envy

St Basil on Social Justice: Assisting the Poor During a Famine in a Roman Province
Cappodocian Church Fathers

St Basil on Social Justice: Assisting the Poor During a Famine in a Roman Province

10/04/2024 Bruce Strom 0

St Basil teaches us: “If you also give from your lack, you will have the vessel of oil ever flowing by the gift of mercy and the inexhaustible jar of flour. For the faithful, the grace of God zealously imitates these vessels, ever poured out yet never exhausted, returning double for what is given. Lend, you who lack, to the rich God. Have faith in the one who always personally undertakes the cause of the oppressed and makes recompense from his own resources.” […]

Was St Basil WOKE? St Basil the Great On Social Justice, Parable of the Rich Fool
Cappodocian Church Fathers

Was St Basil WOKE? St Basil the Great On Social Justice, Parable of the Rich Fool

10/03/2024 Bruce Strom 0

St Basil teaches us that whether we receive sufferings or blessings, both these should increase our two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor. St Basil teaches us:
“Temptations come in two forms. Sometimes affliction proves the heart like gold in a furnace, testing its purity by means of suffering. But for many, it is prosperity of life that is the greatest trial. For it is equally difficult to preserve one’s soul from despair in hard times, and to prevent it from becoming arrogant in prosperous circumstances.”
Who benefits more, those who contribute, or those who receive? St Basil teaches us, Through the fruits of your good works, “you produce for yourself, since the grace of good works redounds to those who perform them. You gave to the poor, and in so doing not only did you make what you gave truly your own, but you received back even more. For just as grain, when it falls upon the ground, brings forth an increase for the one who scatters it, thus also bread cast to the hungry yields considerable profit at a later time.” […]

St Basil On Social Justice To the Rich SMALL
Cappodocian Church Fathers

St Basil the Great, On Social Justice, His Homily to the Rich

09/29/2024 Bruce Strom 2

St Basil speaks to the Rich Young Man: “It is thus evident that you are far from fulfilling the commandment, and that you bear false witness within your own soul that you have loved your neighbor as yourself. Look, the Lord’s offer shows just how distant you are from true love! For it what you say is true, that you have kept from your youth the commandment of love and have given to everyone the same as to yourself, then how did you come by this abundance of wealth?”
“The more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love. If you had truly loved your neighbor, it would have occurred to you long ago to divest yourself of this wealth. But now your possessions are more a part of you than the members of your own body, and separation from them is as painful as the amputation of one of your limbs.”
St Basis warns the wealthy: If you have “sound judgment, you should should recognize that you have received wealth as a stewardship, and not for your own enjoyment; thus, when you are parted from it, you rejoice as those who relinquish what is not really theirs, instead of becoming downcast like those who are stripped of their own.” […]

Summary of Mere Christianity, WWII Ecumenical Broadcast: Morality, Not Polemics
CS Lewis

Summary of CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity, WWII Ecumenical Broadcast: Morality Not Polemics

06/14/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Many scholars speculate on whether CS Lewis was inspired by the writings of Richard Baxter, a Puritan and prolific author who first coined the phrase “Mere Christianity.” Baxter lived during the intense religious struggle in the late 1600’s, a century after Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church to form the Anglican Church. Baxter was appointed to the royal chaplaincy, but he left his post after the passage of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, which required that all pastors exclusively use the Book of Common Prayer and be ordained as Anglican ministers. Baxter was reluctant to adopt a denomination, proclaiming that “I am a Christian, a MEER CHRISTIAN, of no other religion,” and “I am against all sects and dividing parties.” He did not want to identify either with Catholics, or Anglicans, or Presbyterians. […]

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity: Forgiveness, Pride, and Envy. Can Pride Ever Be Good?
CS Lewis

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity: Forgiveness, Pride, and Envy. Can Pride Ever Be Good?

06/06/2024 Bruce Strom 1

CS Lewis notes that in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer we pray: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” He observes: “There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive, we shall not be forgiven.”
Indeed, immediately after the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, Jesus exhorts us: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” […]

Do Not Steal: Dr Laura and Her Rabbi Stewart Vogel on Ten Commandments, and Excuses People Make
Command 7 Do Not Steal

Do Not Steal and Excuses People Make: Dr Laura and Her Rabbi Stewart Vogel on Ten Commandments

03/22/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Dr Laura opens this reflection: “People spend a lot of time redefining stealing in order to increase their comfort zone as they assert themselves in a world of needs, wants, possessions, power struggles, fame, fortune, desire, envy, loss, hurt, greed, and antisocial personalities.” This observation implies that many people steal because they feel that they are being taken advantage of, or they themselves were the target of loss, hurt, and greed, and they want to get even with the world, though she does not develop this thought in depth. […]

Hesiod Works and Days
Philosophy

Hesiod: Works and Days, Early Greek Moral Philosophy

03/10/2023 Bruce Strom 2

Hesiod is a grouchy old farmer who mistrusts ‘lords’” but does not advocate changing the society. “He believes in justice, honesty, conventional piety, self-reliance, self-denial, foresight, and above all, WORK. He dislikes city folk, the sea, women, gossip and LAZINESS. He delivers a maxim like ‘Don’t urinate where the Sun can see you’ with the same earnest convict that he advises judges not to take bribes, his brother to avoid pride, and the farmer to get two nine-year-old oxen and a forty-year-old hired hand. […]

AntiSemitism

Martin Luther, Large Catechism on Decalogue, Do Not Envy, and Anti-Semitism

12/01/2021 Bruce Strom 1

“You should not covet your neighbor’s house.”
“What does this mean? We should fear and Love God, and so we should not seek by craftiness to gain possession of our neighbor’s inheritance or home, nor to obtain them under pretext of legal right, but be of service and help to him so that he may keep what is his.”

“You shall not cover your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
“What does this mean? We should fear and Love God, and so we should not abduct, estrange, or entice away our neighbor’s wife, servants, or cattle, but encourage them to remain and discharge their duty to him.” […]

Command 9&10 Do Not Envy

Dr Laura and Her Rabbi Stewart Vogel on Ten Commandments: Do Not Envy

11/19/2021 Bruce Strom 1

If in your heart you keep shouting, I want! I want! I WANT!
Not only are you acting and living like a child, but when you focus excessively on getting more possessions and success, you risk becoming jealous of what your neighbor’s possessions and success, you risk becoming obsessed and possessed by jealousy and envy. Coveting and envy is a sin that is unique because it is a sin of our thoughts and mind, our “thoughts, desires, and feelings.” […]

Command 8 Do Not Bear False Witness

The Decalogue in the Torah, Blog 6, Do Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor

10/06/2021 Jonah Fischer 2

A common misconception is that this Commandment only forbids us to lie. However, this Mitzvah goes deeper. Not only should we not destroy the reputation of our neighbor, we should also guard the reputation of our neighbor like we should build a parapet on our roof. Not only does this Mitzvah forbid us to lie, it also forbids us from telling the truth in a mean and heartless and cruel manner. […]