A Bible Study on St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, inspired by the Homilies of St John Chrysostom. This session was originally live stream Tuesday, September 12, 2023, in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Christ made a promise that everyone who believes in Christ will have eternal life. Just as He promised in the Old Testament when Moses was leading the People of God in the wilderness, God promises us that if we look at Christ on the Cross with faith, we will have eternal life. Even if we are wounded by life, God’s promise is power and His Cross is life.

A Bible Study on St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, inspired by the Homilies of St John Chrysostom. This session was originally live stream Tuesday, September 5, 2023, in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

We check the price of everything before we choose to invest our time and money. The same thing goes for heaven. We want to know how much it will cost for us to get to heaven. In the Gospel of Matthew 19.16-26 we hear that wealth stopped a rich man from following Christ into heaven. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” For the rich man, it was not worth his money to follow Christ. He loved his money more than God. For others it could be power or prestige or social position. Anything that we love more than God is the price of heaven. God wants us to ‘give up’ everything we love more than Him, and follow Him into heaven. Sound impossible? “With God, all things are possible.”

We all want to know. We have been asking from a young age. Without thinking, too often we think we can’t know what heaven will look like. The problem is that God has already told us what to expect, every time He was asked. “The kingdom of Heaven is like…” Heaven look the same as when we forgive each other, no matter how small or large our sin might be.

On the Feast of Transfiguration, the Church celebrates the Light of Christ. On Mount Tabor Christ appeared as bright as the sun, but the disciples were not harmed because God protected them. God allows us to see His Light as much as we can bear. The world is competing with God by showing us images of light of destruction. On the day the world celebrates the Transfiguration of Christ, the world displayed the light of destruction over Hiroshima. Let’s end summer by focusing on the Light of Christ rather than the light of the world. Then we can take the Light of Christ out into the world to bring hope and love to the world.

When Christ invited the first disciples to follow Him, He called them to a job. He called them to become fishers of men, to bring people into the Church. Today we are called by Christ to bring people to Christ. We are not just supposed to bring them into our community, but into Christ. The disciples dropped everything and followed Christ. Together they went, and Jesus healed many. Together with us, Christ can heal those we bring back to Him.

When we accept the invitation to become saints, we must also accept the challenge of a life willing to give it all up for God. We must live the life of the Church which has been guided by the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. A life of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is meant to help us take up our cross and become saints. It is not an easy life, but it is the life of the Saints.