| We are not a living body that contains a soul! We are a living soul that dwells within a living body! | July 2008 |
The American Orthodox Church
| We are not a living body that contains a soul! We are a living soul that dwells within a living body! | July 2008 |
The Orthodox Church is not a denomination, it is the living body of Christ.
The Word of God is not a book, It is a Person; Jesus the Christ.
The Prophets of the old and new covenant are those who have seen, heard and touched the Word of Life (He who was from the beginning, the one whom we have heard, and have seen
with our eyes, have touched with our hands, we declare to you is the Word
0f Life,) I John 1:1
Salvation, Worship in Vain.
Who is Jesus the Christ? (continued)
The Son!
Well, in our last issue we looked at the Father, in this issue we will
look at the Son. Now many are saying; in the article about the Father you discussed the Son quite a bit so what do you mean we are going to look at the son now? Here is my issue with you; how can you look at any one of the Holy Trinity as if the other does not exist or somehow exists separately from the other? There is one God, there is no other, the Son is begotten of the Father, He is the same essence of the Father, how can the son be separated especially when the Son tells us; John 14:9 Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father
also. How sayest thou, show us the Father? You cannot separate them one from the other, Jesus the Christ is the very Word of God, He is God.
Jesus in the flesh and walking the earth as a man did not lose any of the essence of God, it simply became housed in the flesh the same as you and I, Jesus Christ was not a created being, anyone one who teaches this is a liar I don't care how big their smile is and how well they can cook Sunday lunch after service, they are a liar and therefore they are not from God and you need to understand this.
If you are going to church on Sunday and singing praises to Jesus Christ with some kind of music and dancing and totally leaving the Father out of the picture, you are worshipping in vain and I don't care how you choose to argue the point, you are worshipping in vain. There was a man the other day who made a statement to me in his attempt
to justify this idea of worship by reminding me how king David was singing and dancing before the Lord. What this fellow does not understand is the difference between simply singing praises to the Lord at any moment or praising God for something that has just happened and going into a place of worship and worshipping God. But in any circumstance ever, hip thrusting and hip gyrating is not worship, ever, under any circumstance for any reason, if in fact you actually think that this is acceptable then you need to stand way back and take a long hard meditative look at your relationship that you believe that you have with Christ and do some serious re-evaluation.
The statement was made that if I am seeing someone dancing in this manner in a church than I am obviously worrying about other people and not my own worship at the time, so where is my mind at? This is a pretty convenient tool of Satan actually, when you allow the anything goes mentality in worship for fear that someone may tag you as not worshipping then you have just allowed Satan to have free rule in your so-called house of worship. You will be responsible on the day of judgement for seeing and not correcting, obviously it is non-Orthodox people I am speaking to at the moment because there are no bands in an Orthodox house of worship.
Jesus Christ came to bridge the gap between us and the Father, He did not
come to allow rock and roll into the house of God for worship, Jesus Christ
is considered a rebel by many and He in fact was in regards to the legalists,
He taught us how to live spiritually and not legalistically, from the heart
instead of from the letter of the law, but He did not abolish respect for
God, He did not allow garbage in the place of worship, you all know the
story of the temple buyers and sellers, garbage worship is no different.
God is to be honored not mocked, understand this or pay the price, if you
don't pay it now then you will pay it eternally.
This is Jesus Christ: our Redeemer, our Savior, the Word of God, our mediator,
the one who stands between us and the Father, if you abuse that privilege
by insulting Him in an unholy form of worship than you will pay the price.
Be ye Holy as I am Holy, these are the words of God Almighty, learn to obey them.
Luke 9:5 And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.
Ephesians 3: 10, To the intent that through the church the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the angels and powers which are in heaven,
11, Which is the wisdom he prepared in ages past and has carried out in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Remember
that Jesus Christ gave us a church to guide us, not a book, the church
in turn gave us a book made up of many books, the book itself is
incomplete in as far as the teachings of Jesus the Christ are and is not the full authority. (see above; the Word of God is not a book, It is a
Person). If your church has been born from a Bible and not from the line of teachers since Christ, then your
church is in error and teaches a false doctrine. How do I know this? Well
let's see what Jesus said to the Apostles regarding the power and authority
of the church;
Matthew 18:18 Truly I say to you, Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,
and whatever you release on earth will be released in heaven. Jesus Christ.
So if you claim to follow God's Word:follow Jesus the Christ and in turn follow the church, if you do not follow the church, you do not follow Jesus, and in turn you do not follow God Almighty.
Let us pray;
Lord Jesus Christ, who did say to Your Apostles: peace I leave with you,
My peace I give unto you, look not upon my sins, but upon the faith of
Thy church; and vouchsafe unto her that peace and unity which is agreeable
to Thy will: who lives and reigns God forever and ever. Amen.
Monk Michael
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Teaching of the Church! | |||
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See also Orthodox Catechism by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Gregori
Excursus on the Word
Dr. Adolph Harnack: Hist. of Dogma [Eng.
Tr.] Vol. I. p. 209.)
The idea of the whole transaction of the Supper as a
sacrifice, is plainly found in the Didache, (c. 14), in Ignatius, and above all, in Justin (I. 65f.) But even Clement of Rome presupposes it, when (in cc. 40–44) he draws a parallel between bishops and deacons and the Priests and Levites of the Old Testament, describing as the chief function
of the former This is not the place to enquire whether the first celebration
had, in the mind of its founder, the character of a sacrificial meal; but,
certainly, the idea, as it was already developed at the time of Justin,
had been created by the churches. Various reasons tended towards
seeing in the Supper a sacrifice. In the first place, Malachi i. 11, demanded a solemn Christian
sacrifice: see my notes on Didache, 14.3. In the
second place, all prayers were regarded as a sacrifice, and therefore
the solemn prayers at the Supper must be specially considered as
such. In the third place, the words of institution contained a command with regard to a definite religious action.
Such an action, however, could only be represented as a sacrifice, and
this the more, that the Gentile Christians might suppose that they had
to understand. In the fourth place, payments in kind were necessary for
the “agapć” connected with the Supper, out of which were taken the bread
and wine for the Holy celebration; in what other aspect could these offerings
in the worship be regarded than as for the purpose of a sacrifice?
Yet the spiritual idea so prevailed that only the prayers were regarded
as the proper, even in
the case of Justin (Dial. 117). The elements which obtain their value from the prayers, in
which thanks are given for the gifts of creation and redemption, as well
as for the holy meal, and entreaty is made for the introduction of the
community into the Kingdom of God (see Didache, 9. 10). Therefore, even the sacred
meal itself is called a sacrifice
(Justin, Apol. I. 66: ? t??f?
a?t?
?a?e?ta?
pa?? ?µ??
e??a??st?a
. Didache, 9. 1: Ignat.), The passage did read, t??t?
p??e?te, e??
t??
???µ??s??
µ??, t??test?
t? s?µ? µ??; in
which it is evident that the words “my body” are in
apposition with t??t? and the object of
p??e?te, which has
its sacrificial sense “to offer,” as in the Dialogue with
Trypho, ?
?????? ?µ??
pa??d??e
p??e?? (chapter xlj). and
therefore thought of a sacrifice of this body (I. 66). The real
sacrificial act in the Supper consists rather, according to Justin,
only in the e??a??st?a?
p??e?? whereby the ??????
??t?? becomes the ??t?? t??
e??a??st?a?
.6161 No catholic theologian teaches that the essence of that sacrifice is to offer up the already present Body of Christ, but that the essence of the Sacrifice is the act of consecration; the “making the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” as he accurately says, “whereby the common bread becomes the Bread of the Eucharist.” Harnack says truly that “the sacrificial act of the Christian here also is nothing else than an act of prayer,” The act of consecration is the essence of the Christian Sacrifice according to the teaching of all Catholics. The sacrifice of the Supper in its
essence, apart from the offering of alms, which in the practice of the
Church was closely united with it, is nothing but a sacrifice of
prayer: the sacrificial act of the Christian here also is nothing
else than an act of prayer (See Apol. I. 14, 65–67;
Dial. 28, 29, 41, 70, 116–118).
Harnack (lib. cit. Vol. II. chapter III. p. 136) says that “Cyprian was the first to associate the specific offering, i.e. the Lord’s Supper with the specific priesthood. Secondly, he was the first to designate the passio Domini, nay, the sanguis Christi and the dominica hostia as the object of the eucharistic offering.” In a foot-note (on the same page) he explains that “Sacrificare, Sacrificium celebrare in all passages where they are unaccompanied by any qualifying words, mean to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.” But Harnack is confronted by the very evident objection that if this was an invention of St. Cyprian’s, it is most extraordinary that it raised no protest, and he very frankly confesses (note 2, on same page) that “the transference of the sacrificial idea to the consecrated elements which in all probability Cyprian already found in existence, etc.” Harnack further on (in the same note on p. 137) notes that he has pointed out in his notes on the Didache that in the “Apostolic Church Order” occurs the expression ? p??sf??? t?? s?µat?? ?a? t?? a?µat??.
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From the pages of the American Orthodox Church/North American Orthodox Church
It is obvious that Jesus meant for the church to be one in Spirit and in teaching. There is only one truth.
There is only One God, One Lord Jesus Christ, One Holy Spirit, One Christian Church. It is plain and obvious that the Holy Spirit does work through those in many different denominations. God still uses those who are true to Jesus Christ. However, this does not change the truth of the teachings of the original Orthodox Church.
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Please give these things prayerful thought, meditate on these words, learn to be still and listen to the Holy Spirit in the quiet time.
This will continue next issue. See you then.
Monk Michael
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
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