Main news for 21 September 2017

King James Version (en)

2 Corinthians, Chapter 10, verse 7

⁷ assuring them that at his coming he will be found as mighty in word, as he is now in writing being absent

⁷Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.

NOTES

Continuing the discussion about who argues and persuades, and how, Paul says bluntly that he is not going to take his cue from those who “commend themselves” and “measure themselves by themselves.” This is how the apostle assesses lovers of debate who argue for argument's sake in order to assert themselves and their own point of view. Such people really are concerned only with “putting themselves forward”; the truth does not interest them. Moreover, their only criterion of truth is usually their own opinion. They are convinced in advance that they are right, believing, though they do not always say so directly, that there are only two points of view: their own and the wrong one.

Of such disputants the apostle says that they “boast in other men's labours,” contrasting them with himself and his own ministry. This is understandable: disputes and debates of this kind are intended to assert oneself at the expense of others, not to help those others become established in the life of the Kingdom. The disputants Paul mentions think first of winning as many supporters as possible, while often caring nothing at all about their fate or spiritual condition. They leave it to someone else to concern themselves with their supporters' spiritual state.

The apostle, by contrast, cares first of all about the spiritual life of those with whom he associates. He does not need supporters; he has no intention of creating circles, schools, or church parties. He wants only to bring as many people as possible to Christ and draw them into the life of the Kingdom in which he himself abides. It is in this sense that Paul says he does not boast in other people's labours, but in “his own field” among those to whom God will reveal the Kingdom through him, strengthening their faith.

Such ministry can be considered truly Christian. As for boasting, if it makes sense to boast of anything at all, it does so only when it is God, not people, who commends us. If God values highly what a person has done, then that person has not lived in vain and has devoted his life to what was worth doing and ought to have been done. But glory, influence, and fame in this world are worth as much as the world itself. Compared with the life of the Kingdom, its value tends towards zero, as do its glory, influence, and fame.

Speaking about his strength, Paul characterizes it not as human strength, but as God's strength, given to him for the destruction of "mental fortresses" and for resisting everything that exalts itself before God. The apostle states this while commenting on the idea about him that, judging by his words, had spread: that he is strong in letters but weak when meeting opponents face to face. Judging by the mention of "mental fortresses" and exaltation, the matter apparently concerns certain arguments and debates, perhaps public ones, that took place in the Corinthian church. And Paul's reference to exaltation in such a context was hardly accidental. One may think that the participants in these arguments and debates had already, for quite some time and by quite a distance, gone beyond the boundaries within which it was still possible to speak of the search for truth and authentic spiritual life. At the time when the apostle was writing his letter to the Corinthian Christians, their arguments and debates were probably aimed first of all at self-assertion and the defense of their own rightness, whether the issue concerned individual people or certain groups within the church.

Paul undoubtedly wanted to stop these meaningless and spiritually harmful disputes. But, of course, this was not a matter of stopping them by using power or authority: Paul did not have such power, and not everyone was ready to recognize his authority. He could act only as a Christian, by God's strength and by the breath of the Kingdom by which he lived. Very often it is precisely God's strength and the breath of the Kingdom that turn out to be the decisive argument in disputes among Christians.

If all Christians lived the full life of the Kingdom opened to them, the breath of the Kingdom would always and in every case be their only argument. But since full Christian life is not found all that often even among Christians, disputes and debates among Christians often unfold according to the laws of this world, and here the main goal becomes precisely self-assertion: if not of one's person, then of one's school, one's ideas and views, one's position.

But if those arguing are still not completely closed to the action of God's breath, then the appearance of a person living a full Christian life can change the situation, forcing them to look differently both at themselves and at their disputes. And then it may well turn out that there is nothing to argue about, because the argument was about things that are not so important from the point of view of spiritual life.

The main thing is renunciation of self-assertion, which is the spring behind many arguments and debates, including among Christians. Often it is enough to remove this spring for the disputes to grow quiet, and for the strength and energy spent on them to be directed toward spiritual life as such, toward recognizing and building relationships with God and with people. This is the kind of change in their church life that Paul would like to bring to the Corinthian Christians.

As seen, Paul quite skeptically evaluates the possibility of evaluating the Christianity of man by appearance ("personality"). It would seem that such skepticism is not always justified: because often the appearance of man (in the large sense of the word) can say a lot of him: the lifestyles, the behavior, even the manners sometimes give quite full representation not only of the outward, but also of the inward of their owner.

Yet, having thought, it is necessary to agree with the apostle: the appearance understood even widely, speaks very little about the Christian life of man, and maybe even absolutely nothing. Certainly, if the Christianity was simply another new religion, the appearance of man would have been able to say a lot about his Christianity: indeed religiosity (or its absence) is in many formed by the very appearance. But indeed Christianity is not a religion, but the life in the Kingdom.

And here without personal experience of such life it is practically impossible to understand anything. Of course, we could remember love, joy and several other characteristics of such life, but indeed, the reflections of the Kingdom are sometimes also met in the not transformed world, and if we take again into consideration that the joy, for example, as many others, can be caused by various spiritual reasons, we shall arrive involuntarily at the conclusion that it is even very difficult, impossible to judge of how man has joined the life of the Kingdom, only by outward signs.

Remains only one criterion: experience in general. Indeed: the life of the Kingdom, as life in general, can be very different from outside, its forms are practically inexhaustible, but the essence is the same, and each, familiarized even a little with this life, will never confuse it and with anything, if only for certain reason he will not want to deceive himself. And the apostle, as seen, calls in particular to this experience allowing without doubts and hesitations to define, if a particular person has a relation with the life of the Kingdom, or not.

If a man knows that he lives the same life with Christ (and if it is really the case, then there cannot be doubts to the one living the Christ life, for the life he lives), then he will also know for another person, if only he feels in him the presence of the same life, which he himself lives, he will say with full confidence: we live together the same life. As we see, there are no other criteria. And it is not surprising: because there cannot be by definition in the world not transformed instruments, allowing to fix the manifestations of the Kingdom. And we ourselves can see them only as much as we do not belong to this world completely. And Paul suggests to each, when it comes to the spiritual life, to rely on this feeling of the Kingdom. On this only reliable instrument, that allows us to distinguish the life of the Kingdom from the life of "this world".

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