Letters From a Young Catholic

My reflections as a Catholic young adult passionate about the Faith, seeking to grow in knowledge and understanding of God and discerning the will of the Lord in my life.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Righteousness = Obedience to God's Will

I'm currently reading Jesus of Nazareth. It's a fantastic book thus far. I'm only a couple chapters in but I keep coming across passages where I think to myself "Wow, that's such a good point!" It's definitely a book worth reading. Obviously. It's written by the Holy Father.

For some reason this line stood out to me and has on my mind all evening:

"In Jesus' world, righteousness is man's answer to the Torah, acceptance of the whole of God's will, the bearing of the "yoke of God's kingdom," as one formulation had it." (p. 17)


This sentence is found in the context of a discussion of Jesus' response to John the Baptist's question in the Gospel of Matthew account of Jesus' baptism. John the baptist asks "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" and Jesus responds "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." (Mt. 3:14-15)

Labels: