Main news for 14 March 2024

John's words about not receiving into one's house those who do not confess the teaching of which the apostle speaks may appear to be a manifestation of extreme intolerance toward every different opinion. Meanwhile, the issue is nothing other than the person of Jesus Christ. If John had any teaching on which he insisted, it concerned precisely this question: who is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Messiah sent by God into the world, or simply a teacher, one of many who then existed?

Christianity itself consists in the answer to this question. If Christianity were simply a new religion, the apostle's position would indeed look unattractive: one might think that adherents of this new religion fear competition and prefer sectarian closedness to openness and dialogue. But Christianity is not a new religion; it is a new life. Life with Christ in His Kingdom.

Life that is inconceivable without trusting Jesus of Nazareth not only as Teacher, but also as Son of God, as Messiah, as King of that Kingdom whose inhabitant every Christian by definition must become. The one who does not receive Jesus in this way cannot be an inhabitant of the Kingdom. But can Christians receive only their own in their homes? Today such an approach may seem at least strange to us. But here it is important to take into account the features of ancient customs of hospitality in general, as well as Jewish customs of that era and the customs of the first Christians.

To greet a person in those days meant not simply to say "hello" to him, but also to invite him into one's home. And having invited him home, it was impossible not to give the guest food. One would necessarily have to sit with him at one table, sharing a meal, and therefore breaking bread. Jews, for example, never sat at one table with pagans precisely for this reason: in breaking bread a believing Jew blessed it in the name of the God of Abraham, while pagans remembered, often even if only symbolically, their pagan gods.

For a Jew, such a situation at least bordered on apostasy. For a Christian the situation was approximately the same, but here the issue was the breaking of bread in the name of Jesus; without mentioning this name, the breaking of bread was impossible for a Christian. And if someone for whom Jesus of Nazareth was an ordinary person ended up at the table together with Christians, there would be no common meal.

When some seek the meal of the Kingdom and others do not believe in such a possibility at all, the situation becomes at least ambiguous, and for everyone. It is in order to exclude this ambiguity that the apostle advises avoiding situations in which it would become possible. For every such ambiguity only distances a person from the Kingdom: both the one seeking the Kingdom and the one who does not yet know about it.