NOTES for Ti2 2:4

In the Epistle to Timothy, as in some other cases, Paul compares the Christian to a soldier who cannot allow himself to be entangled in the everyday affairs that burden others.

It may appear that, in that case, a Christian should have neither home nor family, and that the only possible Christian path is the monastic path: a monk is in fact like a soldier precisely because nothing in this world binds him. But in reality this does not have to be about monasticism, although there is a definite connection between the path of a monk and the path of a soldier, at least as it was understood in traditional cultures. The issue is, above all, the inner state of a person, which the Bible calls poverty. Not in the sense of material condition, but precisely in the sense of a spiritual state.

Of course, in certain cases, for certain people, the path of inner poverty is possible only with a complete renunciation, including an outward one, not only of every kind of wealth but also of family and home, and therefore of property in general, apart from the bare minimum needed. But the point is not such renunciation in itself. The point is to renounce every attempt to rely in life on anything except God.

And for this a person must realize the simple and, on the whole, obvious fact that we do not even belong to ourselves: after all, we became human beings because of that "breath of life" which God "breathed" into us at creation. And if we are not our own, but God's, then our claims to own anything in this world have hardly any meaning. God gives us the whole world, but not as a possession; He gives it for use and stewardship, yet on one necessary condition: the practical recognition of His full and unconditional sovereignty both over the world and over us ourselves.

And then a person can, while using everything, live having nothing and binding himself to nothing, like a soldier who, while he is in service, does not think about how to earn his living, but thinks about how to carry out the order he has received. His food is provided by the one in whose service the soldier stands. And if such an attitude toward life is expected of everyone who has entered the spiritual path, then all the more should it be characteristic of a Christian as an inhabitant of the Kingdom, which is what Paul reminds Timothy of.