“It is easy to have a facility with doctrine and Christian thought. However, that same facility can be deeply misleading. It is possible to mistake such knowledge for saving knowledge. At the same time, it is not uncommon to disregard such things as kindness, generosity, and gentleness as nothing more than “morality.” The Christian life cannot be divided in such a manner. Saving knowledge is manifest as the character of Christ within us. Without this knowledge (which is synonymous with “character”) everything we take to be “knowledge,” such as doctrine and Scripture, will be woefully misunderstood, even to the point where it is working death within us.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“What does it mean “to know?” Like English, Greek has various ways of speaking about knowing. Among them are to observe, to discern, to discover, to be aware of, and to recognize, but there are two words that define each other as opposites. The first comes from the root “to see” and means to perceive by observation…By such perception, we know the things of the world around us. The second is to know someone in a relationship…The closer our relationship, the more we know the person. We know Christ in this later sense. We can be familiar with the Lord and learn all about Him. But the knowledge of Christ that brings salvation and eternal life is much more than having His acquaintance. It is to have a deep and growing relationship with Him, a relationship of the heart that knows His heart.” (Fr. Basil)
“Christ has been here before us and He has built bridges for all the way – the bridge from sin to forgiveness, from despair to hope, from doubt to faith, from death to life. His apostles have passed His saving knowledge to us and Christ expects us like His Apostles to hand down this Holy Faith.” (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese)
“The Scriptures are not a place to do research about Christ or to study historical beliefs about the Messiah and Jesus’ fulfillment of that role. Through the Scriptures we encounter the risen, living Christ directly, just as those saints, prophets, and apostles about whom we read encountered Him in ages past. Through Christ, we see who God, the Holy Trinity, is. We come to understand the character of God and how He has acted in His creation throughout its history. This attunes our spiritual senses to be able to encounter Him anew in all our life in creation today.” (Fr. Stephen De Young)
“…it is impossible to impress God by being extremely religious or trying to earn a reward by doing enough good deeds of any kind. Our calling, instead, is humbly to embrace His healing to the point that we radiate His selfless love to other people. The more our character conforms to His, the more we will spontaneously offer ourselves to build relationships of love with our neighbors. To do so means that we will be able to say truthfully, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20)” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
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