Notes for  31 July 2026

People are always afraid of both visible dangers and, especially, invisible ones. Panic fear is an attempt by the psyche to escape from real unresolved problems, and here there is always some conspiracy theory “at hand”: communist, imperialist, Judeo-Masonic, Wahhabi, or any other. On the one hand, a person stops looking for the causes of his troubles in himself, which is psychologically very comfortable; on the other hand, this is very profitable for real rulers, without any “conspiracies,” because a frightened person is very easy to govern.

God offers the perfect “medicine for fear.” There is one most real Ruler, Almighty and All-seeing, and at the same time Invisible and Incomprehensible. Whom can one fear if not Him? Whom else should one obey? But He is precisely the One who says: “Do not fear and do not be afraid.”

Concluding his discussion of gifts and ministries, Paul calls for order in church gatherings, while neither restricting nor condemning anyone, even for such ecstatic manifestations as glossolalia (vv. 39-40). Of course, in saying this the apostle also has church discipline in mind. But that is evidently not the whole matter. Above all, Paul has in mind the spiritual benefit of the Church as a community of Christians living in the Kingdom. The purpose of the Church's existence lies above all in being a place where everyone can partake of the Kingdom: both someone who has already made his choice and has experience of life in this Kingdom, and someone for whom it is still merely an abstraction, something he may have heard about but has not yet had the opportunity to touch. This is why Paul says that glossolalia and prophecy must above all serve the task of conveying revelation to the church community, rather than merely demonstrating to those gathered the personal “spiritual achievements” of those to whom these gifts have been given.

The task of explaining the meaning of a prophecy probably seemed to many less “exalted” than prophesying or “speaking in tongues,” but according to the apostle's testimony, without such an explanation both become useless to the Church (vv. 26-31). One can, of course, surrender to “ecstasy without limits,” but states of this kind bring nothing good from a spiritual point of view and say nothing about the authenticity of the experience: under normal circumstances, a person evidently should not lose self-control even in ecstasy (v. 32). The same applies to the natural emotionality and sociability for which women in particular were evidently distinguished in church gatherings (vv. 34-35).

Of course, emotions or sociability in themselves bring nothing bad. Problems begin when emotional and excessively sociable people do not consider it necessary to control themselves even when they are fully capable of doing so. And the main problem here, as in the case of uncontrolled ecstasy—especially when such ecstasy, like one's own emotions, could perfectly well be brought under control—is not that all these manifestations of religious or quasi-religious feeling often disturb those gathered, but that they are incompatible with life in the Kingdom. Natural emotionality, like a natural inclination toward ecstasy, is of course not in itself an insurmountable obstacle on the spiritual path. But spiritual and emotional self-indulgence, unless it is recognized as sin and resisted, will inevitably become such an obstacle. Moreover, it may well set a bad example for those who are new to the Church, for outwardly such self-indulgence closely resembles the spiritual freedom about which Paul speaks so often. In essence, however, it not only bears no resemblance to that freedom but is its direct opposite. Paul considers it necessary to remind the Corinthian Christians of this (vv. 36-37), for among them there were apparently some who often confused the one with the other.

The rejection of a prophet in his own country is evidently a typical situation: even Jesus Himself faced it during His earthly ministry. The reasons for it are described quite transparently in the Gospel account: paradoxically, in his own country a servant of God is known too well for people to recognize him as a servant of God.

Of course, if Jesus had been officially recognized, the attitude toward Him in His own country would have been different: as usually happens in such cases, people would have been proud of Him and regarded Him as a local celebrity. But the point is that they had to discern the Man of God in Jesus for themselves, without prompts or directions “from above.” Such recognition would have brought no public benefit to Jesus' hometown or the surrounding areas.

In such a situation, other factors come into play, factors connected not with public opinion but with the characteristics of fallen human nature. A fallen person is generally extremely reluctant to acknowledge another as better than himself, especially when such an acknowledgment brings him no benefit. It is not merely that this acknowledgment entails certain practical consequences—for example, privileges of one kind or another due to the better person; in Jesus' case, in particular, there was nothing of the sort. The point is the psychological and spiritual discomfort that such an acknowledgment causes a fallen person. For then he would also have to admit that there is an alternative in the world to the way of life so familiar to fallen human nature. And although this alternative seems to be “not of this world,” here before their very eyes stands the One who became its living embodiment. What can be said to that? Nothing, perhaps, except to refuse to take Him seriously.

And how can one do that? The easiest way is to brush Him aside, fail to notice the obvious, and disbelieve. Memory and reason then come to the rescue: what kind of prophet could He be, much less the Messiah? We have known Him since childhood; He is no Messiah and no prophet. We know all His relatives; He is one of us through and through—what kind of Messiah could He possibly be? It is laughable even to say it... And beneath all this one hears: come now, He is not different at all, He is just like us. Let Him tell others about the Kingdom, show miracles to others, present Himself to others as either a prophet or the Messiah; He cannot fool us, for we know Him through and through.

And the most terrible thing about this position is not even that those who hold it are unprepared to see the Messiah in the Messiah. The most terrible thing is that they will never see the Kingdom either, for it too is different. Not of this world.

Luke briefly touches on a whole series of events about which the other evangelists, especially Matthew, speak in greater detail. He gives the central place to Peter's confession and to Jesus' account of His approaching death and resurrection. There is a logic to this presentation. First of all, the Savior lets His disciples feel the power of the Kingdom and learn from their own experience how this power acts in the world. And not only them: the miraculous feeding of thousands of people with five loaves and two fish is also possible only in the Kingdom. This is not surprising: when it comes to the Kingdom, it is easier to show than to tell. Meanwhile, even those who had previously taken no interest in Christ's testimony begin to notice it—for example, Herod, who was generally wary of every kind of messianic movement that threatened his power.

This is precisely why, immediately after Peter's confession, Jesus explains to the disciples just how different the messiahship He has brought into the world is. Of course, the apostles fully understood everything Jesus told them only on the day of Pentecost. But it was immediately after Peter's confession that He began speaking to them about His messiahship and His path. It is as though He is trying to make everything clear from the outset, so that His messianic ministry will not become associated in His disciples' minds with traditional popular messianic expectations.

From the very beginning, the Savior does everything possible to help His disciples understand as much as they can of what they will have to understand fully in due time. This is natural: Golgotha lay ahead. The disciples had to be prepared, as far as possible, for what awaited them—and what awaited them was the shock of the complete collapse of their entire worldview and sense of the world. Only the experience of the Kingdom could help them endure it—not the earthly kingdom of popular expectations, but the true Kingdom, the one the Savior brought into the world.

The apostles gained as much experience of the Kingdom as was then possible after they went out to preach on their own, without their Teacher. The new ideas about the Kingdom proved more difficult: they would not fit into the disciples' minds or find room in their consciousness. All that remained was to rely on their intuition and, above all, on the personal relationship that bound them to Jesus. Nevertheless, He tells the apostles everything that can be said in human words about His earthly path and earthly ministry. And then each one takes in as much of His words as he is able to take in.

In describing Jesus' arrest and the events that preceded it in the Garden of Gethsemane, John is noticeably more laconic and restrained than the other evangelists. In particular, he mentions neither the prayer the Savior offered before His arrest nor how the apostles, unable to withstand a strain too great for them, fell asleep despite their Teacher's requests. He reports only briefly that Judas knew the Garden of Gethsemane well, as did the other apostles, because it was a customary place for Jesus' gatherings and conversations (vv. 1-2). According to the evangelist's testimony, those who came to arrest Jesus were not Roman soldiers but the temple guard, and the arrest was carried out in the presence of representatives of the Pharisaic movement (v. 3).

Jesus, who was expecting the arrest, Himself went out to meet the authorities who had come for Him (vv. 4-5). The effect of the Savior's Person on everyone who found himself near Him was so great that those who came for Him did not immediately dare to do what they had come to do (vv. 5-12). Meanwhile, Jesus did everything possible to spare His disciples from arrest (vv. 7-9).

He evidently understood that the apostles had great difficulty grasping the meaning and significance of what was happening, and He may have feared that they would try to seize the moment by offering armed resistance to the authorities and thus begin an uprising which, according to their plan, was to grow into a full-scale war under religious and messianic slogans. His fears were evidently not unfounded: Peter, the most resolute of the apostles, did indeed try to resist (v. 10), but Jesus stopped him (v. 11).

This response from Jesus obviously left the apostles completely bewildered. Not knowing what to do next, they simply scattered, according to the testimony of the other evangelists, and thereafter they are mentioned again only in the accounts of the Savior's crucifixion. John does not speak directly of the apostles' flight, but his description of subsequent events makes it clear that only two followed Jesus: Peter and another disciple whom the evangelist does not name (vv. 15-16). They too, however, apparently no longer hoped for anything and wished only to see how their Teacher's trial would end.

As for their messianic expectations and hopes for the Kingdom's imminent triumph, most likely nothing remained of them: their Teacher Himself had only just voluntarily renounced all resistance! Now all they could do was wait to see how the judicial proceedings would end. What remained was a personal, human attachment to the Teacher who, as it seemed to the apostles, had lost, but whose Person evidently had not lost its hold on the disciples. It seemed that all the disciples had left was the memory of their Teacher. Yet in their eyes that memory was sacred.

Those who go to war to conquer the Promised Land and those who remain at home—out of faintheartedness or for more respectable reasons—nevertheless remain one people. The entire people are entitled to the spoils of war.

From what does this unity grow? At the level of the state, it can easily be explained by the way a state is organized—some fight while others plow—for the common good. But how can unity be preserved where the common good is not obvious—in a single church, in a single community? The work and ministries of those close to us often seem remote and unnecessary to us. A family or community is often not united by common interests or professional concerns—how can we be one in such a situation?

Though we perform different functions, we remain not separate parts of a machine but organs of a single body: the same blood flows in us and the same Spirit lives in us. God unites us not by means of a single ideology, a “faith,” but in the one Son, in His divine body.