— Not in itself, but it has a religious significance. The Satanist gets a tattoo of six hundred and sixty-six and buys a car number of six hundred and sixty-six for bribes so that the devil will help him. "And the number thirteen?" "And this is a superstition. The number itself does not mean anything either. Now, I wanted to talk about the Bible. Why do we believe that the Bible is the word of God?

The Church offers the following five reasons, five justifications. First, the Bible expounds lofty dogmas that could not have been invented by the human mind. The Bible speaks of the Trinity, and we know that it is incomprehensible, very difficult to understand. The teaching about the Trinity, as we have said, is difficult for our perception. No one ever taught about the Trinity. Three gods sat down together – please, it happens, the three muses are the same.

Three masks on one face are welcome, but the Trinity is nowhere to be found, absolutely. The doctrine of God's construction of the world out of nothing. The teaching that Christ is God and Man at the same time. A demigod, a half-man – there is one in Greek mythology and in others too. And God and Man at the same time are completely incomprehensible. In fact, the world is infinitely complex to answer trivially, a trivial answer will not give anything.

There are things that everyone knows, as they say: a goat understands. And the question of how to get rid of sin is much more complicated. — It is impossible to get rid of sin. — Really. In the Church there is a special art of deliverance from sin. We have special medicines for this or that sin, which are not the same, by the way, fornication and pride cannot be treated in the same way. Why?

Because different sins are treated differently. And this remedy is the word of God. And the Bible, it is relevant to every person, it cures all passions, it has a medicine for any human passions. Naturally, if a person uses it. And if he comes to the pharmacy, buys himself pills, and does not take them, then who can he complain about about a hypertensive crisis, stroke, heart attack, and so on. You didn't take the medicines, and it's your fault.

So it is not the Bible itself that heals, of course, but life according to the word of God. The first sign, of course, is the Word of God, since God would not say completely empty things. When spiritualists, evil spirits, come out and write epistles, they usually write all sorts of nonsense, complete nonsense. They summon some spirit, he writes such nonsense that it is impossible to read there.

As a missionary, I had to read the works of initiated magicians. There are a lot of capital letters, exclamation marks and huge gaps in logic: there is an elderberry in the garden, and an uncle in Kyiv. And the word of God in this sense is very different, it differs in that everything there is extremely sober and surprisingly non-trivial. The second sign is that the Bible is the word of God. The second sign is the purity of the teaching.

The logic is clear, that is, if the Bible was given by the Holy God, then the word must also be holy. The moral bar of the Bible – is there anything higher than it? Is there anything higher than the Gospel moral bar? No. Although, you will agree that the biblical requirements are quite fair. For example, it is fair not only not to kill, but also not to be angry. Fairly? "Don't steal.

"Again, not only not to steal, but also not to covet someone else's. It is fair not only not to cheat on your wife, but also not to look at other women. You will agree that this is a fair and purer approach to a person. In this sense, the Bible is remarkably different from other books. For example, there is such a funny episode in the Koran, I laughed for a long time when I read it.

There, Muhammad fell in love with the wife of his adopted son. And then a revelation comes to him: Muhammad, you should not have adopted sons. Everything is wrong, everything is wrong, you are wrong. Muhammad transmits a revelation – this means that the adopted son immediately ceases to be an adopted son. Then comes the revelation: the wife of the adopted son must divorce him. A revelation comes, which means that the adopted son, faithful to the prophet, is divorcing his wife.

Then comes the third revelation: Muhammad must marry her. It's convenient, of course. Muslims also have commandments. For example, the following: you cannot kill any of the believers, however, you can kill infidels. Or – the life and property of believers are inviolable, it is forbidden to steal from believers. And for non-believers, everything that is bad is yours. The logic is kind of incomprehensible.

Or, for example, a revelation comes: you have to give the prophet one-fourth of the spoils, if you can't, well, okay, a fifth. That is, a good, convenient revelation. It is impossible to believe that this is the word of God, you will agree. Or, for example, there was such a wonderful revelation: everyone is allowed to have four wives and as many concubines as you want. But Muhammad is allowed to have as many wives as he wants.

But no one ever has the right to take Muhammad's wives. But this is all quite understandable, a person is woman-loving, loves many wives. In addition, he is jealous, he does not want his wives to marry others later, it is also understandable. But why is this called the word of God! I compare all this so that it becomes clear that the moral level of the word of God is incomparable with anything.

In Greek mythology, morality as such is completely absent. Indeed, pagan gods live according to their own, often not at all moral laws. And the word of God is absolutely moral. And now look: if this were written by a person who had to live by what he wrote, would he write it for himself? "Even a highly moral person?