Main news for 4 January 2025

How often we catch ourselves thinking, when something happens that we, to put it mildly, do not like: 'Why is this happening to me?' Why did the Lord arrange everything this way, and if He did not arrange it, why did He allow it to happen? What did I do that now this has happened? And so on... But if we are to seek an answer to such a question, it should be formulated differently - beginning with the question 'For what purpose?' And then the answer is not far away: 'We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose' (Rom 8:28).

In addition, the apostle Paul directly warns Timothy in today's passage: 'All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted' (2 Tim 3:12). So it would seem that everything is sealed... But people believe and strive toward Christ not in order to be persecuted. People seek God and find communion with Him, and this becomes far more important than any surrounding problems. Persecutions, in Paul's words, are only a consequence of the desire for a godly life in Jesus. For as long as the whole world has not received the message about our Lord and the Lord Himself, there will remain people who do not acknowledge Him. And accordingly, they will not acknowledge those who follow Him.

What follows? What is alien is rejected, especially what 'condemns' us. But this 'condemnation' is of a different kind from the one we are used to. 'And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil; for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may not be exposed' (John 3:19-20).

At the conclusion of his instruction to Timothy, Paul again and again urges him not to retreat from the ministry entrusted to him, whose meaning is witness and faithfulness to what forms the foundation of Christian life. Sacred Scripture, which according to the apostle's testimony he had studied from childhood, should help Timothy in this (vv. 14-17). Paul, as can be seen, does not specify exactly which books he means, but it is not hard to understand that he has in mind first of all that part of the Jewish canon which in Judaism is called the "Latter Prophets." It was based on records of the preaching of Israel's great prophets, who testified, among other things, to the coming Messiah and to the advent of the messianic Kingdom. But the apostle, remaining faithful to his understanding of the Torah, reminds his disciple that all Sacred Scripture is useful for training in righteousness (v. 16; in the Synodal translation, "for instruction in righteousness"). Sacred Scripture for Paul is not a source of ideas for justifying one religious doctrine or another, but a spiritual compass that helps the faithful find their bearings on the road to the Kingdom, so as not to stray from the path of righteousness.

Meanwhile, judging by the apostle's words, there will be many who want to knock them off this path, especially since the time is already near when many themselves will be glad to be deceived, listening to teachers who say what their followers like to hear (vv. 3-4). Such mass spiritual dishonesty may at first glance appear strange, but it becomes more understandable if we remember the features of fallen human nature, which in general tends to avoid everything that can cause it pain or discomfort, even for the sake of its healing. Meanwhile, Paul had more than once had to say and write that everyone who wants not simply to talk about the Torah, but to follow it seriously, will be forced to go against his own sinfulness, a process that no one will find either easy or pleasant. Spiritual life is not intellectual pleasures and not religious raptures, but the path of resisting evil. And this path is much harder than the path of the theoretical theologian or the religious activist, for both of them can enjoy the fruits of their labor already in this world, while the righteous person will see them only at the end of a long and difficult road. It is no surprise that many prefer other, easier paths, to which the teachers mentioned by Paul call them, over the path of righteousness that leads to the Kingdom. But "myths," even the most colorful and fascinating, will not replace genuine life, and the apostle reminds his disciple of the ministry laid upon him by the Church, the ministry of a witness who points seekers to the path into the Kingdom.

Today we often complain that the church, as people say, has deteriorated: before there was faith and an understanding of the foundations of spiritual life, but now, they say, nothing of the kind can be found. Paul's letters, however, refute this very widespread church myth. The situation in the Church was never ideal, and in different churches it was less than ideal in different ways.

But there was also something common, and this common element had a single spiritual root. The apostle defines it clearly and briefly: the search for "teachers," for those who "please the ear," who tell people what they want to hear. And often, and in early Christian times most often, the issue was the understanding of the Bible, of the sacred books. It is no accident that Paul says that Holy Scripture is God-breathed in its entirety, and therefore it is also, in its entirety, "useful for teaching."

But one can learn something from Scripture only when one receives it as it is, and in all the fullness available at the moment. A rabbi-teacher could be a great help here: he not only explained the meaning of one text or another, as modern commentators do, but also helped a person work with the text. Or rather, he helped a person approach the text in such a way that the text could work with him, with its reader.

For behind every God-breathed text stands the One who is its true Author, and the meaning of reading the Bible precisely as sacred Scripture is to allow the Author, through this particular text in each case, to work with oneself. Such reading presupposed a certain skill, and least of all in this skill was what we often love so much today and what could be called the principle of "me and the Bible" or even "me in the Bible": my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, my experiences concerning one passage or another.

Meanwhile, an adequate perception of the sacred text is possible only when the principle of "the Bible in me" is at work: here there is no room for my reflection, whether intellectual or emotional, but only an inner silence in which the text of Scripture sounds, having become God's word addressed to me. The practice of such reading was known both to the Synagogue and to the Church, although in the Church it eventually moved almost entirely into the monasteries.

This kind of reading was a priceless spiritual exercise which, along with inner prayer and conscious life, helped a person grow within himself that spiritual core which in those days was called the inner Torah. But this was rather intense and not always pleasant spiritual work, and far from everyone wanted to engage in it. Whoever did not want to do so looked for a "teacher" ready to "reflect" and "experience" together with him, turning with his student before the inner mirrors of his own reflection.

There could, of course, be no talk here of any spiritual work, but this sort of pastime was pleasant for those who liked it, and it could easily be passed off, to oneself and to others, as "studying Scripture" and as "spiritual life." This is the profanation of true knowledge of sacred Scripture against which Paul warns his student, for whom it was especially relevant: Timothy, judging by everything we know about him from Paul's letters, was precisely a rabbi-teacher, and the temptation to become a "teacher who pleases the ear" was quite real for him.