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edited December 2012 in Faith Issues
some rubbish life is too complicated

Comments

  • I think you have misunderstand the verse (Matthew 11:11).

    The Lord Christ here is referring to Himself, as He was less in age to John the Baptist and yet obviously greater than he.

    Here is the commentary from St. John Chrysostom:

    [quote author=St. John Chrysostom, Homily 37 on the Gospel of St. Matthew]
    Now what He said is like this: “woman hath not borne a greater than this man.” And His very sentence is indeed sufficient; but if thou art minded to learn from facts also, consider his table, his manner of life, the height of his soul. For he so lived as though he were in heaven: and having got above the necessities of nature, he travelled as it were a new way, spending all his time in hymns and prayers, and holding intercourse with none among men, but with God alone continually. For he did not so much as see any of his fellow-servants, neither was he seen by any one of them; he fed not on milk, he enjoyed not the comfort of bed, or roof, or market, or any other of the things of men; and yet he was at once mild and earnest. Hear, for example, how considerately he reasons with his own disciples, courageously with the people of the Jews, how openly with the king. For this cause He said also, “There hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist.”

    3. But lest the exceeding greatness of His praises should produce a sort of extravagant feeling, the Jews honoring John above Christ; mark how He corrects this also. For as the things which edified His own disciples did harm to the multitudes, they supposing Him an easy kind of person; so again the remedies employed for the multitudes might have proved more mischievous, they deriving from Christ’s words a more reverential opinion of John than of Himself.

    Wherefore this also, in an unsuspected way, He corrects by saying, “He that is less,in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.” Less in age, and according to the opinion of the multitude, since they even called Him “a gluttonous man and a winebibber;”and, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?”and on every occasion they used to make light of Him.

    “What then?” it may be said, “is it by comparison that He is greater than John?” Far from it. For neither when John saith, “He is mightier than I,”doth he say it as comparing them; nor Paul, when remembering Moses he writes, “For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses,”doth he so write by way of comparison; and He Himself too, in saying, “Behold, a greater than  Solomon is here,”speaks not as making a comparison.

    Or if we should even grant that this was said by Him in the way of comparison, this was done in condescension, because of the weakness of the hearers. For the men really had their gaze very much fixed upon John; and then he was rendered the more illustrious both by his imprisonment, and by his plainness of speech to the king; and it was a great point for the present, that even so much should be received among the multitude. And so too, the Old Testament uses in the same way to correct the souls of the erring, by putting together in a way of comparison things that cannot be compared; as when it saith, “Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord:” and again, “There is no god like our God.”

    Source.
  • I was not talking about being more faithful than John the Baptist but having the same graces and even more than John the Baptist

    "And of His fullness we have all received grace for grace"

    Even though we do not love God with all our strength if we love Him with all our heart we have the Holy Spirit we are not to tell Him to go away. Not that we must not struggle to repent but we rise from each fall
  • Nothing, other than rubbish, is rubbish. Please don't call any bit of valuable information as rubbish.

    Do you know of the Rosetta stone? Of course you do! What does it speak about? A new king and a party to celebrate in all of Egypt, in a very descriptive matter. You might call that a waste and rubbish but without the Rosetta stone, with its three translations of the same text, we would know very little of the hieratic and demotic languages.

    Your post could have been in a similar position!
  • I had a one sentence post to me it is not rubbish but I thought it was harsh

    If you are not greater than John the Baptist you are not even the least that is you are not part of the kingdom
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