NOTES for Th2 3:13

What is Christian life? The answer to this question depends on how we understand Christianity itself. What does it mean at all to be a Christian? To profess some Christian religion? But there is no such religion. Jesus left the world no religion. He left only a small community of His disciples, whom He Himself had made participants in the life of the Kingdom. And He commanded them to continue what had been begun.

With His help and direct participation. All religions that have grown on Christian soil are the work of human hands, and Paul understands this perfectly well. Therefore he calls those to whom he addresses his letter not to despair while abiding in good. Judging by the word the apostle uses, the issue is not only good works, help to one's neighbor, or something similar. The issue is precisely abiding in good, in the good. The corresponding Hebrew expression in the gospel age meant following the Torah and abiding on the way of righteousness.

This state Paul contrasts with what he calls vanity, which leads to nothing useful. Of course, vanity is harmful in every matter. But it is especially harmful on the Christian path, whatever this path may look like outwardly. For Christianity is not the ability to do or not do something. Christianity is the ability to be. To be in union with Christ. To live one life with Him, the life of that Kingdom which He brought into the world. And to be the door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters this world, transfiguring it. Vanity, however, is activity first of all.

Quite often, downright unrestrained activism. And the matter is not even that this activity is often quite meaningless. The matter is emphasis. An emphasis on doing something rather than on being. An attempt to replace one's true being and authentic existence with activity. This is always destructive, but especially in religious life: the spiritual component in religious life is always far more clearly expressed than in any other form of life. And Christianity is not even religion, but simply spiritual life itself in its purest, unmixed form. An attempt here to replace being with outward activity is the end of the path.

Although outwardly this path may appear to continue, sometimes even for quite a long time. Activity is always noticeable; it catches the eye, and the more of it there is, the deeper the Christian life of such an activist seems to some from the outside. Those seeking spiritual depth may find themselves at a disadvantage: in terms of outward religious effectiveness they cannot compare with activists from Christianity. But the apostle calls such Christians, outwardly inconspicuous in terms of their activity, not to despair and not to lose heart, for they are occupied with the most important work of a Christian. They are learning to live in the Kingdom. The thing without which there is no Christianity.