, put them in the cupboard and sit there prostrating ourselves before the dogmas, which we do not live in our lives.”

He goes on to say:

“Dogma is not to be believed but to be experienced. Dogma without experience is heresy. The worst heresy is for people to sit at their desks and assume that they can reflect deeply and think great thoughts about dogmatic issues. That is the greatest stupidity.”

Again, the point isn’t to know about God but rather to know Him personally by a living and dynamic relationship with Him founded on a solid understanding of who He is and how He relates to us.

In closing, here is a quote from Ware’s The Orthodox Church that really gets to the heart of the matter:

“Theology, mysticism, spirituality, moral rules, worship, art: these things must not be kept in separate compartments. Doctrine cannot be understood unless it is prayed: a theologian, said Evagrius, is one who knows how to pray, and he who prays in spirit and in truth is by that very act a theologian. And doctrine, if it is to be prayed, must also be lived: theology without action, as St Maximus put it, is the theology of demons. The Creed belongs only to those who live it. Faith and love, theology and life, are inseparable. In the Byzantine Liturgy, the Creed is introduced with the words, ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided.”

Let us be a generation of men of whom it is said that we truly know the Lord!

Nothing, you see, equals prayer: it makes the impossible possible, the difficult easy, and renders the crooked way straight. Blessed David also practiced it, and hence said,

“Seven times a day I praised you for the judgments of your righteousness” (Psalm 119).

Now if a king, a man immersed in countless concerns and beset from every quarter, beseeches God so many times a day, what excuse or pardon would we have, with so much free time on our hands, not to implore him incessantly, especially as this puts us in a position to reap such benefit? It is inconceivable, in fact, inconceivable that someone praying with due fervor and constantly beseeching God should ever sin. Why this is so, I shall tell you. The person who enkindles his attention, lifts up his soul, transports himself to heaven, and thus calls upon his Lord, remembering his sin, speaking to him about pardon for them and begging him to be merciful and mild sets aside every worldly concern through the time spent in this converse, takes wing and becomes exalted above the human passions. He is not distracted by the sight, even of a comely woman the ardor of his prayer abiding within him and dispelling every untoward thought. Being human, however, it is likely that you relapse even into sloth when an hour or two or three has passed after prayer, and you notice the ardor you have developed about to evaporate gradually; then betake yourself promptly to prayer again and rekindle your cooling attention.

If you do this throughout the day, maintaining your fervor at intervals with the frequency of your prayers, you will not give the devil an occasion and admission to assault your thoughts. And as we do when having lunch and on the point of taking a drink, when we notice the hot water has cooled down, we put it on the stove again for it to be quickly heated, let us act likewise in this case also, and by giving our mouth to prayer as though onto hot coals, let us rekindle our mind once again with piety. Let us imitate the builders: when they are getting ready to build with bricks, on account of the fragility of the material they support the building with long timbers, doing this not at great intervals but at short ones so as to make the binding of the bricks firmer through the closeness of these timbers. Do this in your case, too, and fence your life around on every side by interspersing your worldly activities with constant prayers as though with wooden binding. If, then, you act in this way, even should countless winds later blow, even should trials, discouragement, disagreeable thoughts of some kind, trouble of whatever sort befall, they will not succeed in demolishing that house held together in this way by frequent prayers.

How is it possible, you ask, for a man of the world, tied to the bench, to pray three times a day and betake himself to church? It is possible and quite simple: even if heading off to church is not manageable, it is possible even for the man tied to the bench to stand there in the vestibule and pray. After all, there is not such need for words as for thoughts, for outstretched hands as for a disciplined soul, for deportment as for attitude, since Hannah herself was heard not for uttering a loud and clear cry but for calling out loudly inside in the heart:

“Her voice was not audible, but the Lord hearkened to her,” (1 Samuel 1:13,19)

the text says, note. Many other people also did this in many cases, despite the officer calling out from inside, threatening, ranting and raving, while they stood in the porch making the sign of the cross and saying a few prayers in their mind, and then going in and transforming and soothing him, turning him from wild to mild. They were not prevented from praying like this by the place or the time or the absence of words. Do likewise yourself: groan deeply, recall your sins, gaze towards heaven, say in your mind, ‘Have mercy on me, O God,” and you have completed your prayer. The one who said “Have mercy,” after all, gave evidence of confession, and acknowledged their own sins: it belongs to sinners to have mercy shown. The one who said “Have mercy on me” received pardon for their faults: the one to whom mercy has been shown is not punished. The one who said “Have mercy” attained the kingdom of heaven: the one on whom God will have mercy he not only frees from sin but also judges worthy of the future goods.

Accordingly, let us not make excuses, claiming a house of prayer is not close by: if we have the right dispositions, the grace of the Spirit made us personally temples of God, and there is ease for us in every respect. Our worship, after all, is not of the kind that formerly prevailed among the Jews, which was long on appearance but short on reality. In that case, you see, the worshiper had to go up to the temple, buy a turtle-dove, get hold of wood and fire, take sword in hand, appear before the altar, and carry out many other requirements. In our case, on the other hand, it is not like that: wherever you are, you have the altar with you, the sword, and the victim, you yourself being priest and altar and victim. In other words, wherever you are, you can set up the altar, giving evidence only of an attentive will, place being not an obstacle, time no hindrance; even if you do not go down on your knees, do not strike your breast or raise your hands to heaven, and merely demonstrate an ardent disposition, you have completed the whole of the prayer. It is possible for a woman with distaff in hand working at the loom to gaze towards heaven in her mind and call upon God with ardor; it is possible for a man venturing into the marketplace and walking by himself to pray with attention, and for someone seated at the workbench sewing skins to direct his soul to the Lord; it is possible for a servant making purchases and running hither and yon, or standing in the kitchen, when there is no possibility of going to church, to pray attentively and ardently. Place is not something God is ashamed of: he looks for one thing only, a fervent mind and sober spirit.

For you to learn that there is no need at all of appearance or places or times, but of a generous and ardent disposition, Paul was lying on his back in prison and not standing up (the stocks fastening his feet did not allow it, after all) when the prison shook while he was praying zealously as he lay down, the foundations were moved, the guard was terrified, and Paul later conducted him to the sacred rites of initiation (Acts 16). Likewise Hezekiah was not standing upright nor on his knees, but was lying on his back in bed on account of sickness, facing the wall, when he ardently called on God with a sober spirit, recalled he sentence passed on him, won a great favor and regained his former good health (2 Kings 20). You would find this happening not only with holy and important men but also with wicked ones: the brigand was not standing in a house of prayer nor on his knees, but stretched out on the cross, when with a few words he attained to the kingdom of heaven (Luke 23) another man was in a deep pit (Jeremiah 38) another in a den of wild beasts (Daniel 6) still another in the very belly of a sea monster (Jonah 1), when calling upon God they dispelled all the troubles besetting them and won favor from on high

In saying this, 1 exhort you unceasingly to keep up the habit of visiting the churches and praying at home in tranquility, and when time allows going on your knees and stretching out your hands. If, however, we are caught up by reason of time or place with a crowd of people, let us not on that account abandon prayer, but in the fashion I mentioned to your good selves pray and beseech God in the conviction of gaining your petition nonetheless with that prayer. I said as much, not for you to applaud and marvel, but for you to practice this yourselves, night time and day time, interspersing the time of work with prayers and petitions. If we manage our affairs this way, we shall both pass this life securely and also attain the kingdom of heaven.

Reference: Old Testament Homilies, St, John Chrysostom, Volume One, Homilies on Hannah, Translated by Robert Hill, Holy Cross Orthodox Press.

“Let him who does not pray expect nothing whatsoever from God- neither salvation nor renewal nor direction nor grace. Rather, he is consigned to the whims and fancy of his own mind, the will of his own ego, and the direction of his own thinking. He is like one who has rejected the intervention of the Lord Jesus in his life, like the one who hides himself from the Spirit of God. A man who wishes to remain as he is and not be changed, renewed or saved. His life unconsciously changes from bad to worse. He recedes spiritually day after day. The ties that bind him to the earth and the flesh increase without his awareness. His ego remains the source of all his desires and ambitions.

As for his relationship with Christ, it remains only superficial and outward. It has no power to change or amend anything. The possibility even to deny Christ at times of danger, temptation, illness, or poverty becomes imminent.
So if man does not pray, he can never be changed or renewed, and he who is not changed or renewed can have no genuine or effective relationship with Christ. His worship, however active, is nothing but an outward protrusion or a superficial growth. In the end it breaks off, bearing no fruit.”

Let these words move us to develop a habit of communing with the God who made us. He who desires for us to know Him intimately through time in His presence, is calling His sons to Himself. Let’s not keep Him waiting.

“Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house… thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord” (Psalm 128:3-4)

“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.” (Proverbs 12:4)

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22)

“Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?” (1 Corinthians 9:5)

I pray that whoever You give me Lord would be like the following women in the Old Testament:

Eve – “Her desire is for me and I rule over her” (Genesis 3:16)

Sarah – “A woman of beautiful countenance” (Genesis 12:11) and full of wit and laughter (Genesis 21:6)

Rebekah – “Divinely appointed” (Genesis 24:15) and “very beautiful to behold, a virgin; no man had known her” (Genesis 24:16) and not afraid to get her hands dirty (Genesis 24:19)

Rachel – “Kisses powerfully enough to make you cry” (Genesis 29:11) and “beautiful of form and appearance” (Genesis 29:17) and worth “7-14 years of work” (Genesis 29:18)

Deborah + Jael – knows how to hold her own and is feisty (Judges 4-5)

Hannah – A woman who pours out her soul to the Lord, and believes He will look upon her (1 Samuel 1:15). A woman who praises and rejoices in her God with such passion and joy (1 Samuel 2:1-10)

Ruth – loyal and faithful to me and family (Ruth 1:16-17)

Bathsheba – desirable, knows how to take care of herself, and is very beautiful to behold (2 Samuel 11:2); comes from a good family (grand-daughter of Ahitophel and daughter of Eliam who was a member of The Thirty)

Abigail – “a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance” (1 Samuel 25:3), patient (was married to Nabal), keeps me in check and knows how to talk me out of something I’ll regret (1 Samuel 25:33)

Esther – “young, lovely, and beautiful” (Esther 2:7,9), someone who pleases me so that I want to go above and beyond for her (Esther 2:9), a woman with Godly determination and faith in the face of horror (Esther 4:16)

Judith – “beautiful in stature (for me)”  and “lovely to look upon” (Judith 8:7) –“no one spoke ill of her, for she feared God and was devoted to Him” (Judith 8:8) and a woman who really knows how to pray [on the level of King David] (Judith 9)

Suzanna – “a very beautiful woman and one who feared the Lord… her parents were righteous and taught their daughter according to the Law of Moses” (Daniel 1:3)

Which my soul still seeks but I cannot find:
One man among a thousand I have found,
But a woman among all these I have not found.
(Ecclesiastes 7:28)

Lord, I want someone both incredibly beautiful and amazingly spiritual. I know many girls who are spiritual, but not physically appealing and others who are gorgeous on the outside but who don’t really motivate me to know You more. I want both, and I know You’re my Father and You want good things for me too. I don’t want to be drawn away by beauty, but You Yourself put that desire in my heart Lord. Lead me Lord. Lead us to each other and help me then lead our family to You.

It’s in Your hands Lord. I trust You.

Baba, Lord, my King and my God – Jesus Christ my hope:

If there was ever a time that I made You smile, if there was ever a time when You called me Your beloved son, if there was ever a time that I found favor in Your sight… then hear these words Lord. Hear me now.

I need You to save me. “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear².” You promised to save me.³ I can’t do this without You.⁴ I can barely stand in the battle⁵, much less win the war.

You told me, “My son, give me your heart”⁶ … it’s Yours.

You said “do not be afraid, only believe”⁷… I believe Lord, help my unbelief!!!⁸

You promised that you’d never let go of me… that You’d always be there for me.⁹ Manifest Yourself to me. I want to feel Your presence and witness Your saving grace.¹⁰

How long oh Lord, how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have sorrow in my heart?¹¹ Look to me and see my anguish and deliver me for Your names sake. I am poor. I am needy; I need you.

Teach me to trust in You… to love You more. To see Your hand working when everything seems lost.. when all seems desperately hopeless.

I want to show You my obedience so that You know that I love You.¹² As You know and as You will.. have mercy, according to Your tender mercies which are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my rebellious ways.. but in Your great love.. remember me.¹³

“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.”¹⁴ Let it not be so my Lord Jesus… let it not be so. By Your grace; by Your strength.

Give me to fight the good fight of faith that I may lay hold on eternal life!¹⁵ Let me not trade the Kingdom for a thought not pleasing to Your goodness.

Open my eyes and teach me; help me realize how much I’m hurting You… how much I’m hurting myself.

I desire purity of heart.. so that I may see You¹⁶.. so that I may touch You .. and know You more.

I don’t want to be like every other great man of faith who fell to this one sin. “She has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men.”¹⁷ If that is the case Lord than what of me?!

If David fell with Bathsheba¹⁸, if Sampson gave into Delilah¹⁹, if the wisest man on earth, King Solomon, gave his heart to foreign women and eventually turned his heart away from the One True God²⁰, if Elijah ran from Jezebel because he believed that she had power to destroy him even though You were protecting him²¹, than what of me! The weak, the feeble, the heartbroken.

Come Lord and give me the strength to fight this battle. Give me a passion for You.. to struggle.. to overcome.. to be purified!! I need Your help. I need You to motivate me to overcome.²² I want to love You more Lord. I pray that You don’t take the war away, but that You instead allow me to be victorious.²³ I want You to be so proud of me.

-Your Beloved²⁴

¹ 2 Corinthians 2:10
² Isaiah 59:1
³ Romans 10:13
⁴ John 15:5
⁵ Ephesians 6:11
⁶ Proverbs 23:26
⁷ Mark 5:36
⁸ Mark 9:23-24
⁹ Deuteronomy 31:6
¹⁰ 2 Corinthians 6:2
¹¹ Psalm 13:2
¹² John 14:15
¹³ Psalm 25:7
¹⁴ Romans 7:15
¹⁵ 1 Timothy 6:12
¹⁶ Matthew 5:8
¹⁷ Proverbs 7:26
¹⁸ 2 Samuel 11
¹⁹ Judges 16
²⁰ 1 Kings 11:4-8
²¹ 1 Kings 19
²² Psalm 51:12
²³ Romans 8:37
²⁴ John 13:23

In my mind, it was used to describe an abstract place a guy didn’t want to be stuck with a girl (the infamous “friend-zone”); it was used to describe those random people you see on a semi-regular basis and just cordially shake hands with, routinely exchanging the same updates on life as the time before; it used to describe people you barely know but add to your social network anyway.

That all changed when I read John 15:15

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

You know when a verse just hits you? It strikes you in some way – your head, your heart… something. You just know that specific verse was intended for you at that specific time. That’s what happened to me with this verse.

It made me realize that God created friendship so it wasn’t the problem. I was. My perception of what friendship was turned out to be something entirely different than what God intended friendship to be.

Friendship with God

In His great humility, God calls us to an intimate friendship with Him through Jesus Christ. He wants to share with You the mysteries of the universe:

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3)

… and he wants you to share your life with Him.

People who ask, “why do I need to pray if God already knows everything” are completely missing the point. He just wants you to talk to Him.. to share your emotions, thoughts, and feelings with him. He loves you. All he ever wanted from the foundation of the world was for us to have complete unity with Him. This is Jesus praying to the Father:

“I pray… that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21)

He wants Him to be in you, and you to be in Him!!! That’s why He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us.. to lead, comfort, and teach us all things. The thing is, none of this can happen unless you first open yourself up to Him – unless you begin to share who you are with Him. It all starts with friendship.

God gives the best hugs, wants you to experience the coolest things with Him, and He tells the funniest jokes. Don’t believe me? I’ll share a personal story with you:

Once, a friend wanted me to meet a girl named Charity on an informal double date of sorts. I was reluctant because I just didn’t feel up to it. I eventually agreed, but was still feeling uneasy about my decision. As I’m talking with God about it, I say “God I really need a good laugh right now.. like you know those times that you laugh so hard that it hurts your stomach? .. well I want to laugh like that right now – You know I could use it.” And I asked Him to tell me a joke. A really really funny one. Well it couldn’t have been 10 minutes when I felt a strong impulse to read 1 Corinthians 13 (the famous love passage). I pulled out my phone, went to my YouVersion app, and tried to read it. I usually use the New King James Version of the Bible, but long story short, I was forced to resort to the plain old King James Version (because of connectivity).

I start reading, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” I bust out laughing for a solid two minutes. It turns out that ‘charity’ means Christian love. Who knew?! God did, and there are few times that I’ve laughed harder in my life.

The point is: God wants you to invite Him to live life with you. You don’t have to be a monk in order to incorporate Him into your life. Start as friends and see where it goes

Friendship with Others

God created us to be in community with one another. You can’t love God and hate your brother (1 John 4:20) in the same way you can’t claim to be God’s friend and not express this type of love to other people… it just doesn’t work.

The following sections are excerpts from an essay I wrote on the friendship between Jonathan and David, one of the most beautiful examples of friendship in the Bible:

Love, an introduction

“I will now cite you from the Scriptures a wonderful instance of friendship. Jonathan, the son of Saul, loved David, and his soul was so knit to him.”¹ This same type of love is referenced in Genesis 44:30-31: “Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad’s life, it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die…” This love is such that one’s life becomes completely devoted to and “bound up in another’s” confirming that, “love does not seek its own” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Furthermore, Jonathan helped David on many occasions showing that he truly loved David and did not envy that God had chosen him to rule His people as king. St. John Chrysostom puts it this way: “Did he envy David? Not at all, though he had great reason. How? Because, by the events he perceived that the kingdom would pass from himself to him, yet he felt nothing of the kind. He did not say, ‘This is he that is depriving me of my paternal kingdom,’ but he favoured his obtaining the sovereignty; and he spared not his father for the sake of his friend.”¹ The sacrificial love found in the friendship between Jonathan and David has absolutely no place for the bitter feeling of envy.

Love gives

Divine agape love is also marked by a willingness to give everything for the sake of the other. Jonathan is a type of Christ because he not only helps David obtain the kingdom, but he readily gives him all that is his.

“Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved wisely. And Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants” (1 Samuel 18:4-5).

In the same way that Jonathan gives David his robe, God clothes us with the garments of salvation and covers us with the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). In the same way Jonathan gives David his armor, God freely gives us His armor (Ephesians 6:11) and all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). In the same way Jonathan gave David his sword, bow, and belt, God arms us with the weapons of spiritual warfare like His Word, and He girds our waist with the truth of who He is. And in the same way David was accepted in the sight of Saul’s servants because of Jonathan, we are accepted to God because of Christ.

Love lowers self in order to exalt another

Jonathan lowered himself in order to exalt David which mirrors what God did for us through Christ: “He was made man that we might be made God and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality” (St Athanasius). Just like Christ “who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7)” Jonathan, who was rightful heir to the throne,  did not consider it robbery that David was to be king. Instead, Jonathan stripped himself of everything that was his in order to give to David.

Even more than stripping himself of everything, Jonathan expresses the greatest level of love one person can express for another. He is willing to die so David might live (1 Samuel 20:17).² Christ confirms this as the highest form of love in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” St. John Chrysostom says this: “He was many times willing even to die for his friend, and far from accusing him, he restrained even his father’s accusation. Instead of envying, he joined in obtaining the kingdom for him. Why do I speak of wealth? He even sacrificed his own life for him. For the sake of his friend, he did not even stand in awe of his father, since his father entertained unjust designs, but his conscience was free from all such.” ¹ It is amazing to see that just as Jonathan interceded for David to his father, Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us (Romans 8:34).

Love is crazy

Jonathan was willing to be accursed from his father (seen in 1 Samuel 20:30) on behalf of David just as Jesus Christ willingly gave up His life for us knowing how truly gruesome His death would be. This is an impossible love that is truly a gift from God. St. Paul tasted this love for his friends in Christ when he said, “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1-3). This type of love for friends goes beyond words and is only possible with God’s grace.

Love is sometimes misunderstood

Due to the incredible nature of this love King David exclaims, “your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26) as he mourns the death of his friend. There are some who misinterpret this verse and claim that Jonathan and David were involved in a homosexual relationship, but this is not the case. David and Jonathan had a divine love that superseded any type of sensual, earthly love. There is no way for a person who has not experienced the divine love of God in friendship to grasp this logically. In a similar fashion, David says of God, “Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you” (Psalm 63:3). There is no way to understand that there is anything better than this life if you haven’t yet tasted the sweetness of God. It is no surprise then that St. John Chrysostom writes, “Such friendship I would wish all to entertain both towards the living and the dead.”¹

Special thanks to George Sidarous (left) and Mina Abadir (right) for letting me use this picture – it’s probably what Jonathan and David would have looked like

References:

1. Chrysostom , John. “Love Fulfils the Law. David and Jonathan.” The Homilies of S. John  Chrysostom, …, on the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Oxford: J. Parker, 1843. 233-34. Print.

2. The Orthodox Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008. Print.