Obedience (and Love)
- Michael Haldas
- 16 hours ago
- 3 min read
“Just as Christ deepens our understanding of the Law in spiritual terms, so Saint Paul advises us to rid ourselves of all reluctance and compulsion. The freedom of our life in Christ arises from sowing the word of His kingdom in our hearts without sparing, so that our harvest may be bountiful in cheerfulness and giving love without stint (2 Cor 9:7).” (Dynamis 10/24/2021)
“We always have a choice in how we respond to any situation in life. Think about the rich young man in Mark 10:17-22 (// Matthew 19:16-22) who asks Jesus “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He is only able to think in terms of laws, rules, requirements – what he must do to fulfill Torah. He does not think in terms of love and what he can do or choose. Jesus sees the man’s spiritual dilemma and offers him a command on the man’s own terms of obeying a rule – if you want to be perfect, sell your many possessions and give the money to the poor. The man walks away from Christ not willing to obey a command to impoverish himself in order to give to the poor. He asked the wrong question because he thought in the wrong way, completely hamstrung by thinking only in terms of obedience to rules rather than motivated by love. A better question for him would have been, “What can I do with all the blessings God has given me in order to enter into eternal life?” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Contrary to our expectations, there is no ‘must.’ Such a word does not exist within the Christian life. The idea that something ‘must’ be, or ‘must’ take place, is a product of the intellect; it is something that I arrive at as a theological conclusion, a deduction based on something in the Gospels, or which Christ taught in His parables, or with respect to His ethical teachings to do this or that. But the word ‘must’ has never moved anyone to do anything. On the contrary, it makes you feel like a slave and discourages you from moving forward. The force of ‘must’ moves neither God, nor the heart. It pertains only to the logic of human deliberation, to the endurance of human determination, which as we all know, is something that unravels and comes apart very easily.” (Archimandrite Aimilianos)
“Similarly, obedience in the spiritual life is not usually what we have made it to be–a martial and military affair of blindly following a command. Rather, we should normally translate the word “obedience” as fidelity, or faithfulness. Because when we are attempting to be faithful to another person, or in expressing undying love to another person, we can see how law and freedom are unified by some third force, some higher catalyzing power. A love that is stronger than death is a love that is the highest law, the force to which all else must submit–including obedience itself.” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“When a person is attentive to obedience and humility, Christ freely bestows the grace of the Holy Spirit on him. But He wants us to love Him fervently, not falsely. Just as when we love someone very much, we pay careful attention to him, adorn him, and try to protect him; we must also love Christ like this. Christ does not want many things from us. He only wants us to occupy our nous with spiritual things throughout the day, rather than busying ourselves with grumbling and worldly things.” (Gerondissa Makrina Vassopoulou)
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