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Reflection on Rom 4:9-10
Post date: 2017-12-16Autor: BCP
The Apostle asks: Does this blessedness, stemming from faith, come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? The Jews were very particular about circumcision and related it to the whole religious system of certain rites. The danger has always been that an emphasis on secondary things eliminates the essence – here the essence of salvation, which consists in personal relationship to God. Salvation depends on the saving faith based on the awareness that I am a sinner in the sight of God, which should lead me to humility and at the same time to trustful prayer for the forgiveness of my sins.
Reflection on Rom 4:3-4
Post date: 2017-12-02Autor: BCP
“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Here the meaning of righteousness is more like ‘justification’. Man does unspeakable injustice to God by sinning. The holiness of God is infinite, and so an insult to God deserves the highest punishment. We can offend God by our sin, but we cannot make amends for the offence by our works. Only the One who is equal to God – the Son of God – can make just reparation for our offence. He did so by His death on the cross. He took on Himself the punishment for our sins, the just punishment.
Reflection on Rom 3:25
Post date: 2017-11-18Autor: BCP
Let us realize that God forgives our sins because Jesus became a propitiation. The condition on our part is the faith in Christ who is the Saviour, the Son of God, who paid the just price for my sins by His blood and obtained the forgiveness for me. This is the most important truth, the necessary condition of our salvation. We must know it and put it into practice through faith.
Reflection on Rom 3:23-24
Post date: 2017-11-04Autor: BCP
Here the Word of God says clearly that all have sinned. Naturally, little children cannot sin because they are not able to discern sin; however, they are already programmed for sin and it is only a question of time before it manifests itself. It means that all have been infected with the spiritual poison of original sin and, as a consequence, all fall short of the glory of God. This is a sad reality. But there is another reality too. The reality of God’s love. God has given His Son for our salvation. So we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Reflection on Joh 5:8-10
Post date: 2017-10-21Autor: BCP
Jesus healed a man who had been sick for 38 years. It happened in Jerusalem near the pool called Bethesda. Jesus showed that He is Lord of the Sabbath. The man did not break the Sabbath rest when he carried his bed, the more so because he had been told to do so and because it was connected with a miraculous healing. Here we can see the blindness of the Pharisees who are unable to perceive that a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years was healed. They strain out a gnat and swallow a camel; they are unable to discern what is essential.
Reflection on Joh 1:12-13
Post date: 2017-10-07Autor: BCP
The Word of life confirms that as many as received Jesus and believe in His name – this is the condition – to them He gave the right to become children of God. Ask yourself: Am I a child of God? Whether you understand it or not, whether you feel it or not, if you have received Jesus by faith and believe in His name, you are a child of God. This is the truth revealed by God, and you believe the testimony of God.
Reflection on Isa 53:5-6
Post date: 2017-09-23Autor: BCP
God gave the prophet Isaiah a vision of the future Messiah, who is Jesus. The prophet says: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” The same Holy Spirit who revealed the mystery of our salvation in Jesus Christ to the prophet Isaiah has to enlighten the mind of each of us personally, that each of us may realize that Christ was wounded for my sins and bruised for my iniquities. Jesus suffered it all out of His love for me, to pay the just price for my sins and iniquities, and to open for me the way to eternal happiness in heaven. So, we were not redeemed with gold or silver but with the precious Blood of Jesus Christ. Let us also realize that the chastisement for our peace was upon Him.
Reflection on 1Jo 5:11-13
Post date: 2017-09-09Autor: BCP
And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
Reflection on 2Ti 4:2-4
Post date: 2017-08-26Autor: BCP
It is important that we also should preach the Word of God, preferably in our personal contact with people. The condition is to have a heart burning with the fire of God and to be aware that the Spirit of God works through the Word of God. The Word of God is a means of saving souls; it turns them from the broad way which leads to destruction to the narrow road which leads to eternal life. Therefore, it is said: “Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” This is the prophetic ministry – edification, exhortation and comfort (cf. 1Cor 14:1-3).
Reflection on 2Th 2:9-10
Post date: 2017-08-12Autor: BCP
The Word of God speaks of the coming of the antichrist, who will come with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. Today, we can see that this spirit of antichrist, the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, has manipulated almost the whole Christian world, i.e. the Christian nations. Within several years, this rapid apostasy which took place above all after the Second Vatican Council, has grown in intensity. God alone can stop this process in a miraculous way, or turn it into spiritual resurrection. However, this will not be possible without suffering, prayer and a living faith; and we can add: and without bloody or bloodless martyrdom.
Reflection on Col 2:12
Post date: 2017-07-29Autor: BCP
In the mystery of baptism, the work of Jesus’ death for our sake is accomplished on His part. We have been baptized into this reality. On our part, however, we must begin to live our own baptism, to actualize it. It means that when we unite by faith with the power of Christ’s death in relation to our corrupt nature, or in other words we actualize our baptism, at that moment we die together with Christ to our selfishness, our egocentrism, our pleasures and passions which enslave us and lead us away from salvation. We cannot do so by our own strength but only by faith in the power of Jesus’ death. This power of God, which works in us, is called the working of the Holy Spirit, or God’s grace.
Reflection on Col 1:27
Post date: 2017-07-16Autor: BCP
In verse 27, the Apostle points out a mystery. We ask what this mystery among the Gentiles is. It is the mystery concerning us who often live among non-believers. The mystery is this: Christ is among us and in us at the same time. In verse 29, the Apostle Paul says: “I strive according to His working which works in me mightily.” He thus points out that Jesus is in him. But Jesus is in us, too, and we have to know about this might of God. We have to rely on His might in our struggle with original sin which is in us, as well as in our struggle with the system of the world which boycotts divine truths concerning our salvation and in our struggle with the spirit of lies and evil which works through this system of the world and has a direct impact on our thoughts and feelings. So it is an ideological and spiritual fight.
Reflection on Eph 6:11-12
Post date: 2017-07-01Autor: BCP
It is said that we should put on the whole armour of God. So not only part of it, but the whole armour. And it is said that it must be the armour of God, and not of man. Why should we put it on? That we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And what does the devil, the spirit of lies, wile us into? Into doing evil under the guise of good, or into promoting lies through a sophisticated mosaic of partial truths. So we need the armour of God, for we do not wrestle against human enemies but against principalities, against spiritual powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. It is a spiritual battle.
Reflection on Eph 5:15-16
Post date: 2017-06-17Autor: BCP
We must be careful, every one of us. Careful about whom? About ourselves. And about what? About how we live. And why? Because we should live not as unwise but as wise. So what should we do? Redeem the time, because the days are evil. What does it mean to redeem the time? Not to walk after vanities which pass away but to do our best in time to store spiritual treasures which thieves will not steal and rust will not destroy.
Reflection on Eph 4:11-12
Post date: 2017-06-03Autor: BCP
The Lord Jesus builds up the Church, which is His Body – the Body of Christ. In building up the Church, He uses truly converted Christians, not only priests or monks. Every baptized Christian, who has been converted and received the Spirit of Christ, should thirst after the salvation of souls, especially those living around him. It is a mistake to think that it is the task of priests or monks or special missionaries to convert people. A priest should be a shepherd, but sheep give birth to sheep, shepherds don’t. So every Christian has a duty of mission – he should be an evangelist to this effect. He is called to save the souls in personal contact, face to face, in the place where he is.
Reflection on Eph 2:8-9
Post date: 2017-05-20Autor: BCP
These Bible verses need correct interpretation. Mainly: we have not been saved through our works. God has given us the grace of salvation; it is the gift of God, as the Scripture says. So no one can boast. But it does not mean that once we have obtained salvation in Christ we do not need to do good works. We should do them in cooperation with the grace of God and in union with Christ. But the foundation – salvation – has been given us freely. That is why it is necessary to carry out mission of prayer. To obtain the grace of God for the conversion of particular people, and above all to pray for the spiritual resurrection of the nation.
Reflection on Eph 2:1-2
Post date: 2017-05-06Autor: BCP
We could entitle this word of life as follows: “We have passed from death into life”. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…” Without Christ people live in their trespasses and sins, and are spiritually dead. There is a kind of power which keeps them in the system of death. The Apostle refers to it as the course, or the system of this world, which prompts people to follow demonic inspiration, i.e. the prince of the power of the air whom the Apostle calls the spirit of evil. Where is this spirit, this prince of the power of the air, at work? He is at work in those who refuse to obey God.
Reflection on Gal 4:6-7
Post date: 2017-04-22Autor: BCP
Everyone who has been born anew has received the Spirit to know God, to know His heart, His laws, and since he himself is known by God, he can know Him as a child knows its mother or father. Therefore St Paul reproves the Galatians and us too by beseeching us not to lose the inner relationship with Jesus, our first love, the grace of the inner light of the Truth. Only in Jesus we are sons, and therefore God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit crying out “Abba, Father!” What joy! I am no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God, an heir of God’s kingdom!
Reflection on Gal 1:7-8
Post date: 2017-04-08Autor: BCP
This statement of God’s judgment, given through the Apostle Paul, is extremely important! It is a protection against heresies which destroy the Church of Christ from within. Not only in the distant past but especially since the days of Vatican II, heresies have swept forward like an avalanche. The Council approved the heresy concerning a regard for pagans, and de facto for their demons too! This heresy is contrary to the apostles’ teaching, and contrary to Scripture and the whole 2000-year Tradition.
Reflection on 2Cor 5:14-15
Post date: 2017-03-25Autor: BCP
In this Lenten time, we will repeat the following words of verses 14-15: “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died…” These verses speak about the mystery of Christ’s death which is connected with our baptism and our faith in this mystery. We are still physically alive. When Jesus, the Only-Begotten Son of God, became man out of love for us and died for us, we also died in His death to evil and sin. We see, however, that sin continues to work in our life. But we forget that it does not work in Christ’s death; it is overcome. If in a particular moment I unite with Christ and His death in faith and self-surrender, the power of sin is ineffective, dead.