NOTES for Co1 4:20

It is interesting, of what power the apostle means, speaking about the power of the Kingdom? One could say it is about God's power, and such an answer would not be an error. But what is behind it? In fact, much was said about God's power before even the coming into the world of Christ, and besides understood it differently. Of course, in those days all the believers also understood that God's power and what the heathen world understands by power - are different things.

But this difference was not understood clearly. It was above all about the fact that God can intervene at any time in any situation, changing it in a completely unexpected way for the outside observer, such that what seemed unshakable instantaneously collapses, and what was completely powerless and meaning nothing suddenly gain power and become the decisive factor in a given situation. But all the same it was usually here about the laws of the not transformed world, which God uses for the realization of His plans, often in spite of those who resist it, turning the matter in His favor in a completely unpredictable way.

The most remarkable illustration of this kind of turn, can be probably considered Joseph's history: his brothers did everything so that God's plan (as they understood it) does not come true, but all their efforts as it turned out afterward, only brought closer to the realization of this plan. But Paul speaks about another situation, about the situation, when the Kingdom already entered the world, and when already witness about it people having the experience of life in it and the communion with the One, Who brought the Kingdom into the world. And here, it is not of course about the external power. It is necessary to notice that during the Second Temple God's sermon became in a sense the sermon of the word, as Words of God in every sense of this notion, such the sermon of this human word, without which one could not tell the world about the personal experience of the communication with God and the listening of the Word.

Such was the sermon, in particular of the Pharisaic instructors and teachers, with whom was so much involved in controversy the Savior during His earthly service. It was also a witness, but a witness about personal, often subjective experience of the communion with God. The Christian witness in the original sense of the word is always objective, it is not the witness of oneself before God, but of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom. But such witness is possible only when the witness has already joined the life of the Kingdom, in which he lives and the power which acts in it. The apostle Paul as seen, witnesses about this power, seeing in particular in it the demonstration of the Kingdom.

Continuing the conversation about the Kingdom, Paul again turns to the theme of poverty and true wisdom. Contrasting his own position with the position of those who occupied prominent places in the Corinthian church, the apostle again reminds the Christians of Corinth of what he had already said more than once both to them and to his other fellow believers: the Kingdom is not of this world, and therefore it cannot in any way triumph in our world, which has not yet been fully transformed, before its complete transformation at the end of time (vv. 8-14). And the point is not that Paul did not want to see the Corinthian Christians as they imagined themselves to be, but that before Christ's return this could be achieved only by rejecting that fullness of the Kingdom which, in a world not yet transformed to the end, is incompatible with any triumph.

The apostle reproaches no one; he only reminds the Corinthian church of certain fundamental things without which there can be no question of any life in the Kingdom (v. 14). And when he warns the Christians of Corinth that he can come to them not only with love, but also with rebuke ("with a rod," v. 21), the apostle's purpose is not at all a desire to shame or unmask anyone. It is simply that, seeing what is happening in the Corinthian church, Paul could not fail to understand that he would have to confront very serious spiritual problems, that many of the local church leaders are, in essence, not witnesses of Christ and the Kingdom at all and are leading their community in a completely wrong direction. He knows that these leaders have ceased to be witnesses and have become simply teachers, like those who in those days could be found in abundance in any rabbinic or philosophical school. And he knows that such teachers, whose whole strength lies in skillful command of speech, will inevitably retreat before the true power they cannot resist: the power of the Kingdom, which every true witness manifests (vv. 18-20).