NOTES for Ti2 1:1-8

Addressing his disciple Timothy with a letter, Paul reminds him of the gift of God that he received during prayer with the laying on of hands, and that he must now constantly renew within himself. As is clear, during that prayer Timothy experienced a certain kind of spiritual initiation, that renewal of life, inward and outward, which truly makes a person different, new, opening new life and new possibilities to him. But such effects are never one-time events. A person's transformation is a long and gradual process; one encounter with God, one outpouring of God's breath, even a strong and vivid one, almost never ends the matter. Such an outpouring can begin the process of spiritual change, but after that the person will have to work himself, and above all he will have to understand what has happened to him, the new thing that has entered his life, the new possibilities God has opened to him, and the new tasks God has placed before him. This is the work the apostle reminds his disciple about.

At the same time Paul describes the spirit Timothy received, and that he himself had received earlier, as a spirit of "power, love, and self-control," not of fear or timidity ("fearfulness"). At the center here, as is clear, stands love, accompanied by "power" and "self-control." The "power" mentioned by the apostle is that divine energy which has sustained the being of the universe from the very beginning of its existence and which can manifest itself in a special way where God wants to mark His presence in a special way. Thanks to it, God's miracles do not remain purely spiritual phenomena, receiving the possibility of affecting also the natural processes taking place in the world. By "self-control" (or more precisely, by the corresponding Greek word), Paul means not simply "innocence" in the sexual sense in which it is understood today, but the inner wholeness of a person at all his levels: wholeness of will, wholeness of inner life, and finally wholeness of outward life too, without which a person is not complete.

Such wholeness makes a person a bearer of God's power, which otherwise will not manifest itself in him. But at the center stands not power and not wholeness; at the center is the love with which the Kingdom is permeated and which there, in the Kingdom, is the medium for all relationships existing in it, including the chief ones - the relationship between the Father and the Son, through which the Kingdom exists. It is within and in the context of the Father's relationship with the Son, within the Kingdom, that both wholeness and any manifestations of God's power are possible. But God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, can exist in a person only in the process of constant renewal: breath cannot be stopped; it exists only in motion. These are the foundational things for Christian life that the apostle reminds his disciple about.

Reading the description of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts, one can notice that almost the first consequence of this event was the fearlessness of those very disciples of Christ who just before this had gathered only in secret "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). The apostle Paul also writes about this same gift of the Holy Spirit.

What fears usually live in us and keep us from living? Fear of death, fear of pain and suffering, fear of making a mistake, fear of losing something or someone, fear of the unknown... These and other fears intertwine, forming a kind of net that paralyzes all our movements. What does the Spirit set against these fears? First, He gives power - not our human power, which only feeds our pride and which will always meet another power greater than itself, but the power of God, made perfect in our weakness. And if God is for us, who is against us? (Rom 8:31). Second, the Spirit brings love with Him. Love for God enabled Christians of every age to accept suffering and death without fear, because in suffering and death there is union with Christ, who conquered death. Love for neighbor has no fear of loss, for those we love do not belong to us and go their own way, and loss cannot be eternal because only love is eternal. And finally, there is the gift of chastity, which stands against our fear of ourselves and of our mistakes. Chastity is not celibacy, as we are used to understanding it. Chastity is wholeness, undividedness, the inner unity of the person himself, sanctified by the wisdom that God gives. It appears in every sphere of our life, not only in the sexual sphere. In marriage it is faithfulness; in celibacy, abstinence; in relationships with God, humility; in relationships with people, service. Perhaps chastity is precisely what every person is unconsciously seeking when he turns to a psychotherapist with his problems.

So here is the secret of genuine Christian freedom, the freedom to live in openness and fearlessness: the Holy Spirit, bringing with Him power, love, and chastity.

We all know, in all likelihood, that greed is bad. That is why everyone tends to agree that the Spirit and the Lord's gifts must be shared. Besides, it is known that a gift is given by God for serving others with that gift (see 1 Cor. 12:28), just as the strength to do something is given to a person not for no reason, but when the need arises to do that very thing.

Greed, it appears, is clear enough. But it turns out that the gift must also be "stirred up" (2 Tim. 1:6), as the apostle Paul writes. And he explains this by nothing other than the fact that "God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control" (2 Tim. 1:7). By this Paul apparently wanted to say that we should not be afraid either to use the gift or to strive for its growth within us, increasing its effectiveness. In general, there is no need to be afraid, because fear paralyzes, especially the fear of losing the gift itself. If you clench something tightly in your fists, it becomes impossible to use it...

The words about a "spirit of power" given instead of a "spirit of fear" may seem strange, because power is usually associated with cruelty and self-will. But Jesus too spoke "as one having authority" (Matt. 7:29), with power, and what is expected of us here is the right use of the freedom with which God has endowed us. It is strength of will and the desire to fulfill God's design in choosing "love and self-control" (2 Tim. 1:7).

As he begins his second letter to Timothy, Paul again reminds him of what forms the foundation of Christianity, not as a new religion, but as a new life in the Kingdom, to which Timothy is called to bear witness just as Paul himself does, imprisoned for that witness (vv. 8-11). As we can see, for the apostle Christianity is not a new teaching, but a new witness, which nevertheless turns out to be witness to what God had planned from the beginning of time. Here too Paul remains faithful to the traditional ideas about the Messiah and the people of God, ideas that supposed that both the Messiah and the people were part of God's plan even before the creation of the world. But now the apostle especially emphasizes what constitutes the meaning of God's design for the people of God: the sanctification of the faithful and, through them, of the whole world (v. 9; the corresponding Greek expression can mean not only "a holy calling," but also "a call to holiness," that is, to sanctification and to a sanctified life).

This idea of the mission of the people of God was part of the rabbinic tradition of the Gospel era. Paul extends it to the Kingdom and to the new people of God, linking it with the ideas, going back to the later prophets, of the messianic remnant, which for him is the Church. It is no surprise that witness to the Kingdom is inseparable for the apostle from the action of that breath ("spirit") of God which gives a person power, love, and chastity, freeing him from fear (v. 7). Of course, in this case Paul is speaking about the spiritual gifts Timothy received through the laying on of hands. Yet on the other hand, he also recalls the spiritual upbringing Timothy received in his own home, and the efforts to which the apostle calls his disciple so that he may not lose the gifts received from God (vv. 3-6).

As we can see, witness is a divine-human work: God gives a person what he needs for it, and the person in turn takes responsibility for receiving and preserving God's gift, allowing it to appear in all its fullness. It must appear under any circumstances, even when witness is connected with confession or martyrdom. For the life of the Kingdom is greater than the life of our world, which has not yet been transformed, and every true witness knows this.