Main news for 28 June 2018

King James Version (en)

1 Corinthians, Chapter 16, verses 13-14

¹³Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

¹⁴Let all your things be done with charity.

NOTES

In many of his letters Paul describes what inhabitants of the Kingdom should be. And in the letter to the Corinthians he too turns to this theme. What does the apostle draw attention to as the distinguishing features of an inhabitant of the Kingdom? He evidently singles out spiritual collectedness, which is exactly what the apostle speaks of when he calls his addressees to "watch": to watch means, in fact, not to sleep, not to relax, and first of all not to relax spiritually; steadfastness in faithfulness, or "faith," by which, of course, faithfulness to Christ is meant; courage; and strength, which in the Synodal translation is called "steadfastness."

It is not hard to notice that all these qualities are interconnected and are determined by a person's spiritual state. Spiritual collectedness is impossible without that spiritual wholeness which is the result and goal of every ascetic practice, including, of course, Christian ascetic practice. But such wholeness is only a means; it is important not in itself, but as an instrument needed in order to preserve faithfulness to Christ. Indeed, faithfulness is impossible without spiritual wholeness. In its absence a person is too unstable spiritually to preserve faithfulness to anyone or anything.

And without preserving faithfulness to Christ, of course, one cannot speak of any life in the Kingdom: betrayal means the rupture of all relations, and the Kingdom is formed precisely by relations: its inhabitants with Christ and with one another, their relations with God, and finally Christ Himself with the Father. Anyone who breaks these relations loses the Kingdom. If the relations are preserved, then a person receives courage and strength.

The matter, of course, is not physical strength, but that strength of the Kingdom which is so clearly visible in every genuine witness of it. And during trials this strength becomes the spiritual foundation of the courage that gives the faithful power to remain steadfast even in the hardest minutes. But the main feature of the inhabitants of the Kingdom is the love that is their organic spiritual environment, in which all their relations with one another are built. It is no accident that at the Last Supper the Savior points to love as the distinguishing mark of Christians.

Indeed, it is love that constitutes the spiritual substance of the Kingdom, what could be called its nature. And every inhabitant of the Kingdom shares in this love. That is why the apostle calls Christians, as they act in our transforming but not yet transformed world, to do so in such a way that everything happening in the Church is done in love, so that every action of Christians gives this new nature, the nature of the Kingdom transforming the world, an opportunity to manifest itself.

At the close of his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul, as...

At the close of his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul, as always, mentions the people who shared his labors and ministry with him. About some we know a little from other New Testament books; about others we can only guess, because only their names are known to us. Some of these people were probably little known to the Corinthian church, or even not known at all. And still the apostle asks the Corinthian brothers to receive them as their own.

Meanwhile church guesthouses like those that exist today at some churches did not exist in those days, so one of the brothers would have had to receive the people Paul writes about into his own home. But the apostle, as one can see, is not embarrassed by this. He does not ask them to receive his companions if there is opportunity or desire; he is absolutely certain that the Corinthian Christians will have both the opportunity and the desire. If the matter concerned the laws and norms of our world, which has not yet been transformed, such an attitude could be regarded, at best, as tactlessness. But Paul in this case acts according to other laws, according to the laws of the Kingdom, where there are no strangers, and therefore it cannot happen that one of the brothers who has come from far away will have to spend the night on the street.

And this confidence of the apostle that such a thing is possible, that he can rely on the Corinthian Christians with regard to hospitality, testifies that both in the Church in general and in the Corinthian church in particular, the spiritual situation was normal despite everything Paul himself wrote to his Corinthian brothers about. After all, one can receive into one's home a person one sees for the first time only when relations with him are either established immediately, at first sight, or have existed for a long time already. Both are possible only by grace and only in the Kingdom; the nature of our world, which has not yet been transformed, acts destructively on any relationships, which under such influence either grow cold or become formal, unless people are bound by something natural. And the very fact that Paul does not doubt his Corinthian brothers for a minute is the best testimony to the reality of the Church as a community of people living in the Kingdom and according to the laws of the Kingdom: the Church as it should be, as it was conceived and created by its Founder.

For some, Christianity with its sermon of forgiveness, mercy, meekness and humility appears as a creed of the weaklings. But is it really so?...

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