Matthew 18:20 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 18:20 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. The presence of Jesus among the gathered two or three is the foundation of both the discipline procedure and the prayer promise: it is not the gathering's size that produces the divine presence but the gathering in Jesus' name. The two or three are sufficient because the one in whose name they gather is with them. The smallest community that gathers in Jesus' name has all of Jesus' presence.

Church Fathers on Matthew 18:20

Because He had said, 'If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen, and a publican,' whereupon the brother so contemned might answer, or think within himself, If you despise me, I also will despise you; if you condemn me, you shall be condemned by my sentence. He therefore confers powers upon the Apostles, that they may be assured that when any are condemned after this manner, the sentence of man is ratified by the sentence of God. 'Verily I say unto you,…
Jerome · 4th century

He said not in the heavens (in caelis), as when He spoke to Peter, but in heaven (in coelo), for they are not yet attained to the like perfection with Peter.
Origen · 3rd century

To hold out a great and terrible fear, by which all men should be reached in this present life, He pronounces that the judgment of the Apostles should be ratified, so that whosoever they bound on earth, i.e. left entangled in the noose of sin, and whosoever they loosed, i.e. accorded the pardon of God’s mercy to their salvation, that these should be bound and loosed in heaven.'
Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century

Read all 14 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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