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.

The apostle ends his letter not with spiritual instructions, but, as it appears at first glance, with much more down-to-earth matters connected with his own plans and with questions of charity and mutual aid among church communities. The transition appears quite sharp, but Paul himself does not appear to feel this. He hopes, after all, to stay in Corinth for a long time in order to continue in person the conversation he began in the letter, so that it can hardly be considered finished.

In this respect the letter became only a prelude to the main thing Paul intended to say at a personal meeting. Still, to us today the transition to topics that we would define as down-to-earth can appear quite sharp. For Paul everything was different. He does not divide his service into parts or single out in it something 'high' and 'spiritual' as opposed to something else, 'material' and 'earthbound.'

For the apostle, delivering material aid collected by one community for another is just as absolutely important as telling a church assembly about Christ, the Kingdom, and Christian life, the things he wrote about in his letter to the Corinthian church. If service is carried out in the name of God and for the sake of Christ, then it is important. Simply important, without gradations. At the moment when a person is engaged in this particular service, it is absolutely important for him; otherwise it is better not to take it up.

Paul carried out every service of his in exactly this way. And at that point it no longer mattered whether the issue was witness or a simple collection of donations for the needs of suffering communities; the apostle gave each service exactly as much attention as it required. And it required everything, entirely. Otherwise the work may be completed, but it will not be done before the face of God. Then service becomes simply work, an outward activity, even if religiously motivated. But for the Kingdom such activity will be useless. And therefore for salvation too.

In many of his letters Paul describes what inhabitants of the Kingdom should be. And in the letter to the Corinthians he too turns to this theme. What does the apostle draw attention to as the distinguishing features of an inhabitant of the Kingdom? He evidently singles out spiritual collectedness, which is exactly what the apostle speaks of when he calls his addressees to "watch": to watch means, in fact, not to sleep, not to relax, and first of all not to relax spiritually; steadfastness in faithfulness, or "faith," by which, of course, faithfulness to Christ is meant; courage; and strength, which in the Synodal translation is called "steadfastness."

It is not hard to notice that all these qualities are interconnected and are determined by a person's spiritual state. Spiritual collectedness is impossible without that spiritual wholeness which is the result and goal of every ascetic practice, including, of course, Christian ascetic practice. But such wholeness is only a means; it is important not in itself, but as an instrument needed in order to preserve faithfulness to Christ. Indeed, faithfulness is impossible without spiritual wholeness. In its absence a person is too unstable spiritually to preserve faithfulness to anyone or anything.

And without preserving faithfulness to Christ, of course, one cannot speak of any life in the Kingdom: betrayal means the rupture of all relations, and the Kingdom is formed precisely by relations: its inhabitants with Christ and with one another, their relations with God, and finally Christ Himself with the Father. Anyone who breaks these relations loses the Kingdom. If the relations are preserved, then a person receives courage and strength.

The matter, of course, is not physical strength, but that strength of the Kingdom which is so clearly visible in every genuine witness of it. And during trials this strength becomes the spiritual foundation of the courage that gives the faithful power to remain steadfast even in the hardest minutes. But the main feature of the inhabitants of the Kingdom is the love that is their organic spiritual environment, in which all their relations with one another are built. It is no accident that at the Last Supper the Savior points to love as the distinguishing mark of Christians.

Indeed, it is love that constitutes the spiritual substance of the Kingdom, what could be called its nature. And every inhabitant of the Kingdom shares in this love. That is why the apostle calls Christians, as they act in our transforming but not yet transformed world, to do so in such a way that everything happening in the Church is done in love, so that every action of Christians gives this new nature, the nature of the Kingdom transforming the world, an opportunity to manifest itself.

For some, Christianity with its sermon of forgiveness, mercy, meekness and humility appears as a creed of the weaklings. But is it really so? Here is the call of Apostle Paul - he speaks about the strength, the internal strength, which should be present in Christians.

And many generations of believers, during numerous persecutions proved the virility of Christianity. But this perseverance and firmness go together with the refusal of violence, because everything has to be with charity. Literally, this is the meekness, such as that of the Christ.

He is not indeed weak, He is very strong, but He refuses to use this power. And Christians are urged to follow the same way: acquire inside oneself the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, but use it only in works of charity.