The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Rom. 12:6–14; Mt. 9:1–8)

The Lord forgives the sins of the paralytic. One might rejoice; but the crafty mind of the learned scribes says, ”This man blasphemes” (Mt. 9:3). Even when the miracle of the paralytic’s healing followed to confirm that consoling truth for us—that ”the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mt. 9:6)—even then the people glorified God, while nothing is said of the scribes, most likely because even then they were weaving some malicious questions. A mind without faith is a quibbler; it is perpetually forging wicked suspicions and weaving slanders against the whole domain of faith. At times it refuses to believe miracles; at other times it demands a more palpable miracle. But when one is given and obliges it toward submission to faith, it has no shame in evading the conclusion, distorting or perversely interpreting the wondrous acts of God. It relates in the same way to the proofs of divine truth. Both experiential and rational proofs are presented to it in sufficient number and force—and it covers them too with doubt. Examine all its objections, and you will see that they amount to nothing but craftiness, though in its own vocabulary this passes for cleverness—so that one is involuntarily led to the conclusion that cleverness and craftiness are one and the same. Within the domain of faith, the Apostle says: ”We… have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Whose mind is it, then, outside the domain of faith? The evil one’s. Hence craftiness has become its distinguishing mark.