28- Lives by the spirit, Not by the letter

He always places before himself the Apostle’s saying:

“ Not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). This principle involves all his life, because it is in all God’s commandments.

He cares about the spirit of the commandment and not its literary meaning...

He is not a Pharisee or a lawyer, but he is a spiritual man, as we have discussed this issue before here on st-takla.org in other sections. The Pharisees used to stick to the literality of the commandment, as they did with the Lord about the Sabbath, for example. Even when He opened the eyes of the one who was born blind, and it was on a Sabbath, they said: “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (Jn 9:16). And they said to the man who was born blind: “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner” (Jn 9:24). And when the Lord healed a man who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years, at the pool of Bethesda, the Holy Bible, says that: “The Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath” (Jn 5: 16).

It is the letter that kills, because it proves the lack of understanding the spirituality of the commandment.

We’ll try to contemplate on some points in the spiritual life, to see how the spiritual man acts according to the spirit and not according to the letter.

Holy labour and rest By giving rest to others

The Spiritual Man Books by H. H. Pope Shenouda III

Fasting