NOTES for Co1 16:1-24
More and more doors are opening to the Gospel. Paul uses every opportunity to bear witness to people about Christ. Paul is a wonderful example of a selfless missionary. How can a modern missionary imitate Paul? Of course, forgetting ourselves, we should devote all our time to mission or work, to serving people. Sometimes that is exactly what we do. Our motives are not always unambiguous; perhaps absolutely pure motives are impossible for a person in this world. Could it be that we take on many ministries or much work in order to gain a certain status in the Church or in society? Or perhaps we simply try to fill our time, to remain constantly busy because we are afraid to be left in silence, face to face with ourselves and with God? Have we not experienced such troubling feelings in our work? Does this not cause us to see both God and those close to us only “in passing,” losing the opportunity and the ability to communicate personally? But is this what Paul calls us to? On the contrary, he very much wants to spend more time with the brothers and sisters in Corinth, “if the Lord permits,” of course. For Paul, who has experience preaching to very large audiences, fellowship with particular people, with particular brothers and sisters, is extremely important; he greatly values mutual enrichment and mutual support.
Let us read verses 13–14 once more. Again Paul gives astonishing advice that is difficult to follow. How hard it is to be steadfast in love! How easy, by contrast, to set down who is right and who is wrong, who has been cut off from grace and who abides in the true faith. Have we not encountered situations in which we conceal our lack of love and our rejection of another person behind courage and firmness? We hide them and convince ourselves that we are living according to the Apostle’s exhortations. Yet even those “who do not love the Lord” Paul calls us to exclude not forever, but until Christ’s coming (this is how the words “anathema, maranatha” are translated), without daring to assume God’s own role of deciding people’s destinies.