God's Ways

God's Ways

I asked for Strength.........And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.


I asked for Wisdom...........And God gave me Problems to solve.


I asked for Prosperity.......And God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.


I asked for Courage..........And God gave me Danger to overcome.


I asked for Love.............And God gave me Troubled people to help.


I asked for Favors..........And God gave me Opportunities.


I got nothing I wanted ......but I received everything I needed!

God's Positive Answers

God's Positive Answers

For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has a positive answer for it :








You say: "It's impossible"


God says: All things are possible (Luke 18:27)






You say: "I'm too tired"


God says: I will give you rest (Matthew 1:28-30)






You say: "Nobody really loves me"

God says: I love you (John 3:16 & John 13:34)






You say: "I can't go on"


God says: My grace is sufficient
(II Corinthians 12:9 & Psalm 91:15)






You say: "I can't figure things out"


God says: I will direct your steps (Proverbs 3:5-6)






You say: "I can't do it"


God says: You can do all things (Philippians 4:13)






You say: "I'm not able"


God says: I am able (II Corinthians 9:8)






You say: "It's not worth it"


God says: It will be worth it. (Roman 8:28)





You say: "I can't forgive myself"

God says: I FORGIVE YOU (I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1)




You say: "I can't manage"

God says: I will supply all your needs (Philippians 4:19)






You say: "I'm afraid"


God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear (II Timothy1:7)




You say: "I'm always worried and frustrated"


God says: Cast all your cares on ME (I Peter 5:7)






You say: "I don't have enough faith"


God says: I've given everyone a measure of faith  (Romans 12:3)






You say: "I'm not smart enough"


God says: I give you wisdom (I Corinthians 1:30)




You say: "I feel all alone"


God says: I will never leave you or forsake you  (Hebrews13:5)
N.B: This is taken from Internet

How the Davidic covenant is fulfilled by Christ (Mathew), through the Eucharist (Luke), in the Church as the New Temple (John).

In order to answer this question, I think it is very important to see the meticulous nature of the Davidic covenant. David and his house enjoy the favour of God who commits himself by oath to an “eternal covenant”. The nature of this covenant is defined by the words of God: “I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me”. Being an unconditional promise, the covenant with the house of David cannot be broken (Ps 89:29-38). The perspective is very different from that of the Sinai covenant, where the divine favour is conditional: it requires obedience to the covenant on Israel's part (Ex 19:5-6).


Against this background we have to read the gospel according to Mathew which starts with a genealogy of Jesus where Jesus is witnessed and presented as the “son of David” and “the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1). By mentioning David and Abraham, Matthew calls to mind the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants which will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the “anointed” one (Mt 1:1ff). Jesus is the long-awaited king, the “son of David” whose throne will be established for ever (2Sam 7:13-14). He has come to proclaim the ‘good news’ that the ‘kingdom’ has arrived (Mt 3:2, 4:17). This is a universal kingdom that encompasses all nations, and through which all nations will be blessed (Gen 17:6; Mt 28:19). The Gospel according to Mathew gives a particular attention on the kingdom of David: Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the city of David, which was prophesized as the birth-place of the Messiah-King (Mt 2:6; Mic 5:2). Jesus is born of a virgin fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah regarding the future Davidic king (Mt 1:23; Is 7:14). The Magi visit Jesus at his birth to pay tribute to him, just as kings visited Solomon (1Kgs 4:34; Ps 72:10-11). People identify Jesus as the “Son of David.” For instance, two blind men use this title for him (9:27), the Canaanite woman (15:22), and the crowds who welcome Jesus into Jerusalem (21:9). Jerusalem, the capital of the Davidic kingdom, is important to the Davidic covenant and it is here that Jesus’ ministry reaches its climax with his passion, death and resurrection (Mt 26-28).


At the Last Supper, Jesus intervened decisively in making his blood “the blood of the covenant” (Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24), the foundation of the “new covenant” (Lk 22:20; 1 Co 11:25). The description of the Last Supper is outlined with references to eating and drinking with which Jesus manifest the kingdom. In the first mention Jesus points out that this Supper is linked to the imminent arrival of the kingdom (Lk 22:16), and in the other quote Jesus promises the apostles (Lk 22:30) that they will eat and drink at his table in his kingdom. Through the institution narrative, the bread and wine are transformed into the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ, the king. As the king is present so is his kingdom, which is a Eucharistic kingdom. “Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Lk 17:21). Through the institution of the Eucharist Jesus reinstates and transforms the Davidic covenant. As David was enthroned in the earthly Jerusalem, Jesus is enthroned in the heavenly Jerusalem. He is the heavenly king, who by giving his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist, enables Christians to be united to him, and therefore to enter into the life of the Trinity. The Church which is the mystical Body of Christ manifests the renewed Davidic kingdom and exists simultaneously in heaven and on earth.


In the Old Testament, the Temple is both functional and symbolic space. It serves as the place of the cult, especially sacrifice, prayer, teaching, healing and royal enthronement. It plays the role of axis and centre of the world. During the New Testament period the edifice retained its symbolic role as the privileged divine abode, which represented on earth the dwelling place of God in heaven. In Jn 2:16 Jesus calls it “my Father's house”. But some texts relativise this symbolism and pave the way for transcending it. Jesus announced the replacement by a new sanctuary, to be built in three days after its destruction.(Jn 2:19-22) After his resurrection, Jesus' disciples understood that the new Temple was his risen body. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is portrayed as the fulfillment of the Temple, the holiest place for the Jews and “the embodiment of God’s covenant with David”. John also shows how this fulfillment continues in Christ’s mystical Body, the Church, through the sacraments. This idea is developed by the apostles peter and Paul. In Pauline theology, incorporation into a holy temple in which the Spirit dwells (1 Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2: 19-22). And what is true of the Church is also true of the individual Christians, whose body is a temple of God’s presence (1 Cor 6:19). Peter likewise envisions believers as “living stones” who are built into a spiritual temple that gives pleasing worship to God (1Pet 2:5).


Concluding remarks could be these: God's “covenant” with David is not mentioned explicitly in the New Testament, but Peter's discourse in Acts Ac 2:20, and the Pauline discourse in Ac 13:34 makes a similar connection by employing the expression of Is 55:3 which, in the Isaian text, defines an “eternal covenant”. The resurrection of Jesus, “son of David”, is thus presented as the fulfillment of the covenant-promise given by God to David. Eucharist really sealed this eternal covenant and gave it immanent as well as eschatological nuances. The Temple gets a wider scope in the new Testament as the body of Christ, as the mystical body of Christ-Church and every one who belongs to this body and get nourished from it by the reception of sacraments.

The Relationship between Old and New Testaments

The relationship between the OT & NT in terms of the Divine Economy, Typology and Mystagogy

In his preface to the Pontifical Biblical Commission document of 2001 The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the then Prefect of the Congregation of faith said “The Document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission introduced by this Preface declares: Without the Old Testament, the New Testament would be an unintelligible book, a plant deprived of its roots and destined to dry up and wither (no. 84).” Now I make a very brief study on the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament in terms of the Divine Economy, Typology and Mystagogy.


What is Divine Economy? The ‘divine economy’ is “the divine order of history as presented in the canonical text”. The Economy of salvation deals with God’s revelation and communication to mankind throughout history, for the sake of the salvation of all; hence the term “economy of salvation”. The economy of salvation, refers to God's activity “ad extra” (external): creating and governing the world, particularly with regard to God’s plan for the salvation of the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a plan which is being accomplished through his Body the Church, in its life and sacraments; hence, the "sacramental economy. God accomplishes His salvation for us in Jesus Christ, His son, our Saviour. In the letter to the Hebrews we find a God who communicates. God who has spoken through the Prophets come to an apex of this communicative process in Jesus Christ, the incarnated word of God in the sacred history of salvation. This plan of salvation for mankind is unified and strengthens all of Sacred Scripture, thus ensuring the unity between the Old and New Testaments. The Second Vatican Council pointed out the importance of being aware of this unity and identified attentiveness to the unity within the Bible as one of the characteristics of authentic interpretation. At the heart of the Scripture is Christ and it is through his passion, death and resurrection that God’s redemptive plan is fulfilled in a particular way. Therefore, the Paschal mystery sheds light on all Sacred Scripture. This does not mean that the Old Testament has no intrinsic value or that the New Testament should not be read in light of the Old, rather “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New”.


Now let us examine what Typology is: Typology in the exegetical sense is a principle for interpreting all of history in light of its fulfillment in Christ. We recognize it at work in those texts which found “shadows” of New Testament truth in Old Testament events. Hence Israel’s exodus from Egypt is a “type” of humankind’s deliverance from sin and death in Christ. As an exegetical mode typology incorporates the old into the new and thereby helps to constitute a tradition. The old truth is not rejected as false in light of the new truth. Typology could be defined in a brief way as “the study of persons, places, events, and institutions in the Bible that foreshadow later and greater realities made known by God in history”. Typology essentially sets forth a metaphysical point of correspondence between type and antitype, although occasionally, as in the typological link between Adam and Christ in 1 Cor. 15:22, the connection is a point of contrast. The NT at times invites typological interpretation by employing the words “type” (e.g., 1 Cor. 10:6; “example”), “antitype” (e.g., 1 Pet. 3:2; “figure”), “shadow” (e.g., Heb. 10:1), “mystery” (e.g., Eph. 5:32), and “allegory” (Gal. 4:24). In the typological approach there is a movement from the “type” to the “antitype” which is always greater than the “type” that it was signified by. Thus the typological approach can also reveal a certain discontinuity because the “antitype” both fulfills and surpasses the “type” that foreshadowed it.


While speaking on the Liturgical catechesis, the CCC mentions the idea of Mystagogy as follows “Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ ( It is "mystagogy." ) by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the "sacraments" to the "mysteries." Such catechesis is to be presented by local and regional catechisms.” The mystagogical approach also sheds light on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments for it shows how in a typological sense the sacraments are foreshadowed by events/things in the Old Testament. The sacrament of Baptism was prefigured in the Old Testament through the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites when God saved them from slavery in Egypt. In this sacrament the candidate is freed from sin and enters into the life of the Trinity through configuration to the Paschal mystery. In the gospel of John this mystagogical approach is evident in the way Jesus tried to lead people from the ‘signs’ (the physical miracles that he performed) to the heavenly realities that they pointed to. For example, in the dialogue with Nicodemus Jesus attempted to provide an explanation of the sacrament of Baptism, by which one is “born anew” through “water and the Spirit”, and without which one “cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn.3:5,7).


The topics of exegesis like Divine Economy, Typology and Mystagogy are connected to an interpretative approach that is supported on a liturgical and sacramental hermeneutic. It takes into account the important concepts of ‘canon’ and ‘covenant’. The books in both the Old and New Testaments were established as part of the canon. They were being read during liturgical celebrations. The liturgical celebrations themselves were acts of worship in response to God’s covenants. These covenants were foundational to both Israel (the covenant at Sinai) and the Church (the New and Eternal Covenant established in the Blood of Christ). Reading the bible from a liturgical perspective highlights the importance of the divine economy, typology and mystagogy for an authentic interpretation of the Scriptures.