The Living Word: How Scripture Ignites the Heart and Transforms Prayer

In Orthodox Christianity Scripture is not seen merely as text or tradition, but as a living, active force that engages and changes those who delve into its depths. The Word of God, particularly as expressed in the Gospel commandments, kindles a profound spiritual fire in the hearts of the faithful, enhancing their prayer life and drawing them closer to divine realities.

The Transformative Effect of God's Word

When believers delight in the Scriptures and meditate on the Gospel commandments, they find that these words are not static; they are "quickening"—they breathe life into those who embrace them. The Word of Christ "dwells richly" within us when we commit to studying and reflecting on the Gospel, which is described as "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). This vivid imagery captures the penetrating and transformative capacity of God's Word to reach deep into our hearts, cutting through superficiality and complacency.

The Experience of Prayer Enkindled by Scripture

As one meditates on the Word during prayer, a unique transformation occurs: the heart warms and a spiritual fire ignites. This ignited Word becomes quickened within, granting prayer unprecedented strength. This is not merely a metaphorical warmth but a palpable spiritual experience that many faithful describe as feeling the presence of God more acutely. The act of prayer, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit, then becomes a means of renewing the whole life of the believer. In this state, the heart is not only warmed but set aflame with a profound desire for the Beloved—God Himself.

Living in the Presence of God

For those deeply engaged with Scripture, the presence of God becomes a constant reality. Such individuals may walk on earth, but their minds and spirits dwell in Heaven. This dual existence is a hallmark of the saints and mystics within the Church, who, though physically present in the world, live a life that is oriented toward and filled with heavenly realities.

The Role of the Commandments in Revealing Christ

The commandments of God are not just rules or guidelines; they are revelations of the humble way of Christ and a means to encounter His divine Countenance. Those who take up their cross and follow the path laid out by Christ find that their hearts are increasingly consumed by His presence and love. This journey alongside Christ not only illuminates the Scriptures, making them comprehensible and alive but also reveals the divine precepts as a Light upon the earth—a holy and wondrous illumination that guides believers throughout their lives.

Praying for Guidance by the Divine Light

In response to this profound interaction with God’s Word, believers pray earnestly that this holy Light will guide their steps every day until they reach eternal life. This prayer is not just for personal enlightenment but for the grace to live according to the divine will, embodying the teachings of Christ in every action and decision.

Conclusion: The Word as a Path to Divine Union

In summary, the Word of God in Orthodox Christianity is a source of life, strength, and transformation. It ignites a spiritual fire in the hearts of the faithful, enhancing their prayer life and enabling them to experience the luminous presence of God. Through the Scriptures and the following of Christ's commandments, believers are drawn into a closer union with the Divine, walking a path marked by heavenly realities even as they live out their earthly lives. This journey, fueled by the living Word, is one of continual spiritual ascent, guided by the light of Christ towards the ultimate destination of eternal communion with God.

Reference: Alive From the Dead: Homilies on Great Lent, Archemandrite Zacharias Zacharou

What is proper relationship between Scripture and Holy Tradition?

Protestants the Orthodox have different views on the relationship between Holy Tradition and Scripture. While both recognize the authority and importance of Scripture in knowing the truth, agreeing they are  inspired by God, but written in human language, there are differences in how they approach the role of Holy Tradition.

Protestant view: They generally emphasize Scripture as the final and only authority in matters of faith and practice. They uphold the sufficiency and clarity of Scripture as the sole guide for Christian belief, salvation, and a Christian way of life.  

Orthodox Christian view: They see the New Testament as born out of Holy Tradition, which encompasses the living transmission of the faith of the Apostles. This includes not only the teachings, but also the way of life and worship of the early church. Holy Tradition serves as the foundation for understanding Scripture which is read and interpreted in the context of Tradition. 

Holy Tradition and Scripture are inseparable. Holy tradition does not contradict Scripture but is the basis for fully understanding it. Neglecting Holy Tradition, as seen in various Protestant churches, has led to the proliferation of many different  interpretations and denominations.  In contrast, the Orthodox Church views  Holy Tradition as fundamental to understanding Scripture. It serves as a unifying and stabilizing force for the commonality of belief, practices, and way of life among Orthodox communities worldwide. 

Oral teaching was the beginning. When Saint Paul and other Apostles brought the Gospel to the world, they conveyed it through oral teaching. The Lord entrusted the Apostles with oral teachings before His ascension. His teachings contained more than a set of intellectual beliefs, but included an entire way of life the early followers called “the Way” (Acts 9:2).

In those times oral teaching was the preferred way because you could not always trust written documents because you did not know the writer. Oral was preferred because you knew the teacher.

Holy Tradition is not only a compliment or addition to Scripture. Nor is it a set of antiquated customs mindlessly repeated, but is a shared belief and experience of a life in Christ known by the apostles and passed on the the early church followers. Instead, for  Orthodox Christians, Tradition is more than mere historical information. It cannot be separated from Scripture. Scripture is the expression of the Holy Tradition. It  does not stand over Scripture, nor does Scripture include the entirety of Holy Tradition. 

The agreement on the final canon of the New Testament took many years. It required a consensus of the entire Christian community. It was not until the fourth century that the majority of the Christian community recognized the 27 books that now comprise the New Testament as Scripture. This  consensus was then supported by the teachings of the early Church Fathers, the decisions of local and ecumenical councils, and the collective wisdom of the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through this process what became Scripture emerged from the early Church. However, what was written was never the sole basis of their worship, practice, or way of life. The practices and way of life were well established before there were any written documents.

Holy Tradition in comprehensive. It encompasses the form of worship rooted in the practices of the early Church. The hymns, prayers and liturgies used in Orthodox services contain truth and have been preserved from Apostolic times.  Today the liturgy of Saint John Chryssostom, dating back to the 4th century, is widely used in Orthodox worship.

Why was Tradition rejected in the 16th century Reformation? At that time there were practices in the Roman Church that some reformers, including Martin Luther, believed to be inconsistent with what they understood as Holy Tradition. They criticized certain doctrines, practices, and abuses within the Roman Church, such as indulgences, the sale of ecclesiastical offices, and the perceived deviation from biblical teachings. Advocating for a return to what they believed were the authentic teachings and practices of the early Church, the doctrine of “Sola Scriptura” emerged asserting that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority and sufficient guide for Christian belief and practice. This was seen as a means to guard against the potential abuses or deviations they perceived in the Roman Church at that time. The reformers aimed to highlight the clarity, sufficiency, and accessibility of Scripture, advocating for the individuals to have direct access to the Word of God. 

The Reformation itself was not a monolithic movement. Various Protestant traditions emerged with their own interpretations of the relationship between Scripture and tradition. The rejection of the integral view of Tradition and Scripture and the development of sola Scriptura were influenced by a combination of theological, historical, and ecclesiastical factors. As a result there are widely differing views on the role of Holy Tradition. 

For Orthodox Christians, Holy Tradition is seen as essential. It is necessary for  preserving the teachings and way of life that Jesus taught the Apostles, which were then passed down to the early followers and established the early Church. The reference to the “one, holy, apostolic church” in the Creed,  emphasizes the belief in the continuity of the apostolic Church through the ages. The Orthodox Church is the continuation of that apostolic Church. It upholds the teachings, practices, and spiritual life that have been handed down through Holy Tradition.  Holy Tradition is the guiding principle for understanding Scripture, maintaining commonality in belief, practices and way of life among Orthodox communities worldwide.

 

How to Read Scripture - Elder Aimilianos

When one undertakes to examine Scripture in an idle, intellectual way, he creates hatred and quarreling.

Elder Aimilianos says this because the intellectual study of Scripture does not help us to know our sins, but instead turns our intellectual faculties to focus on concepts and issues related to our study of Scripture. This intellectual  knowledge does not help us come closer to God. It does no more than emphasize our personal opinions and leads us to fell self-sufficient in our personal understanding. 

He says,

This kind of approach to Scripture immediately places you in conflict with others; it opposes your will and opinion to theirs, prompting you to disagree and argue with them...The correct way is to read Scripture with simplicity and to allow God to tell us what He wants to tell us.

When we develop our own opinions and become attached to them he says this blocks our ability to “receive anything from God.” We are mired in our own ego centered views wanting to prove that we know what is the correct interpretation from a logical and intellectual perspective. It only encourages us to enter into debate and arguments which can lead to making enemies.

He says,

It’s one thing to read Scripture because you want to collect information, and another thing to read because you want to acquire it’s true contents, that is, the Holy Spirit...The criterion for your study should be this: the way you read the Bible should bring peace to your heart, communion with God, love of neighbors, and the consciousness of your own sinfulness: the recognition of how unworthy and ill-prepared you are to stand before God.

Ref: Psalms and the Life of Faith, by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Ten Points for an Orthodox Way of Life

On Reading Scripture

“When one undertakes to examine Scripture in an idle, intellectual way, he creates hatred and quarreling. Why? Because the intellect approach to Scripture does not help us to turn and reflect on our sins, but instead makes us focus on problems and concepts related to the study of  Scripture, with the result that our logical and intellectual faculties are aroused to no real purpose. “Knowledge” by itself does not add anything. On the contrary, it encourages the cultivation of the individual and his private sense of things; it fosters the self-sufficiency of his personal opinions, which he then seeks to justify and impose on others. This kind of approach to Scripture immediately places you in conflict with others; it opposes your will and opinion to theirs, prompting you to disagree and argue with them, and to make enemies of your brothers. Filled as I am with my own opinions about things, I am not able to receive anything from God.

The correct way is to read Scripture with simplicity and to allow God to tell us what he wants to tell us. It’s one thing to read Scripture because you want to collect information, and another thing to read it because you want to acquire its true content, that is, the Holy Spirit. This kind of knowledge is the life of God (cf. Jn. 17:3), the entry and extension of God into our life; it is God’s descent and dwelling among us. We can judge whether or not our study of Scripture is authentic based on the number of tears we shed when we study. To be sure, I can also read Scripture without shedding tears, and without a strong sense of my sins, but with the hope that God’s grace, through the reading of Scripture, will break open my hardened heart. Read Scripture, then, but don’t forget about your sins and reduce Scripture to an object of intellectual inquiry, for at that point it ceases being the word of God and you start seeing it as something human. The criterion for your study should be this: the way you read the Bible should bring peace to your heart, communion with God, love of neighbors, and the consciousness of your own sinfulness: the recognition of how unworthy and ill-prepared you are to stand before God.”

Elder Aimilianos, On Abba Isaiah

Reference

Is Scripture Sufficient to Guide Us to Salvation?

When this question was posed to Elder Cleopa of Romania he said the following:

No, it is not sufficient to guide man to salvation, inasmuch as , firstly, it wasn't given to man from the beginning and , secondly, when it was given it wasn't the only authentic text, with regard to salvation of human souls, because before there was Holy Tradition.  Many years before Moses began writing the first books of the Old Testament, there was a sacred piety in the community of people of Israel.  Similarly, the books of the New Testament began to be written ten years after the formal foundation of he Church which took place on the day of Pentecost. The Church chose and sealed as inspired by God the books of the two Testaments over one hundred years later.

It wasn't until the fifth century that we had the book called the New Testament as we now know it. In 419 AD there was a council of 217 Bishops who gathered in Carthage and who established a canon which determined the books to be included.  The Book of Revelation remained in dispute for many years later and thus was not included in the lectionary of the eastern Church for reading in Church services.
Holy scripture is still the most important document in the Church.  What we call Holy Tradition shows us how to interpret what it says.  No one individual has the right or ability to interpret Scripture.  This is reserved for the Church collectively.  Think about how Christ gave out the information that is included in the Scripture.  He gave it to His disciples, not to he masses, for them to teach.  And so it is still to this day.  Those who have been properly trained and received the gift of ordination have the ability to proclaim the teachings with the proper interpretations.


Elder Cleopa expresses it this way:

Our Apostle Paul says: " How shall they preach, except they be sent?" Accordingly, the bishops are the lawful successors to the Apostles and those went for the preaching to the people.  Paul entrusts the heavy burden of the instruction of the people to Timothy and not to the faithful.  He speaks of this elsewhere: "Are all Apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?" Again he says to Timothy that the clergy must be "apt to teach" others. He does not, however, say the same thing for the faithful.  He makes a distinction between shepherd and sheep, between teacher and those taught.  Still, the teachers cannot each whatever they would like, but that which the Church teaches universally.  They teach in the name of the church and of Christ. Not everyone has the intellectual ability and the requisite divine grace necessary to expound Holy Scripture correctly.  The Apostle Peter also says this in his second epistle... "There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own distraction, as they do the other scriptures."

We are bombarded in these times with many who call themselves Christians who believe that anyone can interpret scripture and who blatantly ignore the interpretations handed down by the Church and abhor the term Holy Tradition. They have made such distortions to the point of even rejecting the Sacraments, especially the sacrament of Holy Communion.  The Holy Tradition of the Church is vast and rich allowing us to know the meaning of Scripture as it was intended by the Apostles.  It includes much more than the Books of the Testaments.  It also includes they teachings that have been incorporated in visual form in our icons and in hymnology as well as the writings of the Church Fathers. We must be cautious of Bible study programs that take place outside of the Church. Many introduce distorted teachings that not only negate the sacramental life of the Church, but also the ascetic practices such as fasting. The water down the Orthodox way of life as taught by the Apostles necessary for our spiritual growth in Christ.


Elder Cleopa warns:

Holy Scripture is like a very deep well wherein is comprised the infinite wisdom of God.  If someone thirsty dives into this well to drink all of its water, he will be drowned within.  If, however, he will fetch the water with a bucket and from there will drink from a cup, then there is not fear of being engulfed.

He then reminds us of the Scripture passage about the eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was reading the prophet Isaiah when the Apostle Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading.  And he replied,"How can I, except some man should guide me?"


God revealed His word not to just anyone.  Elder Cleopa explains:

He revealed His wisdom to those who , with respect to good works, were perfect and had innocence of infants.  That's why Paul counsels the Corinthians as follows: "Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be ye men." 

 Reference: The Truth of our Faith, pp 45 - 51