Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast

The Whole Council of God. Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the

Reformed Church, but now an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church

in Lafayette, Louisiana.

For who makes you differ from another?

And what do you have that you did not receive?

If you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

So he says, okay, if we're going to compare, if we're going to start comparing people to us and to compare people, he says, well, what is it that you differ?

Well, different people have different things, both material things, physical qualities, right?

Mental qualities, different gifts and abilities.

He says, those are the things that are different about you.

He says, well, which of those did you not receive? Meaning, which of those wasn't just given to you?

Which one of those is the product of your own effort? Did I choose how tall I would get?

Right? Or how short I would be. Did I choose what my IQ would be? Did I choose how athletic I'd be or not in terms of giftedness?

Did I choose whether I'd be right or left-handed? Did I choose how wealthy I would be or how healthy

I would be, right? What family I'd be born into. What country I'd be born in. No, right? He says every one of these things you just received.

You were just given.

Implicitly, of course, given by God, but that isn't even matter.

The point is you received it.

You didn't do anything.

So then how can you brag about it?

How can you brag about what country you were born in and what family you were born into

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