NOTES for Ti2 3:1-3

Speaking of the "last times," Paul gives a sharply negative assessment of the people who will have to live in this era (vv. 1-5). Here the apostle, as can be seen, repeats what he has already had to write and say more than once: with the passage of time humanity does not become better, human nature is unchanged, and the course of history with each century only reveals its corruption more and more. Something else is notable: Paul advises Timothy to beware of such people (v. 5), as if he himself will have to see the "last times." The apostle's thought becomes still more obvious when he points to people acting as if these times have already come (vv. 6-8). Following Paul's logic, one has to conclude that the "last times" had already begun in his day. Still, the future tense in the text of the letter makes one think that they will last long enough, right up to the Savior's return, which the apostle did not expect very soon.

As can be seen, for Paul the "last times" began immediately after Pentecost, when the Kingdom entered the world. In that case one has to recognize that the matter is not simply some brief historical stage immediately preceding the Savior's return, but a whole era, the era of the advancing Kingdom, whose advance puts an end to the former, untransfigured order of things. If this era of the advancing Kingdom can be called the "last times," then not in the sense in which they are understood today, meaning the metaphysical and spiritual cataclysm that concludes earthly history, but precisely as the era of a changing world, when everything former is ending - ending not historically, for historical inertia is endless, but spiritually, partly, as far as possible, being transfigured and becoming part of the Kingdom, and partly passing into nonbeing. Of course, this process cannot be smooth and problem-free, for it concerns changes that are by no means organic to the untransfigured world. The Kingdom will never become "its own" for the world; only the world can become "its own" for the Kingdom, but only after complete transfiguration. And transfiguration does not happen painlessly; the world resists the advance of the Kingdom, and this resistance is carried out by human hands, which is no surprise: the Kingdom spreads in the world from heart to heart, and therefore it is most natural to oppose it precisely through the human heart, where choice is made, decisions are taken, and love and faithfulness dwell. That is why persecutions of the Church, about which Paul writes to his disciple (vv. 10-13), are inevitable.

Neither the Church as a whole nor individual Christians will ever be able to become "their own" for the world. Of course, the Church's conflict with the world does not always take the form of direct persecution, but a definite opposition always exists. Its absence is either an illusion or a sign that the Church has ceased to be the Church. And Paul, understanding this, reminds his disciple of what the Savior Himself said more than once to His disciples: salt that has lost its strength is good for nothing. Just like a Christian who has lost the Kingdom.