Main news for 28 February 2018

In all times of the Christian history, the missionaries and preachers tried to answer the question: what prevents people from accepting the good news about the Christ and the Kingdom? And Paul however answers to this question though briefly, but aptly enough and, maybe exhaustive. As usual, he divides all people between the religious (" the Jews ") and the secular (“the Greeks"), and besides the ones as the others have their reason for rejecting the testimony about the Christ and Kingdom.

And it is easier to see these reasons, if we analyze the relation of these two mentioned categories of people in the fact of the death on the cross of the Savior, of which without the story it is of course impossible to speak about His resurrection, and thus about the Kingdom, and about Christianity in general. As we see, the apostle considers as distinctive peculiarity of the religious consciousness the expectation of signs ("miracles"), which would confirm to religious people the authenticity of the testimony, which they hear.

By the way, they also require for this kind of signs to the Savior during His ministry on earth. But the signs expected by them, had to fit those ideas and concepts, which are specific to the religious representations of the listeners. It is in particular these proofs that expected from Jesus many of the Pharisees who listened to Him: He had to do something that would correspond to their representations of how should be and how should behave the Messiah.

And the death on the cross corresponded not at all to such representations, even if we admit that it was followed by the resurrection. The Messiah, according to the Jewish traditional notions of that period (and not only), didn’t have to be a crucified Righteous, but a triumphant Conqueror, in more a Conqueror winning in our not transformed world, and not in a certain Kingdom "not of this world ". And that is why for the Jews of the evangelic time, the messianism of the early Christian Church was something completely unacceptable. For, the Kingdom does not fit at all to any religious frames, and does not thus fit Christianity also. And any religious consciousness (including "Christian") opposes the revelation about the Kingdom, when it goes beyond its limits, destroying them, and destroying religiosity itself.

It would seem, secular people must be delivered from this problem. It is exactly like that; but problems of another kind appear here. Every pagan (and "the secularism" is nothing else than practical paganism) lives exceptionally or mainly according to the laws of the not transformed world. All his psychic and behavioral models defining his daily existence, what is usually called "the practical life" (especially the capacity to organize the daily practical life is called in the Bible wisdom), are oriented by the laws of the not transformed world, and not of the laws of the Kingdom.

This usually stops the secular man who heard the testimony and is thinking about what he heard. For him, to try to live according to the laws of the Kingdom is the most real foolishness: because it is a radical break, the destruction of all the models and representations established, and in more generally recognized, in reality, the refusal of the entire previous life, and a voluntary refusal. The adventure, the completely crazy adventure! And several heathen ("secular people") refuse any attempts to join the life of the Kingdom, being afraid in particular of this seeming foolishness. As we see, the reasons of the aversion of testimonies for religious people and for secular people are different and all of them are not similar. But the result is the same: the rejection of the Kingdom, and of the personal salvation.