After this, the unbelievers devised something worse: a plan to destroy the Christian church to its foundation and usher in death for the righteous man. What did they contrive? Nearby the church of the Archangel, where the holy waters were located, from the left side, there ran a river name Chryssos. The unbelievers wished to divert the river so that the deluge might come down upon the holy waters and the church.

Archangel Michael, the Great Commander of God's bodiless Hosts, both before the Incarnation and after, showed compassion and solicitude toward the race of man (Josh. 5:13-15; Dan. 10:13, 12:1; Jude 1:9; Rev. 12:7). He bestowed many benefits on earth before the coming of Christ, and afterward, he showed even greater care and love toward the Christians.

Turning to the Holy Scripture for guidance so as to how to live according to the will of God we are advised by Saint Paul the following: "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem (respect) others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3). "Conceit", of vainglory, is a common and fatal vice. It obstructs spiritual growth and of striving to attain spiritual maturity.

As the Church spread, it also became necessary to commit the central core of the events of Our Lord's life and His teaching to writing, to provide a written Gospel for those who came to the Faith far from the little out-of-the-way province of the Empire in which the Lord had lived and died. So it was that the four written Gospels came into being

Perhaps the days are gone when very many people have the impression that the Holy Bible was somehow mysteriously written in the English of the King James Version (KJV), all ready-made and bound in a book, at some unknown point since the day of the Apostles. Certainly, such a notion would be hard to find amongst Orthodox Christians. But in the society in which we live, perhaps many Orthodox Christians included, there is often a "that's the way it is" attitude, attached to whatever concept of "the Bible" one happens to have.

In the Old Testament account of creation, God created mankind and established a place for him called Paradise. He also gave him a commandment regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying, 'You may eat food from every tree in the garden, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat; for in whatever day you eat from it, you shall die by death' (Genesis 2:16,17). In that, Adam and Eve did not physically die the day they ate from the tree, the words "you shall die" indicate a spiritual death through the separation from God.