The Heart of Christian Teaching ...

Thursday, Jan 3, 2019. What is the goal which Christian teaching tries to achieve? What is the core of its teaching? What is the framework and extent of its teaching? We need to know what is really important, and distinguish it from things which are in second line. We need to know what the heart of the teaching is, to be able to focus, to be able to make decisions, to have a guidance for our daily life!

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Fight about Speculative Things? …

Too often, people fight about things which are not really important. We fight about stupid stuff, which gets into a position where it seems to be an important point. But in fact it does not really matter. The process starts with some question, then the question seems to grow in importance, and personal issues are attached to it. Who wins? Who has authority? Who has been ignored?

In his letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul comes to this question, writing:

5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. […] 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. (1 Tim 1, 5+15)

And also, the gospel Matthew reports about Jesus being questions about importance of teaching:

35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22, 35ff)

How to do it? …

One could say a lot about these great commandments, about their importance for the whole of Christian teaching, about ethics, about their meaning for our life!

But let us ask today: how do we live the commandment? How do you do it? How do you feel it? How do you integrate it into your daily life?

The commandment wants to be fully in our life. It wants to govern our existence. It is more than one out of many rules which we may follow or may ignore. It wants to be the center of all we do, all we are, all we desire, all we plan, all we search for.

The answer to the “how to” needs to be two-fold at least. First, we need to understand that it is about a transformation of our personality, our existence, our life. It wants to reach and change all parts of what we are. Second, to achieve this, we need to make many individual decisions. We need to walk the path of faith. We need to reorient our focus day by day. In a joint effort of our will and the help of the holy spirit we can see this transformation become reality in our life.

Paul urges us to find love from a pure heart. A pure heart is worth more than gold, more than the combined riches of this planet! What a priviledge to be able to pursue the heart of faith. (Roland Potthast) ... further texts