Magyar Egyház, 1960 (39. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1960-06-01 / 6-7. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 7 MAGYAR JEHL CHURCH SPIRITUAL MIND FRUIT OF SALVATION The apostle Paul, the greatest among those who made a complete change of mind, urges us. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” In a dying world the apostle Paul impresses us with our need of the heavenly mind and points it out as one indispensable fruit of salvation. He himself being led by God’s Spirit is teaching us: “To be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The fallen human nature always was in need of salvation and heavenly mind but today in a peaceless and murderous world this need is self-evident at the very first sight of it. In pointing us toward the heavenly mind the Apostle is contrasting a carnal with a spiritual mind. By a carnal mind he means that which is natural to man, according to those words of our Savior: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” By a spiritual mind he means that new and holy temper which is produced by the Spirit of God; according to the words of Christ sub= = mARTgr ' iAif joined to the former: “That which is born of the spirit is spirit.” “To be carnally minded” says the Apostle, “is death. To follow the bent of nature is spiritual death, and leads to eternal death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” “Now the works of the flesh are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith meekness, temperance.” “The fruit of the spirit,” he says in another place, “is in all goodness and righteousness atid truth.” These catalogues show you at once what is meant by a spiritual mind; and the contrast between the spirit and the flesh shows you how contrary to nature it is to exercise such a mind. The whole movement of that which is called a spiritual mind is contrary to fallen nature. It is an up-hill motion, and requires great effort. Every step of its course is self denial. A man who would live easy and go where nature leads him will never attain to a spiritual mind. He must enter in earnest on a conflict with nature, and wage a war, if not of extermination, at least of absolute conquest. There is no life, no peace, jurther than he does this. Let us pray, meditate, devote ourselves daily including Sundays to God, watch, obey, be the co-workers of God. Finally we must set our mind upon the heavenly mind as the personal good to which all others must submit, and decree in our heart with a proper dependance on God that we will attain to this though everything else be lost. There is a certainty to its fulfillment, for God who achieved and is offering us salvation, had promised success. Jesus sai(L--“Svrj? and ye shall find.” “How miibU._piore shall your heavenly Father [giiiC-MieS Holy Spirit to them that ask\ Him.” “Draw nigh to God and He wiliSlraw nigh to you.” Zoltán Szabó THE HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA AND ITS FUTURE DR. ZOLTÁN BEKY A paper presented to the Eastern Youth Conference on Staten Island, N. Y., May 22, 1960. I think it is fair to say that to most of us the name Hungarian Reformed Church means not only one of the many denominations in our great country, but it is The Church, where we have been baptised, took our confirmation vows, regularly worship our Lord, and unite with Him in the Holy Sacrement of the Lord’s Supper and it is expected that our departure from this transitory world will take place in one of the churches called Hungarian Reformed. It is not just a description satisfying your general interest as we talk about our Church, but it is one of the most vital and significant aspects of our life that we belong to the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ through the channel or road of the Hungarian Reformed Church in this world. For your grandparents or parents it was a decisive choice to become a member of this Church. As a matter of fact, most of our larger congregations are older than our denomination. Take the Church of Trenton, which I have been serving for the last 32 years, it was organized in 1894, that of Perth Amboy in 1901 as most of the congregations here represented, while the Free Magyar Reformed Church in America emerged as an autonomous and independent, really American denomination not earlier than 1924, in many cases thirty years later than the pioneer Hungarian Reformed Congregations were formed. However, we are not discussing church history at this time, I mentioned this only to show you, that it required a lot of courage and faith on the part of your fathers to take the great risk of this effort to keep the Hungarian Reformed faith and tradition preserved as I
