Father Stephen De Young: So chapter eight, verse one. I like that they go back to the old King James, “Now it came to pass”, which is a way of translating… what it literally says in Greek is that “it happened” and “it was” and basically what that is, is it’s trying to give us a sort of a disjunction. We talked about how that last story started with and then because it was sort of building off of Simon, sort of an example of what you’ve been talking about. Just talking about this “and it came to pass” is representing sort of a break. Now we’re starting a sort of a new section there’s sort of a disjunction here. And so they translate that as:

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.

So he’s traveling all around Galilee, all the cities and all the little villages, and he’s proclaiming the gospel, right? That “glad tidings” is a nice Elizabethan English way of saying “good news” or the “gospel of the kingdom of God”.

And the twelve were with Him and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. So first of all, notice this is the only place where we’re told about what Mary Magdalene’s lifestyle was like before she met Jesus. We had a question, I think, what’s before when she turned up in the text about this whole identification of her as a prostitute, which does not exist, but we just read where that came from. You’ve got to remember, chapter and verse breaks are relatively new. And so what happened was we think it was probably St. Gregory the Dialogist, St. Gregory the Great, because we know he did it, but we think he may be the one who started it, he read through this passage and he read through the story we just read, and then this all is one passage without that disjunction I just mentioned. And so for him, this was following up on that. Women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, well, we just had this sinful woman, right? So Mary Magdalene is the first one named here. Mary Magdalene must be her who we were just talking about, which is sort of a conclusion. But text doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that.

And so, what happened was that identification was made and then other people repeated it. And so you get this whole thing that St. Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute. Now, there may very well have been reformed prostitutes following Jesus. It’s just whether St. Mary Magdalene was one of them. And here it seems pretty clear that that’s not the case. It was not an issue that she was a prostitute, but that she was demon possessed by, in this case, seven demons.

So she’s listed as a significant person who’s following Jesus. And then secondly is Joanna, the wife of Chuza. Why is she significant? Well, he’s Herod’s steward, meaning one of his chief servants, steward, was sort of like the White House Chief of Staff to the President. This is sort of the steward to the King, to King Herod. So she’s the wife of a pretty important guy, right? That’s why she gets mentioned as one of Jesus’s followers, And then Susanna and many other women who provided for him with their substance. Now, what this means is these women had some money, right? And were using it to help Jesus and the twelve disciples; they were giving up their means.

This is interesting for a few reasons. Now, number one, as we’ve said before, when St. Luke mentions names, he mentions names for a reason. And that reason is usually that at the time he was writing, these people were still alive, in most cases. And we’ll see several more of these, he’ll who just throw out somebody’s name, and you’re like, “Okay, who cares what his name was?” Like this Susanna… okay, Susanna. Susanna who, right? Well, Susanna, since he mentioned, oh, Susanna was there, if I come up to you and say, Mike was at the store, I just saw Mike at the store, you’re going to assume this must be a Mike who we both know, right? Or I would have said something else. I would have said, like, oh, this friend of mine named Mike. If I just walk up to you and say Mike was at the store, it implies this is somebody who we both know who they are. Same thing here with St. Luke. St. Luke says, “Oh, yeah. Susanna was one of them.” This assumes that the people who are originally reading this knew either knew Susanna or knew who Susanna was, at least, so that this would mean something to them. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean anything.

So this is St. Luke’s way all the way through of sort of citing his sources. This is where I got this. And if you don’t believe me, go talk to this person. So he’s telling all these stories about Jesus. He’s about to tell a bunch more, so he uses this as sort of a header. There’s this transition, and then this is sort of the header where these stories I’m about to tell you about Jesus, if you don’t believe me or you want to know where I got it, go talk to Susanna. Go talk to Mary Magdalene, go talk to Joanna, go talk to these people, so he’s citing them as witnesses.

That brings us to point 2. He’s citing women as witnesses, which you may remember from the Torah, you couldn’t do. You had to have two male witnesses to something. And the Torah of the Old Testament is relatively positive about women, especially compared to Greece and Rome. From the perspective of Greco-Roman thought, and Aristotle literally taught this. So this is not just my characterization of what they thought. This is what they thought, that women were essentially defective men, right? Aristotle thought that literally, while a baby was in the womb, they were sort of all trying to become men, and some of them didn’t quite make it and came out as women.

So, like I said, the Old Testament is relatively positive about women compared to the pagans. And this is where a lot of, in Greco-Roman culture, this is where a lot of the sexual immorality comes from, frankly, because you could read Plato’s Symposium, for example, if you want evidence of this. But in the Greco-Roman world, they believed that true love could only be experienced between equals, and women were not equals of men. So the only way a man could have true love and a real bond was with another man. That was the only way.

And I don’t want to get too graphic here. I’m not doing this to titillate or be too graphic, but you need to know this about Roman culture. It’s going to become really important when we get into St. Paul’s letters, that he starts talking about sexual immorality, that you know what he’s referring to. There is within a relationship between two men, a dominant partner and a submissive partner. They considered it a shame to be the submissive partner. They denigrated that person. So, it was not appropriate for an adult male to be that person. And this is where the institution of pederasty comes in, which is an adult male and a young boy. Plato’s Symposium, Plato, the great philosopher, his Symposium, the thesis of it, of this dialogue, is that the greatest form of love is between an adult man and a young boy.

So this is not just something that happened in the Greco-Roman world. It’s not just something they thought was okay. This is something they viewed as a cultural institution. They thought this was a positive good. And we have to take this into account later on when we get to St. Paul speaking about homosexuality, that he’s speaking about that in particular. He’s attacking that in particular.

But that is something they consider to be good. And it’s like, yeah, you would get married and have a wife, but that was so you could have kids, especially a son, so that you’d have an heir. So you’ll find in Plato’s dialogues, Socrates had a wife, right? Socrates had a wife and children, and yet you find Socrates in the symposium, talking about how his real love, though, was for this young man.

So all this is to say, this gives you a picture. It wasn’t even just that women were used as sex objects. They viewed young men as sex objects. Women weren’t even sex objects; they were a level beneath that. They’re sort of a necessary evil. Well, yes, you’ve got to have a wife because you got to have an heir, right? You got to have a male heir, right? And then if you want to divorce her after that, well, go ahead, right? This is one of the reasons why the New Testament is so strict about divorce. So strict about divorce because it’s very common in the ancient world, right? You only married the woman for one purpose. And that part doesn’t stop in the ancient world. I mean, Henry VIII is exhibit A, right? Marries a woman. “Oh, you can’t give me a son, you can’t give me an heir. Okay, well, get rid of you, bring in the next one. Oh, you can’t either, bring in the next one, right?”

There was no love and romance going on. What we see in the creation story, Adam and Eve, a man and a woman, as partners, supporting each other, loving one another. You didn’t have that in the Greco-Roman pagan world. That was a new thing that Christianity brought to the table in terms of teaching about marriage.

All that is to say, the idea that St. Luke is citing here, the idea that these women followers of Jesus had some significance or would testify to the truth of what St. Luke is saying, reflects that St. Luke already in the first century, as a Christian, has a very different view of women than the surrounding culture. Because you notice who are the followers he mentions here? He mentions the twelve, right? He’s already named them before. And then he mentions these women as the most important followers of Jesus. Twelve men, three women he names, and then many others. He doesn’t say there were many other men.

So, we need to understand just how radically different St. Luke’s view of women is from the culture he’s living in, the Greco-Roman culture he’s living in, where he sees them not only as a value, but these are important followers of Jesus. We have testimony, we help support Jesus who are part of his ministry, right? Because they’re supporting him and the twelve, right? They’re not just tagging along. “Oh, yeah, there are some women tagging along, too, because Jesus healed them. They’re grateful that Jesus healed them, so they just followed him around.” No, they were part of it. They were helping, they were supporting, working with everyone else.

Again, St. Luke doesn’t tell us, he shows us. St. Paul, when we read his epistles, is going to tell us, right? St. Paul’s going to tell us that in Christ now there is no male or female. St. Luke doesn’t tell us. But he shows us that he shows us that within Jesus’s disciples, within his inner circle of followers, that it wasn’t men here, women an afterthought down here, but there were important men and important women among his followers.

That means that the church is going to look very different than any other kind of association in the Greco-Roman world and any other religious institution you’re going to find in the Greco Roman world. And one of the big differences is going to be the role that women have in it.

So again, this is sort of our intro here, preamble to the stories we’re now going to get about Jesus as he’s traveling around the cities and villages and preaching. So, verse four:

And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable:

So, we’ve got a big crowd. He has been traveling from village to village and city to city and now people from all those villages and cities have come out to hear him. And so, Jesus looks and sees, He’s got this big crowd, this big audience. And so he starts speaking to them. He says:

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”

And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.  Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

So, a couple of things to notice here. First of all, the reason I read the whole chunk is I don’t have to sit and explain to you what the parable means, because Jesus explains to you what the parable means, in this case, there are going to be other parables coming up, but see what St. Luke has done here by showing us Jesus explaining this one, because he’s sort of giving you an example of how to interpret these. “Here’s how to interpret these; I’ll show you with this one.”

It’s sort of like when you’re reading your math textbook, right? They show you a couple of problems and work them all out for you. Then they give you problems for you to work out following the… So, he says, “Here’s one interpreted, now here are some other parables.”

Now notice why he says he tells parables, and this is something that troubles a lot of people. He says, “To you,” meaning to his disciples. Now notice it doesn’t say the twelve. This is keeping with what we just read. They mentioned before “the twelve”, right? And then these others, when St. Luke means “the twelve”, he says “the twelve”. We’ve seen that several times already in St. Luke’s Gospel, we’re going to see it in the rest of St. Luke’s Gospel and we’re going to see it at the beginning of the Book of Acts, except then it’s going to be the eleven because Judas will be gone. But he’ll say the eleven when he means them.

So, when it says his disciples came to him, It doesn’t just mean the twelve when St. Luke says it. That includes the women he was just talking about. So it’s not, “Well, I’ll tell you twelve and you can mansplain it to the women.” No, he’s talking to all of them. He says “To you, it’s been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand.”

So, part of what Jesus is saying here is, “I tell it in parables because it’ll confuse some people.” It’ll confuse some people. He quotes the prophet Isaiah. Now, we won’t go back to it. Now, we went through it when we were going through Isaiah, right? But what God says to and through Isaiah is that he’s sending Isaiah to speak to them, to testify against them, so that confusion will be sown in the people and seeing they may not see and understand.

Meaning what God was saying to Isaiah at the time was, “Look, you’re going to these people”, this is when the northern kingdom of Israel was about to fall to the Assyrians and be destroyed. I’m sending you to preach to them, to preach them about their wickedness. But God knew full well and was telling Isaiah, “They’re not going to repent because you knew they weren’t going to repent, right? But you’re going to testify to them what they’re doing so they’ll be without excuse. They’ll be without excuse when all of this happens and they find their punishment.”

And we’ve talked before when a verse like this is quoted. Remember, there weren’t chapters and verses at that time, right? So Jesus couldn’t say, “Well, look up Isaiah 32, verse 8. Look up Leviticus 35 and you’ll see.” So, how would you quote? Well, in order to quote a chunk, in order to quote a passage, you quote the first verse or two. So you say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” You didn’t mean just Psalm 23, verse 1, you meant oh, yeah, Psalm 23. Flip there, that’s where you start reading, right? So, it’s not sort of proof texting and pulling these verses out of context, it’s referring you back to the context.

So remember what Jesus said that we read last time, earlier in chapter 7, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble because of me.” Jesus is aware of the fact, God is aware of the fact that by becoming man, he has both revealed Himself. God has revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ. That’s one of the most basic teachings of Christianity, that’s what makes Christianity, Christianity, is that the person of Jesus Christ, God has revealed Himself to us, but he also, to those who are living at the time, concealed Himself, right? Why? Because, well, Jesus didn’t do what they thought the Messiah was supposed to do. Jesus didn’t act necessarily the way they thought God was supposed to act. The Messiah, or God, was definitely not supposed to be crucified by the Romans, being exhibit A, right? And so St. Paul is going to say that the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews, right? Because of it, they can’t believe because it doesn’t fit their understanding.

And so, this wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t like, well, God was trying really hard to reveal Himself. Jesus was trying really hard to save everybody and get everybody to like Him, but gosh darn it, it just didn’t work out, and they rejected him. That’s not what happened. Christ knew. He says “I speak to you in parables the people who want to hear, the people who have ears to hear, the people who are seeking to be right with God, people who know God, the people who love God, they’ll hear and know what I’m saying by telling it to them in these simple stories” He’s not coming and writing a philosophical treatise about salvation, where a fisherman or a farm laborer is going to say, “What?!”

He’s telling them simple stories, mostly about farming, the stuff they do every day, and fishing, these other things that they do every day of their life. And so the people who want to hear, people who want to know what he has to say, who want to hear what God has to say to them, they’ll hear it and they’ll be able to understand it.

But the people who don’t want that, who either like Simon aren’t interested at all, or who don’t want exactly what Jesus is saying, or who are coming at it with another agenda, want Jesus to be saying something else. They’re just going to be confused by the parables. They’re just going to go awry.

But Jesus knows that’s going to happen. Jesus knows he’s going to cause division. He knows there are going to be some people who aren’t interested in what he has to say. There are going to be some people who aren’t interested in finding salvation. He knows that. And he knows that his coming and his preaching accomplishes both. Accomplishes both.

We’ve talked about this before that the more we know, the more we hear, the more God has given us, the more accountable we are, right? And so, everyone who heard Jesus preach one of these parables, one of these simple, understandable parables, who rejected it and rejected him was more accountable for that than they would have been if they’ve never heard it. They’re more accountable because more was given to them. Jesus is saying he knows that. He knows that.

So another thing in this parable, if you read it closely here, the way St. Luke tells it, a lot of times when you hear this interpreted or you hear people preach on it, they talk about the different soils, right? And they say the different soils are different types of people. Is that what Jesus says here in St. Luke’s Gospel?

Jesus is talking about the seeds. The seeds that fell here are, and those that fell here are those. So, while St. Matthew’s presentation is a little different, we already discussed that in St. Matthew’s Gospel, it’s more of the case that the seed is the gospel. The seed is Jesus’s preaching, and the soils are different types of people, and the gospel produces different results depending on who hears it. But here, the seed is the people. The seed is different people, right?

So, St. Luke, the interpretation we get through St. Luke’s lens is that Jesus is talking about people being cast in the world, right? People are born, right? They’re created by God, right? And then different things happen to them over the course of their lives. And so if we start getting into this, well, okay, wait, the devil comes and steals the gospel from people so they can’t believe it? Well, no. What’s getting snatched away by the devil, if the devil is the birds? The people are getting snatched away. People are getting snatched away before they can put down roots, right? That’s what he said, “Those by the wayside are the ones who hear. Then the devil comes and takes away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.” The seed that falls, the birds eat it. It’s people.

The ones on the rock. The what on the rock? Not the rocky soil is, but the ones, “The seeds that fall on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they don’t lay down roots. They believe for a while, and then in time of temptation, they fall away.”

The ones that fall among the thorns, the seeds that fall among the thorns, right, are those who, “When they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, pleasures, ones that fell on the good ground.”

“The seed that fell on the good grounds are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it in, bear fruit with patience.”

So what Jesus is laying out here is four different ways they’ve all heard the Word because Jesus is preaching it to them right? There are four ways you can react to it now, four things that can happen as your life plays out from this moment when you encounter Christ.

One is you could just let the devil, meaning go right back to sinning the way you were before, right? Simon would unfortunately, probably fall into this category. Jesus tried to tell Simon something, tried to say something to him, but as far as we could tell, deaf ears. Didn’t experience salvation. You can hear it. You could be, “Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s beautiful. Amen, Jesus. That’s beautiful. Great sermon!” right? But then you walk away. You start running into temptations, and you sort of fall back away, back where you were.

Or you hear it, and you’re like, “Great. Amen. This is wonderful.” On Sunday morning, and Monday morning, you got to go back to work, right? Monday morning, you got to pay bills. Monday morning, you get stuck in traffic, and all the cares and all the troubles in this life sort of distract you. You forget about it. They end up strangling you. Or you can hear it, and you can keep it. And what, you can bear fruit. You can produce good in your life.

So again, salvation here for St. Luke is something that happens during your life. It has to do with your life and how you live it. And the one who we need to be, if what we’re seeking in salvation is the one who produces fruit, we need to guard against these other things. We need to guard against the devil coming and dragging us back. We need to guard against getting so concerned about what’s going on in our lives right now that we forget about Christ and following Christ and forget about these things. We need to be careful, lest we get all on fire and all excited, and then when things kind of go back to normal, it’s just… meh.

And that’s something that, I don’t know how many folks here have experienced, it’s something that happens a lot with people who convert, whether it’s converting to Christianity or joining the Orthodox Church or that kind of some new idea, right? You get all excited about it at first, right? “This is great. This is the best thing ever.” Kind of flying high, six months go by, and then now it’s just kind of “ughh, you know…”

Or you go on a spiritual… Easter, or you go on a retreat. It’s a wonderful retreat. You’re away from everything, right? You get spiritually fired up. This is great. “I’m going back. I’m never living like that again. I’m going to make changes in my life. I’m going to do better!” And then, “meh”. It kind of wears off, right? Over and over and over again, we experience that, and Jesus is warning us about that because Jesus knows it happens, too. We need to guard against that. We need to be aware of what’s going on inside ourselves. We need to see it happening and saying, “You know what? I’m kind of planing out. I need to not lose faith during this period where I’m planing out.” Need to not walk away entirely during this period.

You need to guard against getting so concerned about these things that seem super important now. It seems super important now that I might be five minutes late to work and I’m stuck in traffic and I’m ready to kill this guy in front of me if he slams on his brakes one more time, right? That’s all consuming right now. But if I’m honest with myself, a week from now, I probably won’t even remember it because I’ll be mad at some other guy in traffic, but I won’t even remember this, right? It won’t be important, let alone in light of eternity, is this going to be something that’s super important? It’s worth losing my whole sense of peace, my whole sense of joy over this guy who’s challenged in his driving ability, who’s in front of me right now.

So Jesus is giving us this list of things to guard against, right? And then something to pursue, producing good fruit.

Interlocutor: I’m not exactly sure, but I see a collision with, for example, the church with its rules and regulations, as opposed to here is a simple spoken word of how we should behave to one another. And reading the wisdom of the Native American Indians who had no particular church, they’re not baptized, and yet their thinking and their freedom, and yet we come, we call them savages because they’re not baptized. That I bring to you again, where they go to Chief Joseph’s reservation and say, we’re going to build a church because you’re a savage. And Chief Joseph says no. And they say why not? He says because it will teach us to argue about God. And I look at the simple things that are presented.

The first thing I see is to believe in God and act accordingly. One of humility, one of acceptance. If you’re Orthodox, that’s fine, that fits you. If you are of another Christian or whatever, if you are any other denomination or religion, and you act accordingly with these teachings, then how does that fit in with the quote, “cultural liberal”

Fr. Stephen: Well, you just said “act in accordance with these teachings”. And that’s the issue. No one should think, I would say no one thinks, but no one should think, that any more than being born in Israelite meant you were in, right? That being a member of the Orthodox Church necessarily means you’re in regardless of how… But the issue we bring up, and I made this point, anytime I criticize another church or another religion, like I was just criticizing Greco-Roman paganism. Anytime I criticize that, I’m doing it because there are particular teachings that I’m criticizing. I’m not criticizing the people. I’m criticizing the teachings because those are teachings other than these teachings. Those are teachings that are going to lead you away from salvation instead of towards it.

The teachings of the Pharisees are leading people away from Christ, not towards them. And so those teachings need to be rebuked. So, in Romans 2, when we get there, eventually, St. Paul talks about Gentiles who follow the Torah, who follow the law better than many Jews do, and he says they’re a law under themselves. So there is that idea. But the problem I would have with saying somebody who’s a member of this or that church or this or that religion is “okay”, I think if those people are finding salvation, and I shouldn’t say if those people, if any particular person is finding salvation. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the second century said, “We know where the Holy Spirit is, we don’t know where he isn’t.” So I would say I know the Holy Spirit is in the Orthodox Church. I don’t know where he isn’t. I can’t say he isn’t in this or that other place. Okay?

But if those people are experiencing salvation, if any one of them is experiencing salvation, it’s not because of the teachings of the group they’re in. The bad ones, the bad teachings. It’s in spite of those teachings.

Interlocutor: Well the Roman centurion is a classic example.

Fr. Stephen: Right. The Roman centurion was not saved because of the teachings of Greco-Roman paganism. He was saved, experienced salvation and found faith in spite of the teachings of Greco-Roman paganism. We should not be preaching the Orthodox Church to people. We should be preaching Christ to people. I am just of the belief that the Orthodox Church teaches the fullness of who Christ is. That’s why I’m Orthodox. But we need to be preaching Christ to people. We need to bring people to Christ, not to a building. Even though I believe that this is the building where Christ is being preached correctly. Does that distinction make sense to you?

Interlocutor: Well there again, when you say correctly.

Fr. Stephen: Yes. Accurately. Are you going to offer me alternative facts? I shouldn’t get political.

Interlocutor: This is the problem, I think, in the Holy Gospel is how do I interpret these words to fit our lives. I understand what you say about the “right”. We’re not the only ones that thinks they’re right.

Fr. Stephen: But see, the language you already used, how do we interpret this to fit our lives? Yes. Which is making who the judge of what the Scriptures say?

Interlocutor: Or making the Holy Spirit…

Fr. Stephen: No but, the language you just used was making yourself the judge of what the scriptures say. How do I interpret this? I’m the one doing the interpreting. And how do I apply it to my life? I’m saying that’s asking the wrong question. That’s treating the text as sort of a dead static thing. There’s this text here that I need to interpret. I need to do something to it, interpret it and then apply, I’m not imputing this to you. I’m just talking about the language. It’s not like you made up that language, that’s language that’s commonly used. So I’m not attacking you in particular. Let me finish. But let me finish.

The correct question is what is Christ saying to me? This is why when you read the Church Fathers, you’ll notice as we go through this Bible study, I don’t read a verse and then say “St. John Chrysostom says this means this”. And then I read the next verse and say “St. Gregory the Theologian says this means this”. Because the truth is, if you really read the church fathers, not only do different fathers interpret the same verse completely different ways in different circumstances, the same church father will interpret the same verse completely different ways in different circumstances. Because the question they’re asking is not what does this set of Greek words in this order mean? And then how do I apply it? The question they’re asking is what is God saying to me and to the people to whom I’m speaking right now through this verse?

And tomorrow, with one set of situations, speaking to one group of people that might be completely different than it is today in this set of circumstances with this group of people. There might be something completely different that it’s important for this group of people to hear than it is for this group of people to hear. But that’s the question they’re asking. The question they’re asking is what is God saying? What is Christ saying to these people here right now, at this moment? That’s why I go off on these long digressions, because it’s not just that I like hearing myself talk or I ramble, I do ramble and I do like hearing myself talk live, not recorded. I can’t stand listening to myself recorded, but live, I like hearing myself talk. But it’s because… the reason I moved from text to preaching is because I’m hoping. And what I’m hoping to do is, for the people here at least, because I don’t know who might listen to it later or when, but for the people here at least, I’m trying to bring something out of the text that might apply to them now, today.

Interlocutor: You’re going to dislike this…

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Shoot.

Interlocutor: If you heard a reading today, Paul is speaking to Timothy, from the salvation of all, and what does he say, those who believe in God.

Fr. Stephen: Christ is the salvation of all men, especially those who believe. Yeah, we’ll talk about that more when we get there. But what does salvation mean?

This is what we’ve just been talking about. What does salvation mean for St. Paul? It doesn’t mean going to heaven when you die. It’s not what he’s saying. He’s not saying Jesus’s death and resurrection means everyone goes to heaven when they die, and they especially go to heaven if they have faith. That’s not what he’s saying. Salvation is something that’s experienced and lived out in the human life. And Christ, through Christ’s death and resurrection, his defeat of Satan, his defeat of death, the transformation of the world that’s taken place since the Gospel has gone forth into the world. The world we live in today, even the secular world, even the atheistic world that hates Christianity, is very different than the Greco-Roman world I was describing a few minutes ago. And that’s because of the influence of the Gospel. Every human being who has lived since Christ’s death and resurrection has had a fundamentally different experience of life because of Christ. Especially those who have faith in Christ to become Christians. That’s what St. Paul is saying to St. Timothy, there.

And now I’ve rambled on and listened to myself talk and out of time so we could continue our discussion afterwards. Person who I won’t name for the recording, but thank you everybody and we’ll pick up here in chapter 8.