NOTES for Co2 10:1-11

Speaking about himself and his ministry, Paul seeks to dispel certain misconceptions current among the Christians of Corinth concerning his person. He probably speaks such words about himself not without irony. As can be seen, the apostle is being ironic here about the statements that were heard in the Corinthian church and probably reached him when he was in Macedonia. One may suppose that these statements came from the mouths of those whom Paul, without naming names, denounced in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians. Those denounced were probably emboldened by the fact that the apostle decided not to mention their names in the letter; as it appears, they attributed this to Paul's indecision and hoped that when he met them face to face the apostle would not dare denounce them openly before the whole church.

Paul explains his supposed timidity quite differently. He says directly that his goal is not victory in an argument and not public triumph over his accusers, for he does not seek to be a victor in the ordinary human sense of the word. Paul has no need of such victories: in his own expression, he "does not wage war according to the flesh." Of course, he could at a personal meeting be no less severe than in his letters. But the apostle's goal was not a demonstration of his power over minds, but the solution of the tasks facing the Corinthian church. And he points to the problems both of the Corinthian church as a whole and of its individual members not for the sake of reproach as such, and certainly not for self-assertion, but because otherwise these problems cannot be resolved.

It is quite possible that the apostle's restraint, which some took for timidity, was caused precisely by his fear of harming through excessive sharpness. Indeed, sharp words read on paper, even if that paper is a letter addressed to the reader himself, still affect the soul less painfully than the same words spoken in a personal meeting. Meanwhile, it is precisely the first reaction caused by sharp emotional pain that often prevents the reader or listener from perceiving the meaning of the words addressed to him, a meaning that pain overshadows. Then words of denunciation may turn out to be not medicine but deadly poison, which instead of spiritually healing a person may destroy him. In that case this person may be lost for the Kingdom, at best for a time, at worst forever. It is no surprise that the apostle is very cautious in his words, especially in a personal meeting: his task is not the destruction of the Kingdom, but its building.

Paul characterizes his relations and communication with the brothers of the Corinthian church with a paradoxical phrase. He writes: face to face with you I am timid, but from a distance I am bold. At the same time Paul mentions the meekness and gentleness of Christ, which, one may think, also condition his own meekness in communicating with the brothers. Here, of course, one could observe that when meeting a person face to face, it often happens that the words one had prepared to say to him turn out to be inappropriate or unnecessary, and then one says something quite different from what one had intended and what, from a distance, it seemed one would certainly say at the meeting.

A personal meeting always changes a person's inner, spiritual and psychological state: from a distance we are rarely able to remember a person as he is; most often we conduct an inner dialogue not with him as such, but with the image of him that has formed in our consciousness. At a meeting the image often turns out to be little like the real person, and then, if we want communion with the real person and not with the picture we have drawn, we have to replace the prepared words with others, more suitable.

When the issue is Christians and communion in Christ, in that spiritual space where He determines the quality of communion, the gap between picture and reality may turn out to be still greater. Indeed, sin in any Christian evokes only rejection and nonacceptance. The concrete person committing that sin is another matter: one can love a person even despite his sins.

In our fallen world, however, loving at a distance is very difficult, if by love we mean relations that must be maintained and not emotions experienced by a person. From a distance sins seem so great that they seem completely to obscure the sinner, so that from a distance usually nothing comes to mind except words of denunciation. Face to face is another matter: there one begins to see the real, living person whom one loves.

From a distance it seems quite simple to strike at sin together with the sinner; face to face one understands that striking indiscriminately is no good and that helping a person be freed from sin is not nearly as simple as it seemed from a distance. Then boldness and determination give way to that very meekness and even timidity of which the apostle writes: the work ahead is almost jewelry work, and it must be done together with Christ so as to help, not harm.

As seen, Paul quite skeptically evaluates the possibility of evaluating the Christianity of man by appearance ("personality"). It would seem that such skepticism is not always justified: because often the appearance of man (in the large sense of the word) can say a lot of him: the lifestyles, the behavior, even the manners sometimes give quite full representation not only of the outward, but also of the inward of their owner.

Yet, having thought, it is necessary to agree with the apostle: the appearance understood even widely, speaks very little about the Christian life of man, and maybe even absolutely nothing. Certainly, if the Christianity was simply another new religion, the appearance of man would have been able to say a lot about his Christianity: indeed religiosity (or its absence) is in many formed by the very appearance. But indeed Christianity is not a religion, but the life in the Kingdom.

And here without personal experience of such life it is practically impossible to understand anything. Of course, we could remember love, joy and several other characteristics of such life, but indeed, the reflections of the Kingdom are sometimes also met in the not transformed world, and if we take again into consideration that the joy, for example, as many others, can be caused by various spiritual reasons, we shall arrive involuntarily at the conclusion that it is even very difficult, impossible to judge of how man has joined the life of the Kingdom, only by outward signs.

Remains only one criterion: experience in general. Indeed: the life of the Kingdom, as life in general, can be very different from outside, its forms are practically inexhaustible, but the essence is the same, and each, familiarized even a little with this life, will never confuse it and with anything, if only for certain reason he will not want to deceive himself. And the apostle, as seen, calls in particular to this experience allowing without doubts and hesitations to define, if a particular person has a relation with the life of the Kingdom, or not.

If a man knows that he lives the same life with Christ (and if it is really the case, then there cannot be doubts to the one living the Christ life, for the life he lives), then he will also know for another person, if only he feels in him the presence of the same life, which he himself lives, he will say with full confidence: we live together the same life. As we see, there are no other criteria. And it is not surprising: because there cannot be by definition in the world not transformed instruments, allowing to fix the manifestations of the Kingdom. And we ourselves can see them only as much as we do not belong to this world completely. And Paul suggests to each, when it comes to the spiritual life, to rely on this feeling of the Kingdom. On this only reliable instrument, that allows us to distinguish the life of the Kingdom from the life of "this world".