What precedes these verses? Verses 8-9: “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” Verses 10 and 11, which we are going to repeat for two weeks as the Word of life, speak about the death and the life of Jesus. We read: “We are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.” How are we to understand these words and how to put them into practice? The word “always” means that something is repeated again and again. It does not mean second by second, but in certain moments the same thing happens – we are delivered to the death of Christ. The word “always” further reveals that this statement of the Apostle Paul does not refer so much to physical martyrdom, because this happens only once, but to an inner dying for Jesus’ sake, which we can repeat every day.

In this regard, the Apostle Paul speaks about the resurrection of our body, beginning with verse 35 which asks: How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? The Apostle answers by comparing it to a seed sown in the ground which brings forth wheat or another plant. Verses 42-44 read: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory… It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” And it is followed by verse 45: “And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’” It is written in the Book of Genesis: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen 2:7) Why is it not written that he became a living body but rather that he became a living soul? The essence of spiritual, i.e. human life is the human soul which has reason, memory and will. As long as the soul is in the body, the body lives. The body without the soul is dead.

“But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”

At the beginning of chapter 14, it is said that we should pursue love but desire earnestly spiritual gifts, especially that we may prophesy. The Apostle Paul compares the gift of prophecy with the gift of prayer in a tongue. He explains that if someone prays in an unknown tongue, other people are not edified because it is the Spirit of God who prays to God the Father from the depths of the soul and no one understands it. He who prays edifies himself but not the community. It is different with the gift of prophecy. The gift of prophecy is no fortune-telling, although it is true that sometimes God reveals future things through prophecy. But this is not the purpose of prophesying. Verse 3 says what the purpose is: 1) edification, 2) exhortation, 3) comfort. Those who pray in a tongue certainly have the experience that the Spirit of God prompts them in this prayer to realize the urgent need to pray with their whole being for a particular thing and to abide either in the promise of God or in the faith in God’s word.

The word “No” refers to the preceding verse which asks: “Is an idol anything?” So a wooden idol as such is nothing; it just symbolizes a demon.

As for sacrifices offered to these idols made of wood, metal or other material, the Scripture says that food or whatever else that is offered to them is by no means offered to God but to demons. The Word of God testifies that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.

It is good to read carefully chapter 10, verses 1-21. It recounts how God through Moses led the Israelites in a miraculous way across the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt. It says that they were all spiritually united to Moses, and it also points out the mystery of their unity with the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. Christ had not yet come in the flesh as the Saviour, but being the Second Divine Person, He is in the same Godhead with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This verse is preceded by verse 18 which says: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” A fight against sexual immorality requires heroism, especially with a young person. We can call it literally bloodless martyrdom. The saints recommended several principles. For example, in fuga salus – salvation in flight. Another motto was: principiis obsta – resist the beginnings. Jesus says concerning this: If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off; if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye or one hand than having two eyes or hands, to be cast into the everlasting fire.

The Word of God says that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. The opposite of unrighteousness is righteousness. He is righteous who gives God what is due to God and man what is due to man. It is written about Saint Joseph that he was a righteous man. The Holy Scripture, however, speaks above all about the righteousness of God which consists in the fact that sin was justly punished. Dying on the cross, Jesus suffered the punishment for all our sins and all our unrighteousness. Only if we have believed in Christ, i.e. put on His righteousness, we can be saved. We cannot make amends for sins or the root of sin in us by our own efforts.

These verses enumerate ten forms of the bondage of sin which make man unrighteous and a slave of a particular sin. The following verse says that we were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is for free, through faith; it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). The Word of God emphasizes: Do not be deceived! The meaning of these words can also be translated as follows: Stop deceiving yourselves! People like deceiving themselves and refuse to call a sin a sin, to fight against it or to break with it.

“To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God,

that they may receive, through faith in Me, forgiveness of sins

and an inheritance among those who are sanctified.”

Jesus said these words when He appeared to the Apostle Paul before his conversion, on his way to Damascus. He went to Damascus to arrest Christians as their greatest enemy, and to bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he went on his way, at about noon Jesus appeared to him in a bright light. Paul fell from his horse, became blind, and had to be led by the hand into Damascus. When Jesus appeared to him, He said these words to him: “I send you to the Jewish people as well as to the Gentiles to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God…”

Jesus entrusted the Apostle with the task of opening people’s eyes by bearing witness to Him in the power of God so that they may turn from darkness to light. So both the Jews and the Gentiles were in darkness and had to be converted. The Jews as well as the Gentiles were in the power of Satan and needed to turn to God. They had to receive Christ so as to receive, through faith in Him, forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among the sanctified.

Peter and John stood before the high priests, the elders and the scribes who had arrested them by reason of healing the lame man and preaching the Gospel. Peter delivered his first apologetic sermon before all.

How is it possible that those who were behind closed doors, filled with fear, a few days ago now stand firm and preach the risen Christ in public and without fear of threats or punishment? The Word of God says: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses (martyres).” The Apostles received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And then there was no more place for fear in their souls. On the contrary, it was the high priests and the scribes who were filled with fear when they saw the fearlessness of the Apostles and the power which Jesus had given them.

There is salvation in no one else! There is salvation in Jesus alone! There are no other ways or alternatives of salvation but Jesus Christ. There is no other name by which we must be saved. These words are true and will be true forever.

“Those who received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship (koinonia), in the breaking of bread (Eucharist), and in prayers.” That was the fruit of the descent of the Holy Spirit and of Peter’s sermon – the Church – living fellowship – was born and started to grow. On the seventh day, Sunday, when we commemorate the Resurrection of Christ and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, we try to find time for prayer, Divine Liturgy and fellowship. Here we can receive again the apostles’ doctrine through the Word of God and also receive encouragement through the examples of saints and martyrs as well as through personal testimonies of faith.

“Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’”

These words were spoken by Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles. They began to praise God for His wonderful works in unknown languages, so the foreigners who had come to Jerusalem heard them speaking in their own languages. Interestingly, if we notice where the pilgrims of the different nationalities came from – Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus – we find out that it was the territory of present-day Turkey, which is now fully Islamized. For example, some of the Church Fathers, namely St Basil, St Gregory of Nyssa and St Gregory of Nazianzus, lived and worked in Cappadocia. Other nationalities mentioned here are Egyptians, Libyans, Romans, Cretans, Arabs, even to the territory of present-day Iran and Iraq. Today, these territories are occupied by Islam. Christianity was destroyed there by force.

Jesus said these words on the Mount of Olives on the fortieth day after His Resurrection, when ascending into His glory before the eyes of the apostles and disciples. Jesus emphasized that the apostles needed to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They had already received Him on the Day of Christ’s Resurrection but not in fullness.

Jesus also told the apostles to stay in the city of Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit descended on them in fullness (cf. Lk 24:49). “…until you are endued with power from on high.”

Almost all of you, dear believers, have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enlightens our mind and strengthens our will, that we may be true witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ!

This event happened after Jesus finished His Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, where He presented simple life principles leading to eternal life. To lead us to the essence, Jesus completes here what Moses had not expressed explicitly in the Law of God. Referring to the commandment “You shall not kill!”, Jesus points out the root and says that we cannot even nourish hatred in our heart. Referring to the commandment “You shall not commit adultery!”, Jesus warns that even a lustful look is a manifestation of adultery. Concerning forgiveness, He emphasizes: “God will not forgive you if you do not forgive your neighbour” etc. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks about an extremely important principle, which He explains in the parable of two builders. One of them built a house quickly but without foundations. The other built the foundation on the rock. When a storm came, it turned out that only a house built on the rock of Christ’s teaching shall stand. However, to build on the rock it is not enough to be theologically educated, even if this theology is truly Catholic. An academic Christian will not stand; one must be a practising Christian who not only hears the word of God (not modern heresies) but also puts it into practice.

In the preceding verses, Jesus points out the essence – doing the will of God: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” If we seek first the will of God in our life and if we also try to do it, it is true about us that we are like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Sooner or later the winds blow, the rain descends and the floods come, but if our house is founded on the rock, it will not fall. The problem why we try to build a house on the sand many times is that we easily believe in what seems good to us, evokes our interest, offers advantage and makes the impression that right this attractive option is the ideal solution in our decision-making. Once we cling to this vision and try to achieve our dream, we are no longer willing to seek the will of God because we avoid the thought that we should abandon our house on the sand. It seems so hard, disadvantageous and often even repulsive to us to start building on the rock, and so under the pressure of the false good we throw away the true good, or we make ourselves believe that this false good is the will of God.

By these words the Lord Jesus teaches and warns us that in order to persevere on the narrow way leading to eternal life, we should first beware of false teachings, heresies and those who preach them (heretics and apostates). So this is the most essential thing – to keep the true faith and a true inner relationship with Christ. Therefore, the Apostle Paul says that if an apostle, or even an angel from heaven, should preach a different (i.e. false) gospel, let him be accursed (cf. Gal 1:8-9).

We know the Word of God and we know the Tradition of the Church. We have God-given conscience. This all gives us the power and the art of discerning the teaching of Christ from the false teaching of the current apostate hierarchy and theologians. The Lord Jesus established forever that he who is of the Truth and of God hears His voice and will not follow a stranger. And he who is not of God does not hear His voice (cf. Jn 7:17; Jn 8:47; Jn 18:37).

Jesus speaks about the narrow gate and difficult way which leads to life. The narrow gate is Christ’s commandments of love and the difficult way is Christ’s cross and His death by which one enters into eternal life. The broad way which leads to destruction is the way of egoism, moral licentiousness, deceit and lies, which is often tied up with the demonic practices of divination, magic or spiritualism, de facto the worship of evil and demons. This way leads to eternal destruction. The painful reality is that mass media, public opinion, fashion, destructive influences such as decadent music or art, admiration of the occult, promotion of perversion etc. literally drag the souls onto the broad way to destruction. They persuasively present it as prestige and if anyone refuses to follow it, one is ridiculed. The narrow way of justice is presented as something degrading and old-fashioned. He who does not love the truth is easily deceived. Today young people need the courage to struggle against the decadent current. This is true heroism!

“Therefore, whatever you want others to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Original sin programmed schizophrenia in the soul and therefore man uses a double measure. We are uncritical of ourselves and unwilling to admit or see manifestations of our egoism, but we are very sensitive about egoism of others, we criticize or even hate it. We have special demands – we want people to respect our will and to approve of everything we do, to see our problems, and even to guess what they should do for us without us humbling ourselves and asking them to do it for us, and if they do not act according to our ideas, we take offence.