Main news for 14 August 2018

The words of the apostle about consolation in the sufferings can, at first sight, seem strange: because only a masochist can probably be delighted sufferings. Of course, the history (and not only Christian) knows many examples where people faithful to their idea, remained faithful to this one, in spite of all the persecutions and the trials, and were proud not to have changed their principles, no matter what. But if there is often joy here, it is not of course because of the very sufferings, and mostly not during the suffering, but when everything is already behind and one can, by summing up, notice the personal resistance in the trials for faith or for idea.

The apostle, according to his words, speaks about another thing: about the consolation at the very moment of sufferings, which the more it is, the powerful is the sufferings. It is impossible to explain it from the point of view of the laws of the non transformed world. But from the point of view of the Kingdom and of its life, everything falls in place. Of course suffering remains suffering, and it brings of course in itself no joy. But suffering is a part of the non transformed world, which is in evil, it is itself the manifestation of this evil, and it has no place in the Kingdom.

And indeed, the apostle speaks not only about sufferings, but also about persecutions for the Christ, for the testimony of the Kingdom. For the testimony, which is possible only in so far as much the witness himself was introduced the life of this Kingdom, of which he testifies. They persecute him in particular for the fact that he dares to live in the non transformed world according to the laws of the Kingdom and in more exhort the others. It is not surprising that, the deeper the rootedness of the witness in the life of the Kingdom, the more the world rejects him, more intense are the persecutions and bigger the sufferings.

But also the life of the Kingdom the deeper and more real is experienced, the deeper is rooted in it the witness! Here is he experiences this life of the Kingdom, as a consolation. Indeed, the Christian confession, quite as the martyrdom only superficially remind these sufferings and persecutions for the idea, which the history of the non transformed world knows well. The martyr suffers for the idea or even gives his own life only in exchange for the assurance in his own righteousness and to the right to consider himself as an inflexible spokesman and the carrier of his idea.

Of course, sometimes this enough: because certain ideas and certain principles are little taken away from the Kingdom. But the Christian confessor suffers, and the martyr gives his earthly life for the idea of the Kingdom, and for this fullness of life of the Kingdom, which he will lose, if he tried at the price of compromise (and in reality is the refusal of the Kingdom) to keep his pathetic earthly likeness. And Paul, as seen, witness of it as would say a modern philosopher, the existential dialectic, from the personal experience of the Christian witness, the confessor and the martyr.