Episode 5 - Ancient Faith Chat: Do I Have to be Christian to Go to Heaven?

STSA Church Podcast · Dec 27, 2023

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to our fifth installment of Ancient Faith Chats. My name is Father Anthony and in case you are new to Ancient Faith Chats, this is something that we put on, we being STSA Ministries, Ancient Faith Chats is brought to you by STSA Ministries, where our mission is to help you bring an ancient faith to your world. As I say every time we do these sessions is that I'm the priest of STSA Church and our mission as a church is to bring an ancient faith to our modern world. And then we created STSA Ministries a couple years back to help you bring an ancient faith to your modern world. We do that by providing resources and tools to equip you to be able to do that in your local community and also the support that you need to be able to do that. So if you don't know what STSA Ministries is, go to the website after our session here, it's stsaministries.org. That's STSAministries.org. All of our resources are 100% free and they're available for you to download and would love it if you tell your friends about it and spread the word. And speaking of friends and spreading the word, before I get started with today's session, I would love to know, you can put it in the chat, who is tuning in and where you are tuning in from. It always helps me to be able to know that I'm speaking to real people, not just to the picture of myself here. So go ahead and put in the chat if you can, just your name, where it is you're tuning in from.

And I would love to just kind of know who it is that is on here. And as you do that, okay, hopefully it pops up, hopefully I got the setting on right. Usually I forget to do that. Everyone, oh, sorry, I need to do that. Now you should be able to do it. Right? Now you wait. Yes, now you should. There we go. All right, thank you. All right, so first we got, thank you so much, Michael from DC. Welcome aboard, Michael. Amal from Arlington. All right, that's two for the locals. Love to see the local people on. We have someone from, oops, I just lost it right there. Hold on. We have AG from, hold on, where'd it go? AG from Newton, Massachusetts. Sandra from Burke. Ash from Annapolis, sort of local as well. Vera from Brazil. Wow. Welcome aboard, Vera.

That's quite a long ways away. Happy to have you. My boy Fadi from North Carolina right below us. Nice to have you, Fadi. Ter Haas from Virginia. Welcome. Christina from West Virginia. Christina from Galveston, Texas. Jonathan from Pennsylvania. Welcome, Jonathan. Sylvia and Brooke from Pennsylvania. All right, we got a lot of Pennsylvania showing here. Monica from Sydney. I assume that's Sydney, Australia, not Sydney, Ohio, as I think there is a Sydney on Ohio, but I could be wrong on that one. Welcome, Monica. Mark from Ashburn. Onsi from Chicago. Welcome.

Sammy from Dallas. And you from Arlington. Welcome. Thank you all so much for joining. The way this Ancient Faith Chat works, again, if you're new to us, is that our goal is that once a month is that I hop on here and try to take one hard topic or one question that you, the viewers, are providing. And our goal is not just to answer the what. Sometimes there's questions that the answer is like a one word answer, but it's really the why behind the what. OK, because maybe our whole lives we were given answers, but we didn't know why we believe those things. And I think that makes for a weakness in our spirituality. So today's question that I'm going to answer is, do I have to be Christian to go to heaven? Do I have to be Christian to go to heaven? It's a question that you guys submitted and I'm going to take that. And before I answer that, what I also want to do is oftentimes we get questions from people. You can send questions to us, by the way, by emailing us at ministries at STSA.churchs. That's ministries. I can type that in the chat. Ministries at STSA.church. If there's a question you want answered, be happy to answer it. Some questions are shorter answers, so I want to start off each time by answering a short question and then get into our main topic. So the short question comes from someone named Anne Grace, who says, what does our church say about women in leadership? What does our church say about women in leadership? So the implication of the question is that the person is suggesting that our church is clearly against women being leaders. So speak to that. And the truth is that our church doesn't say anything about women in leadership.

So it's really a quick answer. Doesn't say anything. There's nothing that says that that men are to be leaders or women are to be leaders. In fact, while it's true that the majority, if you go Bible and church history, the majority of leaders in the Bible are men, the majority are, but not all. They are female leaders. And the most clear example is Deborah. Deborah is in the Book of Judges, and she was a judge and a prophetess. In fact, if you read in Judges 4, 4, and 5, it says, now, Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. So she was a prophetess. She would speak the word of God and teach the word of God. But she was also a judge. And it even explains, and it says that she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Rama and Bethel and the mountains of Ephraim and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.

So that's leadership. OK, so like our church has no problem with women in positions of leadership. That's clear that she would preach the word of God and that she was called upon to serve as a judge. So get rid of this idea that our church says that women can't be leaders. Women can be teachers. Women can be administrators. Women can be prophets. Women can be deaconesses. Women can be evangelists. OK, and there's a host of examples of each one of them. Of course, Virgin Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, Esther, Ruth, Phoebe. There's so many examples throughout scripture and throughout church history. There's only two roles in the entire church world, in the world, truthfully, as we would put it, that are restricted by sex. There's only two roles. One is restricted to men. One is restricted to women. OK, and they are actually parallel roles. One is spiritual fatherhood or priesthood, and the other is physical motherhood. Those are the only two that God has said. That men are going to play the role of spiritual fatherhood, and that role is limited to men and is from that way from the start, from the Old Testament times. OK, it has always been that way. And even when Christ, the twelve disciples like St. Mary was great, but he didn't have her to be one of the twelve because they were playing the role of priesthood. So spiritual fatherhood limited to men, physical motherhood. Obviously, I don't need to talk about that one. OK, how nature, how God has limited that through nature. And no matter how much man tries to resist it, OK, you hear funny things, that's limited to females. Now, the problem comes when we resist the roles that God has played for us or has created for us. OK, each role is important in the kingdom and neither is above the other.

In fact, St. Paul speaks about it, how woman's role and man's role, OK, in First Corinthians 11, verse 11 and 12, he says, nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman nor woman independent of man in the Lord. OK, in the Lord is key because outside of the Lord, the world, everything is whatever. For as woman came from man, even so, man comes through woman. But all things are from God. So what he's saying is, look, the very first woman came out of man. Every other man comes out of a woman because the two are connected. This is how God has made it. And this is all things are in God's order. OK, other words. Excuse me, what God has ordained and arranged, it's not up for us to go against. That has nothing to do with leadership. OK, that has nothing to do with leadership. Leadership, like I said, women can be leaders, women can be teachers, women can be prophets, women can be whatever spiritual fatherhood limited to males, physical motherhood limited to females. OK, and that's always been the view of the church. OK, and if you want to know more about that, OK, about how like there's different roles for each, you go to First Corinthians, Chapter 14, how St. Paul says that there's one body, but many members each plays a different role.

None is above the other. And he talks about are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all have the gift of healings? No. Do all speak in tongues? No. He says everyone has a different gift, whether it's motherhood or fatherhood. OK, so that's the answer to the question. All right. If you have, like I said, further questions, you're always welcome to email us at ministriesatstsa.church. They're happy to answer them now on for today's question. The big one is it only Christians that go to heaven? I'm going to put in the chat a link to a file, a Dropbox link, which has all of my notes that I'm going to share today, Bible verses and quotes and things like that. So you can follow along so you don't have to feel like you have to scramble. What was that verse that he said?

What was the reference? I give you all the notes right there so you have it with you. OK, and at the very end, I will take open it up for questions. And I see people have put some questions in the Q&A. You can put questions there. And as soon as I finish, I will get to them all. So question, do I have to be a Christian to go to heaven? The answer is I don't know. It's a very easy one. I don't know. I don't know. I got no problem saying I don't know. You know why? Because when it comes to heaven, if there's one area that I will never ever speak about is who gets into heaven and who doesn't get into heaven. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, that ain't my job. It's not my job to figure out who goes to heaven. It's not my job to figure out who goes to hell. That sounds like the job of a judge. And I ain't a judge. In fact, we know who the judge is. Imagine going into a courtroom. And you go in the courtroom, the judge isn't there and everyone's sitting and waiting around. At least that's the way it is in the movies. I've never been in a trial, but let's say hypothetically. And then the judge walks in. Well, imagine that the judge walks in. Judge Judy walks in. And then all of a sudden, there's some guy who's just sitting in the judge's chair and is twiddling the thumbs and playing with the pencils and messing around with the stuff on the judge's chair. How do you think the judge would feel when they walked in? Like, I don't want to be that person who sits in God's chair. There is a judgment chair that determines heaven and hell. It's not my chair. It doesn't have my name, Father Anthony on it. Has the name Jesus Christ on it. And I don't want to sit in that chair because the one thing that we know that Christ told us over and over and over, he gave many parables about the kingdom of heaven and how it's going to go. And every parable says there will be surprises. There will be things that you think, but you didn't actually know the truth. The first who you think is going to be first is going to be last. Who you think is going to be last is going to be first. And many will come to me in that day and say, Lord, Lord, okay, open the door to us. And he's going to say, I don't know who you are. So excuse me.

And dinner's hitting home right now. So one thing we know for sure is that we don't know anything and we don't know who's going to be there. And God doesn't judge as man judges. The other thing that we know that's clear in the parables about the kingdom is it's clear there's not one universal objective standard. That's why we answer this question this way. And this is very important. There is not one clear universal standard, objective standard. Meet this criteria and you get in. Don't meet this and you're on the way out. God judges each one based on what they are given, based on what they are given. That's verse from Luke chapter 12 verse 48. To whom much is given, from him much will be required. To whom has been committed much, of him they will ask the more. So he who has a lot is asked more. He who has little is asked of little. So nobody knows how anyone will be judged. As many individuals as there are on this planet, there's that many different judgments. Okay, and it's in God's hands, not ours. That's why in the parable of the towns, if you remember, one servant got 10, one servant got five, one servant got two, each was judged based on what they were given.

Same with the parable of the minas, one, five, one, two, one, one. Each judge based on what they're given. So instead of focusing our time on who's going to be there and who's not going to be there, is this person going to be in or is this person not going to be in? Or is that group over there, is that group over there? Where's the line where you cross from here to there? Instead of focusing on that, what I would rather do is I want to focus on what do I need to do to get there because truthfully, that's all that matters. Not with so and so get there, but what do I need to do to get there? And I already know the answer that your path is different than my path. So it's futile to focus on did that person fulfill their path or that person for their path. It's based on what you were given and no one knows what you were given except God. So that's why we're going to take a step back and I'm actually going to answer a different question or better, I'm going to help you answer the question that maybe you've been asked before, maybe you've thought about for sure you've heard this question asked. The question, are you saved? You've heard that question before, right? Are you saved? And depending on your church background, you probably heard different answers to that question. Well, I want to help you answer that question. How do you know how to answer the question? Am I saved?

But we're going to do it like it in the handout. Okay, like I always like to do it, break it down and a little point 1.2.3.4. Four questions. Question number one is let's define our terms. What is salvation? Because am I saved? I can't answer the question until I define what is saved me. And truthfully, there's different definitions because the majority of people in the world today when they ask the question, are you saved? Am I saved? Is he saved? They mean something different than our ancient faith, our orthodox faith looks at salvation. The modern world views salvation as I call it a ticket to heaven. A ticket to heaven. Salvation means that I was given a ticket like in Monopoly, a get out of jail free card. I was given a ticket and once I have this ticket, then nothing else matters because I get to go like fast pass, like easy pass, straight pass, all the other people. I get to go to heaven as long as I have this ticket. So then the whole emphasis of life becomes how do you get the ticket? And how do you get, what do you have to do to get the ticket? What do you have to say to get that ticket? And how old do you have to be to get that ticket? And what's the process to get the ticket? The ticket, the ticket, the ticket, the ticket. This has nothing to do with our ancient faith. Okay, this is not anywhere in church history, this idea of a ticket of salvation. Salvation for us and not about a ticket, a get out of jail free card.

It's not about a fast pass, okay, to the Disney, in the Disney theme park, we go straight to the front. Salvation for us means healing. Okay, if you want to know the orthodox view of salvation, anytime you hear the word saved, insert the word healed or salvation for healing. Okay, that will help you understand what I mean by healed. Salvation is all about restoring man. Let's say not man, restoring me and you to our original state. When man fell back in the Garden of Eden, God created us here, and then man fell. So man fell to a distorted state. Man was broken, so to speak. That's why salvation is all about fixing what was broken or healing what was broken. Again, Adam and Eve, they were made perfect by God, all was good in the Garden. They were made, as we say in the divine liturgy, in incorruption. Man was made in, oh God who created man, in incorruption. Means there was no sin, there was nothing bad, there was nothing. And then sin which entered into the world by the envy of the devil.

Okay, that's what happened. Sin entered and when sin entered, man, not to, this isn't the right word, but man got broken. Humanity got broken. The earth got broken. Everything got corrupted is a better word or distorted. Okay, and that's why Genesis chapter 3 verse 23 and 24. When man got broken, it says the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed chair of him at the east of the Garden of Eden. So what happened when man was broken? What caused the brokenness? Like what was the break? It was that God was now, okay, when God created Adam, Adam and Eve were united to God. Okay, there was a unity between God and Adam. And then all of a sudden, man sinned and all of a sudden there is separation. That's why we say sin is separation from God. There was separation between God and man. So where was the break?

Where like the distortion? Okay, the problem was that humanity, mankind got cut off from God. Think about it like the sun outside. The sun shines down, okay, and we receive light from the sun and vitamin D and all kinds of good stuff. But imagine I'm in a place, okay, because of whatever, I get locked into like solitary confinement, a room with no windows. The sun is still shining. God is still good. God is still there. But I cut myself off from the sun. So now I'm withering away. Think of maybe like a plant, okay, might be better. A plant is now withering away because it's cut off from the sun. That's exactly what happened to man. There's a quote on the handout from our patron saint at STSA, Saint Athanasius, who wrote the book on the incarnation. He says, the human being made rational and in the image of God was now disappearing and the work made by God was being obliterated. Man, sinned, was cut off from God, cut off from the source of light. Actually, before I did the example like this, that's not a good example. God doesn't move. What happened is man got cut off from God. Man was now in solitary confinement. Man was blocked off from the rays of the sun like a flower. So man was withering, withering, withering away. And actually the entire earth, withering, withering, withering away. That's the problem. The solution, okay, salvation is the healing of the problem. Now the healing has two components, just the way anti-healing does. Okay, if you're sick, you need two things to get better. You need number one, a doctor, and number two, a medicine, a doctor and a medicine. Okay, because the doctor's the only one that can administer the medicine. Okay, you can't just, you know, make the medicine on your own and, you know, you can't write your own prescription unless you are a doctor.

Then you have like an easy pass, but that's fine. The rest of us, we need to first go to the doctor and receive the medicine that he administers. So question number two, who can administer the medicine? Who's the doctor? The answer is when man was in trouble and God wanted to fix it, God sent his only begotten son into the world. Why? To heal us, to heal the entire world. He didn't send his son into the world to give us a ticket saying like, okay, you guys down there, here's tickets. Who wants tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets? He sent his son to be a doctor, a physician, a healer. Luke chapter five, verse 31. Jesus said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He's saying, I came as a doctor into this world. I didn't just come to say, you know, no soup for you, no soup for you, no soup for you. I came to say, look, I'm a doctor, you're sick. I'm here to heal. John 10, 10. I've come that they may have life and they have life more abundantly. I've come to the flower to say, I want to give you back the sprouting or whatever this is called, okay? I want you to flourish. I want you to be healed and restored to your original state. You're made to shine. You're made to give off pollen or fragrance or honey or whatever it may be. That's what Jesus came to give us. Now, the next question is, if he's the doctor, what's the medicine? What's the means by which this salvation comes? Well, let's take a step back here. What was the cause? You have to go backwards to figure out where the problem occurred to figure out the right antidote.

Okay. That's how, like, for example, with the COVID, you can't just make up a vaccine until you first have the disease. Say, okay, this disease started when, you know, this, you know, DNA thing or protein thing did this. We've got to retrace our steps, okay, and fix it somehow. So where did all the problems happen with sin in the garden? It happened when communion was broken, when communion was broken, when man left God, when man was isolated from God. Think of another example, like a tree, okay, or a plant or a bush or whatever it is. It was planted in the garden and everything was good. Then all of a sudden, it got uprooted from the soil and it went over there. The only way to heal this tree is it has to go back in the soil. It has to be united with the source of life. It can't be that if I preach to it the soil, if I talk to it about the soil, if it prays about the soil, it reads books about the soil, the only way to be healed is to go inside the soil, physically. It has to go back where it's being nourished, okay, by the source of life. So how do me and you human beings go back inside of God, connected with God?

Well, that's easy. That's the sacraments of the church. What we like to call them in the Orthodox Church, the mysteries of the church. The mysteries of the church or the sacraments of the church, we define them as in an invisible grace through a visible means. An invisible grace through a visible means. So every mystery, communion, baptism, confession, chrismation, all the sacraments, all the mysteries, I'll use the two terms interchangeably, sacraments and mysteries. All the sacraments or mysteries are our way of plugging into the soil, of being planted inside of God, of receiving the life of God within us, okay, of us, the soil going inside the tree and us being inside the soil, it's us connecting with God, begins all the way from the beginning with baptism. Baptism is how we are planted in that soil. Okay, that's what it is. It's a spiritual birth, the same way that we were born physically of our father and mother on this earth. We are born spiritually of our heavenly father and our spiritual mother, which is the church, and that's where we are born and planted inside there. Chrismation, our anointing of the Holy Spirit, is how we are given nutrients and power, okay, and the breath of life that we're not just a seed, but the seed now has life and can bring forth life. Without that, we have no chance of growing. After that, okay, we receive the sacrament of communion. And what is communion? Communion is how we feed, okay, that's the food that nourishes that tree. Okay, you can think of it like a baby. A baby is born is baptism, okay. A baby has the breath, okay, the doctor slaps him on the back, breath of life, that's Chrismation. Then we feed the baby, we feed the baby, we feed the baby, we feed the baby.

That's how the baby grows. That's the food, the nourishment for that child. That's what communion is. Then there's confession. What's confession? Confession is what the baby also needs is to be clean because the baby's gonna get himself into problems and he's gonna make mess. So confession is how we clean, okay, and remove the toxic stuff the poison, okay, sometimes we eat poison. Confession is the Heimlich maneuver force, okay, or can we get ourselves muddy and dirty and then the, you know, the bugs all around and the yucky stuff. Confession is how we clean it all around. So for us, it's the sacraments. The sacraments are how the only way to be salvation, okay, let's go back. Salvation means healing. Healing is administered by Jesus Christ himself. No one else can administer. I can't, you can't, nobody can. Only Jesus Christ, he's the only true doctor. The rest of us are sick, okay, the rest of us are like, you know, billboards or like hospital administrative staff that say like, you know, go here, here's the office, but only Jesus can heal.

Nobody else can. And the medicine that he uses is the sacraments. That's what plants us. That's what gives us life. That's what feeds us. That's what helps us to grow. Now, does that mean that if we take the sacraments, nothing bad will happen? Well, let me ask you. If I feed a child and clean a child and give birth to a child, if I do all those things for a child, does that mean nothing bad is ever going to happen to it?

No, of course not. But what it means is that he has the potential to live. Okay, so if I give my child everything that that child needs, they have a shot. If I don't give it to them, if I don't feed my child, they have no chance. If I don't clean my child, they have no chance. They're going to die of a disease. Okay, if I don't give my child breath, okay, if the child doesn't have a breath, they're not going to make it. So the sacraments don't guarantee anything other than we have a chance to be successful and we have the power within us, but then we still have the act of our will. Like we have to do our part. It's not really our topic right now, but that's the topic of everything else we talk about in church is like our part. Okay, we have to do our best to live holy lives. We have to obey the commandments. Okay, we have to love our enemy, love our neighbor, all those things. That's our part, but our part is meaningless without God's part.

Okay, but there has to be a synergy between the two. Okay, so now with that said, let's go to the final question, which is the question that I started with. Are you saved? How do you answer the question? Are you saved? The answer to the question is that salvation for us is not an event. It's a process. It's a process that began a long time ago. It's the process that continues day to day. And it's a process that by the grace of God will come to completion when we get up there. So we can say, as I put in the handout, the answer to the question, are you saved? I can say, I can make a case for I was saved. I am being saved and I will be saved.

All three of those are true. So if someone says, were you saved? Yes, I was saved. But I also say I am being saved day by day by the sacraments that I'm receiving. And that's my lifetime process. Because I was given life and I was given a chance to find salvation. But the process of healing, that's something I'm working on my entire life. That's entire life. That's entire life. The same way that my body is I'm going here, I'm fighting off diseases, I'm trying to get. That's the whole of life. And then I hope that one day by the grace of God and by the work that we put into it, that we will find true healing and salvation for our souls when we get up there. Last verse, put it on your handout. 1 Corinthians 1 18. If you say this doesn't make any sense, I say to you what St. Paul says, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Keyword there is being saved.

Not those who were saved, who will be saved, but being saved because it is an ongoing process. Think of it like a popsicle. When you have a popsicle, you lick it. And you begin, you're eating the popsicle. That first lick is the first step in the process, but it's not done. And then you lick it, lick it, and lick it, and lick it, and lick it, and lick it, and lick it. And every lick is important. Every lick matters. Imagine it doesn't melt. Okay, that leaves aside the temperature component.

But assume it never melts. Every lick gets you a little bit closer to the end. Every lick a little bit closer to the end. And then one day is that last lick. So when did you eat the popsicle? Was it the first lick, the middle, you know, 180 licks, or was the last one? It's all of them. Each one is important. It's the same way with us. We were saved. Christ gave us salvation. But then we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as he says in Philippians 2. And then one day we will be saved at the very end of our lives. Okay? So that is all the questions that I got. I will now open it up for questions. And I see a question in the chat. And I see several in the Q&A. So let me go through here. Okay. And answer some questions. So our first question is from Amal. In John chapter 3 verse 5, Jesus said, I tell you the truth unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God unless a man is born again.

For me, what I understand, then it kind of cuts off. Then it says that non-Christians will not see the kingdom of God. Okay? So the answer that many people would want to say is, yes, you have to be Christian to enter the kingdom of God. But my response to you who say that, okay, I don't disagree. But the question is then how do you define Christian? That's the problem. Some people would say if I made this proclamation of faith, I'm a Christian. Did nothing else the rest of my life, but I'm a Christian. So is it only people who, does Christian mean people who believe? There's people who believe. That's what it says, even the demons believe. So the problem is in the definition of the word Christian. That's why I'm not going to sit here and try to define it. Okay? Do you have to be Christian to go to heaven? Sure. Okay? But for sure, we know examples of people who wouldn't meet our classical definition of Christian, okay, who lived with God forever. Okay? There's people who were born into other faiths. Okay? So it's not up to me and you to decide what that looks like. Okay? It's up to God to make a determination based on what we are given, and then he will judge us based, okay, on what we did, what we are given. And what I will say is this, is that when it comes to this idea of like judgment and what we're going to receive and not receive, nobody knows except themselves. Nobody knows except themselves. We don't know what is anyone else's heart, but it's clear God will judge the heart. So caution anyone. Like I said in the beginning, we are not going to sit here and say that person's in, that person's out, you have to do this, you have to do that. Okay? We look at the rule, like you said, John chapter three, verse five, which actually another person anonymous asked the same question.

Okay? We see that and we say, yes, okay, because of that, that's where baptism, it's clearly originated right there and there's got to be baptism. I got to go get baptized. But what the way I always explain this one is that God sets the rules. We are bound by the rules of God, but is God who created the rules bound by his own rules? Think about that for a second. God created rules. We as human beings, we are bound by those rules. So I don't have the right to say, no, baptism doesn't matter. I can't say that because Jesus said water and spirit. So I have no choice but to say baptism, of course, is the most important thing. But is God bound by his own rules? So if God wants to take someone to heaven who isn't baptized, is he allowed? Or is God like, well, I'm sorry, I can't, I wrote it in John chapter three.

I'm sorry, I can't. Of course not. Like the example I always give is like me with my children. If I say lights out at 10 o'clock, then do they have to sleep at 10? Yes. Do I? No. I don't have to abide by my own rules. Okay, I can break my own rules for whatever reason because I'm the creator of the rules. So same thing with God.

Thief on the right hand is the classic example. He was not baptized by water and spirit. But Jesus said today, you'll be with me in paradise. Jesus, that's not fair. Excuse me. What's it to you? You abide by the rules that I set for you, but I can do whatever I want. And even like just something as simple as like the entire Old Testament, there was no baptism. So we look at it and we say, these are the rules that God has given to us. We must abide by them. We must teach them. There is no other way. But in the end, he's God, not me. Okay, so I'm not going to pass judgment on anybody else for anything. Okay. Next question from Isis says, Hi, Father. Thank you.

Students were asking me today whether non-Christians could go to heaven. So I had to come. Welcome. Now I'm going to the Zoom that St. Shneud and the monastery is having tonight. Glad to know that salvation is healing. Thank you. Peace and grace. I suppose that's not really a question. Thank you very much, Isis, for joining us. Let's see if we have any other questions right here. Okay. I am not seeing any other questions in our chat. Let me go to our Q&A. If anyone has a question about this topic or about any topic, you are certainly welcome to answer or to ask it.

I do my best to answer. And as I said, if you ever want to submit a question for a future Ancient Faith chat, then you can email us at ministries at STSA.church. Ministries at STSA.church. Anonymous asks, Whatever is bound on earth will be bound in heaven. Does this mean that a spiritual father can determine this? So your question is referencing a passage in John chapter 20, after Jesus rose from the dead. But it's also in Matthew 16. So it's actually said twice. He's speaking to his apostles, and it says, Whatever things you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever things you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. That is where he instituted, kind of like I said in the very, very, very, very beginning about priesthood. That's where the institution of the sacrament of priesthood came in. That's not to say that anyone, that whether it's a priest or non-priest, can go around and say, Forgiven, forgiven, not forgiven.

Okay, you, you know, you snuck in front of me. You know, you cut me off on 66, so you're not forgiven. That's not to say that I make my own discretionary forgiveness and not forgiveness, because that says in Mark chapter 2, Who can forgive sins except God alone? But what it is to say is that God has chosen, because our God is an incarnational God. He likes to speak. Okay, he likes to take flesh. God has chosen to declare his forgiveness to humanity through the mouth of the priesthood. Okay, and I gave a whole talk one time about priesthood, and I said about how priesthood is the greatest gift that God has given to us as the church. Now, I realize some people abuse the priesthood, but you know what? In every profession and vocation, there's abuse. It's just because there is abuse, like there's some doctors who are bad doctors. We don't throw away doctors. There's some police officers who are bad police officers. Okay, if you're a Republican, they're bad Republicans. If you're a Democrat, they're bad Democrats. I know. Okay, so there's some bad in every profession. It doesn't mean we throw away the profession. So the abuse, one person abusing priesthood doesn't mean priesthood is bad. Okay, if you're a lawyer and I find you a bad lawyer, I don't throw you away. I throw away the bad lawyer. Okay, so don't get tripped up on that one. Somehow when it's the church, somehow there's a different standard, but it's humanity. Okay, there's bad in every profession. I don't know where I was going with that. So it doesn't mean that we as priests, oh, priest is the greatest gift to the church. God decided to declare his forgiveness to humanity through priesthood. God said, I'm going to give you something on this earth. Okay, someone is raising their hand. Oh, I'll let you on in a second.

Who is that? I'll let you on to ask your question here, but let me finish this. God has chosen to give the church his presence in a tangible way through the priesthood. Someone standing in our midst to remind us. Okay, he says, no, I accidentally raised my hand. Okay, don't worry. If you have a question, Nas, you can ask it right there. Or if anyone wants to raise their hand and ask a question, you're certainly welcome. So it's a gift from God to declare the gifts of God. Same thing with communion. God has chosen, if God, like we don't just, how do we have communion with God? We close our eyes, we go to our room and we feel his presence. I'm thankful that it's better than that.

That's way too intangible for me. That's way too, that's not me. May sub you, that's great, but that's not me. I'm thankful that I go every Sunday. I open my mouth and I receive the presence of God in me in a physical, tangible, touchable, incarnational way. That's what that verse is all about. Okay. Next question we got from Nancy. Thank you so much for clarifying the question that I misunderstood a long time ago. I like to mention, God bless you. Thank you so much, Nancy. I appreciate it very much. If anyone else has any questions, I got two minutes to go. So I can take one more question if you got. If not, I will be more than happy to let you go. And I will say thank you so much for joining us here. Please make sure that you check out our website, stsaministries.org. That is s-t-s-a-ministries.org. All kinds of resources available for you to use in your local church.

All of it is a hundred percent free. Please help us by spreading the word. Okay. Because again, our goal is to be able to equip others. Okay. All those resources on STSA ministries is things that we've done in our church. And we've discovered some of it has some benefit. Okay. We've done a lot of dumb things. We've done a lot of good things. Our hope is to be able to share those resources with others so you don't have to start from ground zero. Okay. That hopefully it can be a blessing to you. Last question I'll take here from anonymous says, can we say that the Bible tells us how to be saved and we should follow that? Yeah, absolutely. That's a good, nice way. Of course. The Bible gives us not in a clear step, one step, two step, three. The Bible teaches us how to interact with God and commune with God in so many different ways.

So yeah, can't go wrong with the Bible. All right. Thanks so much for joining us. The next Ancient Faith Chat will be on October 19th. October 19th. You go to the website, you should be able to register for it. So that way you can put a calendar. You could put a note in your calendar. All right. And then I will send you a reminder just before it. Okay. Thanks so much for joining everyone. Have a good night. God bless you all.