"To fulfill God's ultimate purpose, the unity of all in one faith, by fulfilling man's ultimate purpose, the knowledge of God."

OrthodoxBibleStudy.com hosts articles of Holy Scripture and contains tools and resources to help anyone who would like to study the Holy Scripture.

OrthodoxBibleStudy.com is not sponsored by a certain church or organization.  It is also not part of any publisher, but was started with the blessings of an Orthodox priest and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  This website is intended to be a service for all Orthodox Church members.  It is individually funded by an Orthodox member wanting to know more about the Bible and will share everything learnt with all.

Finally we ask the readers to pray for this service, for those who are being served by it, and for those who are serving.  We pray that these words would impart grace on the hearers/readers (Ephesians 4:29).

We also pray that this weak service would be acceptable before God for the glory of His Name.

God's Ultimate Purpose: Unity

Many times when we count our blessings we realize that God has overwhelmed us with His love.  He is faithful even when we aren't (2 Timothy 2:13).  His love is above all understanding (Ephesians 3:19).  That love is not only directed to the world, but to each and every one of us in a very personal level.  God has given and continues to give without asking for anything in return.  And what can we give to God that wasn't already given to us by Him first?  Everything we have is from Him, whether it is material things, our strength or anything else.

Have you ever wondered what can you give God that He would appreciate? What does God want?  What is it that God really really wants more than anything else in this whole world?  What is His deepest desire?
Thank God he has already revealed His deepest desire to us.  When we read His most intimate prayer to the Father in the Gospel of John chapter 17, He says "...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:21-23)

Thus we see that His desire is that we may all be one.  God desires Unity.  Humanity however has many different diverse faiths.  Even Christianity has many divisions.  We unfortunately even have divisions within Orthodox sects.  This is not God's desire.  As St. Paul tells us "There's one Lord, one faith and one Baptism." (Ephesians 4:5)  We believe that unity could only be attained by the knowledge of the One God.

Man's Ultimate Purpose:  Knowledge of God

But what is the knowledge of God?  Knowing God is different than knowing about God.  Knowing about God could be one of the many ways that would lead us to the true knowledge of God.  The true knowledge of God however could only be experienced by real encounters with God.  For example, we could first know about a person, but when we finally meet that person we start really knowing them and maybe even correcting some of the wrong ideas we had about them.  The same is true with God.

In the same chapter we quoted earlier that reveals God's ultimate desire, we also learn man's ultimate desire, which is to know God.  "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."  (John 17:3)

St. Silouan said, "The most precious thing in the world is to know God, even if only dimly."  St. Anthony said, "The most grievous loss and the greatest disaster is for a person not to know God."  This is why Fr. Anthony M. Coniaris said, "The supreme blessing of the human soul is that it can know God.  The supreme tragedy is that many people do not want to know Him."

The Mission Statement

With the above we come to our mission statement: "To fulfill God's ultimate purpose, the unity of all in one faith, by fulfilling man's ultimate purpose, the knowledge of God."

Our unity will come naturally by knowing God, what He is like, and How He wants us to worship Him.  This website however cannot give the reader the gift of the knowledge of God as we defined it earlier.  We can however entice you to know God by presenting what we know about God.  We can also present simple and practical steps to know God.  However, we cannot possibly make you know God.  This is a step that you have to take.  And when you do, you'll always want to know more and more about Him.  This process will take eternity since God is unlimited, which is why St. John the apostle describes it as "eternal life" (John 17:3).

We are usually taught to set "SMART" goals: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  We're pretty sure the mission statement's goal "the unity of all in one faith" violates most of these criterions if not all.  However our God is a great and powerful God.  It would be insulting to ask God for anything less.  As for knowing God, well we have all of eternity to do it!