NOTES for Ti2 2:1-13

Continuing the conversation about witness, Paul draws attention to the witness's responsibility. For the apostle, witness is a kind of spiritual relay, in the course of which everyone who has received the possibility of sharing in the life of the Kingdom afterward becomes a witness for those seeking new life (vv. 1-2). And the issue here, as we can see, is not merely a sense of duty, even a duty that people sometimes call sacred. The point is that witness is the normal spiritual state of a Christian. Of course, this does not mean that a Christian must spend whole days preaching, telling everyone around him about Christ and the Kingdom. It means something else: if Christianity for a person is truly new life, and not simply a new religion or a new morality, he will not be able to hide this new life from those around him, and will hardly want to hide it. The issue is not only the joy experienced by everyone who knows what the Kingdom is.

The point is also that the Kingdom can exist only by continuously expanding and including new inhabitants within itself. The breath of the Kingdom was not accidentally experienced, particularly on the day of Pentecost, as wind: like the wind, it knows no barriers, and like air, it penetrates everywhere it possibly can, occupying all available space. The difference between this breath and physical air is only that it spreads from heart to heart, and love for neighbor becomes for it the same organic medium of spreading that the atmosphere is for the wind. And a Christian, unless he wants to lose the Kingdom, must certainly become part of this process, this spiritual movement connected with the spread of the Kingdom in our world, which is being transformed but is not yet fully transformed. Only then will his own spiritual life be complete, as Paul reminds Timothy (vv. 3-7).

He also reminds his disciple of something else: the faithfulness to Christ without which there is no Kingdom (vv. 8-13). For Paul it is obvious that faithfulness to Christ and faithfulness to the Kingdom are one and the same, because Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a Teacher who shows the way. He Himself is the Kingdom; He bears it in Himself in all its fullness. A Christian can renounce the Kingdom to the extent that, before the complete transformation of his human nature, he still lives a divided life. Belonging to the Kingdom only in part, he also still belongs in part to the old, untransformed order of things. Christ is different: He is wholly the Kingdom. There is no other life in Him, and for Him to renounce the Kingdom would mean to renounce Himself. And Paul, as we can see, calls Timothy and all other Christians to become like Christ precisely in this fullness, in the fullness of the life of the Kingdom.

In the Epistle to Timothy, as in some other cases, Paul compares the Christian to a soldier who cannot allow himself to be entangled in the everyday affairs that burden others.

It may appear that, in that case, a Christian should have neither home nor family, and that the only possible Christian path is the monastic path: a monk is in fact like a soldier precisely because nothing in this world binds him. But in reality this does not have to be about monasticism, although there is a definite connection between the path of a monk and the path of a soldier, at least as it was understood in traditional cultures. The issue is, above all, the inner state of a person, which the Bible calls poverty. Not in the sense of material condition, but precisely in the sense of a spiritual state.

Of course, in certain cases, for certain people, the path of inner poverty is possible only with a complete renunciation, including an outward one, not only of every kind of wealth but also of family and home, and therefore of property in general, apart from the bare minimum needed. But the point is not such renunciation in itself. The point is to renounce every attempt to rely in life on anything except God.

And for this a person must realize the simple and, on the whole, obvious fact that we do not even belong to ourselves: after all, we became human beings because of that "breath of life" which God "breathed" into us at creation. And if we are not our own, but God's, then our claims to own anything in this world have hardly any meaning. God gives us the whole world, but not as a possession; He gives it for use and stewardship, yet on one necessary condition: the practical recognition of His full and unconditional sovereignty both over the world and over us ourselves.

And then a person can, while using everything, live having nothing and binding himself to nothing, like a soldier who, while he is in service, does not think about how to earn his living, but thinks about how to carry out the order he has received. His food is provided by the one in whose service the soldier stands. And if such an attitude toward life is expected of everyone who has entered the spiritual path, then all the more should it be characteristic of a Christian as an inhabitant of the Kingdom, which is what Paul reminds Timothy of.

What Paul means, by saying that "the word of God is not bound"? It would have been of course possible to say that the truth will win in every case, in spite of all the persecutions and the pursuits. But it would have been possible to speak so, only in the case if the truth was something completely independent from man and from his choice. The famous "and all the same the earth turns!" is a good example for that: if "the earth" really "turns", no matter what people think, quite as no matter, if shall be obliged to give up his words, the one who spoke of this to others: who heard, has heard, after each makes his conclusions, and the reality will not change an iota because of these conclusions.

Of course, for the scholar, his position and loyalty to the truth revealed by him is a question of spiritual choice, but the human weakness in that case change nothing: "the earth” will “turn" in any case, and the personal spiritual qualities of each and his choice in a concrete situation influence only on his own destiny. And everyone who will like to study what was revealed to others, will be able to do that independently of the position and the personal qualities of his predecessor.

When it is about the witness of the Kingdom, everything turns out otherwise. Only the one who is a member of this Kingdom can witness about the life in the Kingdom, and from his witness depends the spiritual fate of the seekers. And here the loyalty of the witness is important not only for the one who witnesses; it just stops being his personal affair. But the testimony already turns out here not only the word, but also the life of the one who witnesses, and even his death.

It is not accidentally that, those whom we began to call later martyrs were called witnesses in the times of early Christianity: parting from the earthly life, they thus proved that there is another life, life of the Kingdom, of which before they told those who were ready to listen. And for the sake of this life, a life in all its plenitude, it is not regrettable to part from this small grain of plenitude, which forms our life in this non-transformed world. Well then it turns out that God's word is really "not bound": because if it is not only the life, but also the death of the one who witnesses, that is the witness, then it is impossible to mute such word.

The very beginning of verse 11 suggests a two-way relationship between us and the sacred text. Paul, who repeatedly uses quotations from Scripture to confirm his words, here, on the contrary, himself affirms that a certain saying is true. This mutual recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Word and in a person is remarkable.

What follows is, apparently, a fragment of an ancient Christian hymn whose main meaning is the proclamation that life in union with God, beginning here with suffering and death shared with Jesus Christ, continues after death too, in His Resurrection and reign. Let us note for ourselves a certain paradox in the conclusion of this fragment: our denial of God, that is, the breaking of relationship with Him, also means our unfaithfulness, but God's denial of us is not unfaithfulness, because He remains faithful to Himself and to His purpose, and this gives hope to our existence in this changeable and unfaithful world.

The beginning of verse 11 suggests bilateral relations between us and the holy text. Paul, who uses several times quotations from the Holy Scriptures for the confirmation of his words, asserts Himself on the contrary here that certain statements are faithful. Remarkable is the mutual recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Word and in the person!

The continuation represents apparently, a fragment of an ancient Christian hymn, the main sense which is the proclamation of the fact that life in union with God, beginning here with suffering and death, separating from Jesus Christ, and continues after death - in His Resurrection and reign. Let’s note for ourselves a certain paradoxicality of the conclusion of this fragment: our denial of God (that is the break of relations with Him) and this means our unfaithfulness, but God's denial of us is not an unfaithfulness, because He remains faithful to Himself and His plan, what gives hope to our existence in this changeable and unfaithful world.

For Paul it was obvious that Christianity is life with Christ in His Kingdom. It was just as obvious to him that there is no place in the Kingdom for evil or sin. But Paul always remained a realist. He knew human nature very well. From his own experience he understood that it is impossible for fallen man not to sin. And one can be completely freed from sin only after the complete transformation of human nature. Meanwhile the Savior calls each of us to new life, to life in His Kingdom, already now. How is this possible? Clearly, only despite our own sinfulness.

But what does "despite" mean? At the very moment when we give sin a place in our life, we thereby separate ourselves from the Kingdom, from its life. Yet sometimes this happens apart from our will: in the fallen state we are far from always able to control our own intentions, including those that lead us toward sin. If we sin consciously and do not repent of the sin committed, the Kingdom is closed to us. But another kind of unfaithfulness is possible: not betrayal, but a mistake, a spiritual breakdown. In that case we do not finally drown in our sin, though it may well overwhelm us completely for a time.

But as long as we ourselves do not consider such a state normal, sin does not have full power over us. That means we are not completely cut off from the Kingdom and its life. What, then, holds us in the Kingdom? Clearly, that true "I" of ours which does not agree with the sin that overwhelms us. Yet our faithfulness to the Kingdom and to its life still remains incomplete: at the moment when we find ourselves under the power of sin, we become inwardly divided, as it were. But Christ cannot be divided.

And not only because He bears in Himself the whole fullness of God, but also because His human nature is free from sin. He is an absolutely whole Person. And therefore only He can uphold the Kingdom. We will be able to become His full helpers only when we become the same kind of whole persons. Of course, we cannot contain the fullness of God, but the transformation of our human nature and its liberation from the power of sin is entirely real. We need only follow the path on which we have set out as Christians. To the end.

In the Second Letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul probably quotes the words of one of the Christian hymns (2 Tim 2:11-13). He writes of these lines, “The saying is trustworthy,” as though adding his signature to their content. Indeed, in their construction they resemble verses that convey so much meaning in so few words. They touch upon what matters most in human life: its meaning and, as a result, how this life should be lived and what should be remembered. If we bind our life to Christ’s life so closely that we give our life to Him, then He, our Lord, has the power to restore our life in full by raising us from the dead. We then read about the content of this bond with God: to endure with Him, sharing His sufferings, and to remain faithful. The fearsome words about His denying us in response to our denying Him mean only His acknowledgment that the bond with the Creator has been broken. It has been broken on our side. And He can respond in only one way: with His faithfulness, “for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:13).

"Remind them of this, charging them before the Lord not to quarrel about words, which does no good but only ruins the hearers." This is, perhaps, the most important rule of church health, the health of people inclined toward active life within the church, or simply people active in relation to their spirituality. Let us turn to the spiritual diaries of one of the major theologians of the twentieth century, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann. "...what confusion, even darkness, there is in these young heads; how deadened the immediate moral reaction is; what chaos has been created in the world, in the soul, in culture by every kind of 'intelligentsia.' The endless pride of all this. Pride and vulgarity. Artificial agitation over pseudo-problems, pride in pseudo-consciousness, the importance of emptiness. And now this unfortunate 'academicism,' 'problematics,' the possibility for everyone to imagine himself to be something. And faith in 'discussions,' 'clarifications,' 'communications.' Not one person in the world has been enriched by discussions. Only by encounter with reality, with truth, goodness, beauty. <...> Therefore, as one approaches 'reality,' fewer and fewer words are needed. In eternity there is only: 'Holy, holy, holy...' Only words of praise and thanksgiving, prayer, the whiteness of fullness and joy. Therefore only those words are genuine and needed that are not about reality ('discussion'), but are themselves reality: its symbol, presence, manifestation, mystery. The Word of God. Prayer. Art" ("Journals," Moscow, 2005, pp. 21, 22). In the same book, much later, he recalls a conversation between two women that he overheard in passing. They were arguing about how long the dead remain with us: forty days or not forty. "After all, the Church teaches..." "Why is this necessary?" Father Alexander simply asks. And this is the most terrible thing, when we spend time on "disputes about faith." All this is only a pitiful parody of warfare about the Spirit. So why give ourselves over to it? Let us seek among people those who are close to us not by convictions, but in the way shown to us by the Lord in the parable of the merciful Samaritan.