Epistle Reading: Titus 1:15-2:10
To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled
and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are
defiled.
They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being
abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound
doctrine:
that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in
faith, in love, in patience;
the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior,
not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to
love their children,
to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own
husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
Likewise exhort the young men to be sober-minded,
in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works;
in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,
sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an
opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.
Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well
pleasing in all things, not answering back,
not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may
adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Gospel Reading: Luke 20:19-26
And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to
lay hands on Him, but they feared the people; for they knew that He had
spoken this parable against them.
So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be
righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to
the power and the authority of the governor.
And they asked Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You say and
teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way
of God truly:
"Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, "Why do
you test Me?
"Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?"
They answered and said, "Caesar's."
And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of
the people. And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.
Saints and Feasts
Nahum the Prophet; Philaret the Merciful of Amnia; Ananias the Persian; Holy Father Theocletus the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Lacedaemonia; Our Holy Fathers Ananius and Solochon, Archbishops of Ephesus
