What is this "unclean spirit"? This question often gives us no peace. Often the question of fighting the unclean spirit becomes...
What is this "unclean spirit"? This question often gives us no peace. Often the question of fighting the unclean spirit becomes the central point of spiritual books and of spiritual life as a whole. For many people today, when the traditions of ritual purity regulated by the book of Leviticus have receded into the distant past - and that is the book with the highest concentration of the word "unclean" in the whole Bible - the fear of being defiled has not disappeared at all; it has simply shifted from certain concrete things to an unclean spirit understood in some particular way.
And this is a very dangerous path. Because the center of our life should be not the struggle against the unclean spirit, but Christ. This may be the most important seed of meaning that today's reading gives us. The mere appearance of Christ in our life is enough for the unclean spirit to "cry out with a loud voice and come out" of us. We only need truly to let Christ into our life, and this is possible only through reading and prayerful meditation on the Word of God.
But how often one sees a person who, instead, plunges into reading penitential canons and prayers from a very particular Byzantine monastic tradition, for which we are, of course, endlessly grateful because of its amazing example of communion with God, but which cannot be copied mechanically for our own communion with God, because our life is completely different, and simply because communion is a living, dynamic process that accepts no ready-made patterns or formulas.
But when one sees such a person, it becomes very sad. His life has truly turned into a struggle, and even, it would seem, a struggle against evil; but what is the fruit of this struggle, and who is made better by it? Yet all that is needed is to let Christ into one's heart, to make Him the center of one's life, and the problem will resolve itself.
Yes, but evil exists; we must not close our eyes to it. We should not close them, but let us look straight at Christ, and at everything else with peripheral vision.
6
6:11 From the praise of the Christian ministry, which he began Co2 2:14, he now draws his affectionate exhortation.O ye Corinthians - He seldom uses this appellation. But it has here a peculiar force. Our mouth is opened toward you - With uncommon freedom, because our heart is enlarged - In tenderness.
6:12 Ye are not straitened in us - Our heart is wide enough to receive you all. But ye are straitened in your own bowels - Your hearts are shut up, and so not capable of the blessingsye might enjoy.
6:13 Now for a recompence of the same - Of my parental tenderness. I speak as to my children - I ask nothing hard or grievous. Be ye also enlarged - Open your hearts, first to God, and then to us, so Co2 8:5, that God may "dwell in you," Co2 6:16; Co2 7:1; and that ye may "receive us," Co2 7:2.
6:14 Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers - Christians with Jews or heathens. The apostle particularly speaks of marriage. But the reasons he urges equally hold against any needless intimacy with them. Of the five questions that follow, the three former contain the argument; the two latter, the conclusion.
6:15 What concord hath Christ - Whom ye serve.With Belial - To whom they belong.
6:16 What agreement hath the temple of God with idols - If God would not endure idols in any part of the land wherein he dwelt, how much less, under his own roof! He does not say, with the temple of idols, for idols do not dwell in their worshippers. As God hath said - To his ancient church, and in them to all the Israel of God. I will dwell in them, and walk in them - The former signifying his perpetual presence; the latter, his operation. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people - The sum of the whole gospel covenant. Lev 26:11, etc