Main news for 13 November 2017

The Christian commentators interpreted Paul's words concerning the earthly tent differently. For some it was associated with earthly life in general, with this earthly house, which sooner or later man will have to leave, others saw in this tent the not transformed body, which is called to change, and that will come a new body transformed by the breath of God. In a certain sense, probably both are just.

And it is necessary to pay all the same attention on the fact that the Greek word translated usually into English as "hut" or "tent", in the Greek translations of the books of the Old Testament is of the same root as the word "tabernacle", indicating this sacred hut, which for the Jews during decades was the only sanctuary. This sense does not also disappear in the texts of the New Testament: John for example says that the Word "lives among us in the tent" (or in "the tabernacle"; the King James Version translation proposes in this case "dwelt among us").

In such a context and Paul's words acquire a special meaning. It already begins to be not only about the earthly life or the not transformed body, but, maybe, first of all the Christians, as living sanctuaries, probably, approximately in the same sense, in which in another message Paul compare the Christians to the Temple, where dwells the breath of God.

Well then it turns out that the entire life of the Christian, current and future is defined by the measure of his participation in the life of the Kingdom. Actually, it is already not about two different lives, but about one, which, beginning in the not transformed world in the not transformed body, goes on later in the world transformed in forms corresponding to this transformed world. Probably, it can’t be otherwise in the Kingdom: because the Kingdom for the Christian is not the future, but the present; and for the rest it is not about the essence, but only the forms.

As the world changes, transforming and becoming more and more a part of the Kingdom, is also transformed, becoming more and more a part of the Kingdom, the life of each of its inhabitants. The essence remains besides invariable: no matter what was the form, a Christian always lives the life of the Kingdom, inhales his breath, and witnesses of it to the world. And the form and the timing of changes are defined by God.