matthew-4:6

It is important to recognize that the Lord lived on this earth with a double purpose. For the first time there was a Man on this earth whose whole life was an expression of what God wanted, in Whom all the rights of God were fulfilled. This was what God had intended from the beginning. In Christ He ... Read More

Reading: Matthew 3:1-6, 13-17; 4:1-11. We are seeing that the Holy Spirit is taking up the history of the Lord Jesus and is repeating it in the lives of His people, and we come to the next chapter of the biography that He is writing in the hearts of believers. It is unfortunate that these chapters i... Read More

"And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'" (Matt. 3:16). "Then... Read More

"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then was Jesus led up ... Read More

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil... Again, the devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down an... Read More

Reading: Matthew 3:13-4:11 As you know, we are in these mornings occupied with the Holy Spirit's biography of Jesus Christ which He is writing in the spiritual history of believers. Last time we commenced a new chapter in this biography, the chapter which contains the baptism, the anointing and the ... Read More

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). “Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was g... Read More

Before Jesus even began His ministry He was tempted by the Devil (Matthew 4). The first of these temptations was for Him to turn stones into bread. The shallow interpretation of this temptation is to say that Jesus was hungry (He had been fasting for forty days) and that the temptation was for him t... Read More

St Theodoros the Great Ascetic (? 9"' century) (J'olume 2, pp. 13-47) Introductory Note The two works that follow, A Century of Spiritual Texts and Theoretikon,^ are ascribed in the Greek Philokalia to St Theodoros the Great Ascetic, a monk of the monastery of St Sabas near Jerusalem, who subsequent... Read More

Introduction to the Philokalia Volume 1 The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. It was compiled in the eighteenth century by two Greek monks, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1... Read More