Friday, June 30
Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles
Appointed readings
4 passagesEpistle
Romans 11:25–36
25For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27For this is My covenant with them,When I take away their sins.'
28Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.
29For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
30For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience,
31even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.
32For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
33Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34'For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?'
35'Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?'
36For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Epistle
1 Corinthians 4:9–16
9For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.
10We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!
11To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.
12And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure;
13being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.
14I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.
15For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
16Therefore I urge you, imitate me.
Gospel
Matthew 12:1–8
1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
2And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, 'Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!'
3But He said to them, 'Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:
4how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?
6Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.
7But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.
8For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.'
Gospel
Mark 3:13–19
13And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him.
14Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach,
15and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:
16Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter;
17James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, 'Sons of Thunder';
18Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite;
19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. And they went into a house.