Today’s Reading, COL 3: 1-11, tells us what we must do to save our souls.
Brothers and sisters:
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Because of these the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient.
By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.
But now you must put them all away:
anger, fury, malice, slander,
and obscene language out of your mouths.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free;
but Christ is all and in all.
Today’s entire Reading is above. Two sentences are highlighted. They show one of The Programming Log’s clearest warnings. It is a guidepost that opens the second part of the Access Code, Obedience.
First, Belief. Then, Obedience. That’s how we avoid His wrath when “the books are opened”.
Believe and obey. That’s it.
P. S. At the end of today’s reading, barbarians and Scythians are mentioned among four pairs of “opposites”. We may assume that the Scythian peoples were not considered to be “barbarians”. In more recent history, the Scots claimed to be descended from Scythians who sailed to Spain, then to Northern Ireland, and finally, to Scotland.
It’s puzzling why today’s reading distinguishes them, and no other identifiable group of people, from “barbarians”. Catholic Fundamentalism believes they are distinguished from other ethnic groups to show their Abrahamic ancestry. The Scythian peoples were descended either from Abraham’s children or from Israel’s Ten Northern Tribes, who deported to the North from Palestine in 720 B.C.
St. Andrew, Scotland’s Patron Saint, was one of the disciples who converted Scythian Tribes. According to one source, he was able to “call down fire from Heaven” to demonstrate God’s power so effectively that the Scottish people, even after their long and ancient migrations, still acclaim him as their intermediary with The Loving Programmer.
