Teaching subjects on the orthodox Christian life
INTRODUCTION
When God, The Holy Trinity, created us He gave us a purpose to live. This purpose is the “God’s likeness”, to become like Him, to be gods through His Divine grace and after our free will. The Church Fathers have written many things in order to help us to find our way to “likeness of God”, the perfection. The work for perfection is not an easy one especially after the original fall. That is why God Jesus Christ became Man in order to help us to reach our original goal, the deification, the perfection. Saint Basil the Great says: “God became man in order man become god”. Church Fathers who dedicated their life to the teaching of the Gospel and the unconditional love for God, for fellow human beings and for the world generally. They have written some practical teachings on the Christian life just to help the faithful people to improve themselves in spiritual life and to imitate Jesus Christ in every day practice. We present here the following subjects that can be a good help to those who want sincerely to be in God’s path and to reach deification – God’s likeness. These subjects are practical enough and can be a good help for those who are dedicated to teaching the Orthodox faith to other people. Of course it is absolutely necessary first the teacher to pay special attention to the content of the subject that he/she is going to teach others and to try to put it into practice. So that it will be his/her own personal practice and not theories, in order to be a teacher through life and vivid example rather than through words. The teacher can organize the program of teaching in such a way in order to give people a clear idea about the Christian spiritual life in our Orthodox Church and to help them to want to try to live according to God’ will. He/she has to present first the whole subject, in a very clear and understandable way, and after that to give them the opportunity to express themselves by asking questions and saying their own opinions. A good discussion after the presentation of the subject is always necessary and very helpful.
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