Entering St Matthew’s Gospel
We set our feet today upon the vestibule of St Matthew’s Gospel.
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We set our feet today upon the vestibule of St Matthew’s Gospel.
Entering St Matthew’s Gospel
We set our feet today upon the vestibule of St Matthew’s Gospel.
Not as those escaping Pharoah who were told to wash their garments when approaching a mountain on fire and all a smoke.
Instead we wipe clean the vestment of our souls to behold the beauty of heaven itself.
For it is not blackness, nor smoke, nor storm we face as with Moses.
But the King Himself sitting on His throne surrounded by angels, archangels, and the tribes of saints.
A war is about to unfold in Matthew’s Gospel between darkness and light, evil and good, between the ancient tyrant and the promised conqueror.
God leaps down from heaven and takes up His arms.
The devil sets himself in array, not against God unveiled, but God hidden in man’s nature, the especial mark of Messiah.
We shall see in Matthew’s Gospel the tyrant bound hand and foot, thrown out of heaven, his captives released from the chains of disgrace.
Nothing here in Matthew of the nonsense of Plato’s “Republic” who framed a ridiculous law.
This Plato, who recommended women common to all, bearing children with fathers unknown, inscribes in himself a soul deluded by vanity.
Not so in Matthew.
But a polity that joins man with woman, child with father, wife with husband raising sons and daughters aspiring to eternal life.
No vain show as Plato parades does Matthew display but tags himself a tax collector, “publican,” that hated name in Israel under Rome.
Though a Levite possessing the priesthood, Matthew disdains the honor and classifies himself with those who bear dishonor.
Rightly so.
For in tracing the ancestry of Jesus Christ, upon citing concisely the patriarchs, Matthew skips over Sarah and Rebecca, and recites the names of women famed for some bad thing.
If any a harlot, Rahab;
A woman estranged, Ruth;
An adulteress, a mother by fornication, Bathsheba;
A widow by a stolen intercourse wearing the mask of a prostitute, Thamar.
These Matthew selects, not those famed for virtue.
To have such kinsfolk is why Jesus came.
He came not to escape our disgraces but to bear them away.
Divinity takes on humanity with its flaws and faults, its lesions and wounds.
For Jesus came not as Judge but as Physician.
For it is impossible for the sick man—from Adam till now—to be healed unless partaking of Holy Communion, the “medicine of immortality,” administered at the Spiritual hospital known as the Orthodox Church, established by Jesus Christ, as Matthew recites.
“Glad tidings” indeed.
The “Gospel” According To Saint Matthew!
God on earth, man in heaven, the curse blotted out, punishment reprieved, forgiveness granted, righteousness implanted, all imparted without fatigue and toil on the part of man.
“The Book Of The Generation Of Jesus Christ.”
This, Matthew opens his Gospel with, though it’s not just about the birth.
For the genealogy of Jesus Christ is the whole sum of God’s plan.
The Seed of the woman, promised in Genesis—Who would crush the head of Satan—secretly proceeds, unimpeded by the misdeeds of man, from generation to generation.
For when some noxious secretion spreads unseen beneath the pores of the body, until it surfaces—so as not to apply medicines hardening the flesh—does the wise physician treat it.
Thus, in the fullness of time, generations proceeding persistently, when every wickedness had reached its utmost height, God, according to His plan, becomes man.
For, “The birth of Jesus Christ,” Matthew writes, “was on this wise.”
Born of a virgin—“almah,” the Hebrew word aptly used by Isaiah, that always signifies a virgin—”Emmanuel,” “God With Us,” God wrapping Himself in man.
This the prophets foretold, this Abraham was promised, this David was vouchsafed of the fruit of his belly, this women estranged yearned to share in.
Christ our God bears in His Person our humanity—diseased with mortality destined unto dust—heals it, transfigures it, and raises it to immortality.
This, I, born in Judaism, marvel in, embrace, and long to see that genealogy that Matthew recites.
For upon reading the opening chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel in 1971, I was convinced that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
Then I called my rabbi and all hell broke loose.
Matthew starts with his beginning.
Thus I started mine.
Hi Brother. I moved from an unincorporated area in the desert of southern California, to Pocatello, on January 1st. Priest River, is SO far away!
Very Inspirational Brother +BN. So much Peace can be bestowed upon Mankind, just knowing there will be something Grand ahead.
Brother Nate, there is a lot of disinfo (fake news) about what all the Greek philosophers said. In particular Plato.
For example, the mainstream Jewish fake history has us believing that Plato was pro homosexual, when in reality he was dead set against homosexuality. This is pure projection from the Talmudists.
Check out Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson’s site the Orthodox Nationalist. There you will learn the whole truth about the Greek philosophers.
Thanks so much. Your most unique than rare testimony as an Orthodox Christian monk of Jewish origin is very precious, because you can give so much to “Gentile” Christians, (and to Goym in general) , as only a Jew who has understood Jesus, his brother in the flesh, can give. The Son of God is a 100% Jewish, and, like St. Paul says, Gentiles must be very grateful to the people in which God incarnate Himself.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. – John 14,6
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, T the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” – John 17,3.
Jesus was neither Gentile nor Jew as such–how is God of any particular religion? Jesus originally came for the Jews, but his Mission widened to be all-inclusive of the Gentiles. How do you be grateful to a people that rejected Jesus?
Not all of them rejected Jesus. There was a righteous remnant (the elect) that accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. This righteous remnant were the 1st Fruits of the New Covenant Messianic age of the Church.
There are so many things I could say, Bro Nat. The best way to sum it all up is, WOW! All these years of waiting for your teachings and study’s. Wow!
Brother Nathanael, I had no idea what an Orthodox Christian was, 6-8 years when I first started watching your videos on YouTube (yes, you could watch those on YouTube back then), but I thought you were on target and interesting. Then I bumped into a couple more Orthodox online, whom I also admired.
Long story short, I was chrismated this past April and have never looked back. I look forward to your new Channel-please post notices on Gab when you do so I will not miss any of them.
“For the genealogy of Jesus Christ is the whole sum of God’s plan. The Seed of the woman, promised in Genesis—Who would crush the head of Satan—secretly proceeds, unimpeded by the misdeeds of man, from generation to generation.”
Please clarify, Brother. Who are saying will crush the serpents head: Jesus Christ or His Mother?
The Hebrew Scripture and the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation both state grammatically, as each is translated into English, that it is the seed of the woman, not her, who will crush the head of the serpent.
That “he (the seed of the woman) shall watch (or hurt, bruise, crush) against thy (the serpent’s) head, and thou (the serpent) shalt watch (or hurt, bruise, strike) against his (the Seed of the woman’s) heel. All translations in the Eastern Orthodox Church and of the Eastern Churches since ancient times in general depend on the LXX from the earliest days of Christ and the Apostles. Whatever language the Old Testament is translated to, it translates the the verse the same — it is the seed of the woman who is the Serpent-Crusher, and not the woman herself.
The 16th century Douay–Rheims Bible, an English translation from the Latin Vulgate, is the only language edition in the entire world that I know of which uses the variant feminine pronouns—”she” and “her”—implying that the woman is the person being described, and not her male Seed.
The variant probably originated as a copyist’s error, when a scribe failed to note that the subject of the verse had shifted from the woman to the seed of the woman.
Logically, too, if it was the woman who was prophetically the Serpent-Crusher, then what role in the divine plan did her male Seed (singular) have?