The Holy Priest-Martyr Pancratius, Bishop of Tauromenia (1st-2nd c.)
1 Corinthians 3:18-23; Matthew 13:36-43
Read 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
When I was young and learning how to drive, my father, my mother, and my grandfather each took me out for driving lessons. I remember them, each in their own way, giving me verbal instructions as I drove down laneways, country roads, busy highways, between transport trucks in parking lots, etc. What was my response to their instructions? “I know, I know, I know already.” As long as I held that view that I, a young man of 16 years of age, knew everything there was to driving having taken a course on driving in a classroom, I kept making errors – errors that could one day harm or kill someone. It took some time, but I eventually let go of my intellectual invincibility and started to listen and learn. It was when I let go of my pride and accepted my own ignorance that I was able to take in what was being taught.
Paul, having already evangelized and established the Church in Corinth, heard of the pride of the Corinthians – they started to criticize and assess the various Christian preachers (e.g. Paul, Apollos, Cephas, etc.) rather than actually listen and implement the very Gospel that was preached. It was their own pride that made them inaccessible to the Gospel. That is why Paul wrote: “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.”
If we must boast, let it be of Jesus Christ and His Gospel!