Main news for 12 February 2019

As seen, Paul doesn’t have too high opinion of his human qualities. What it is: a false modesty? An inadequate estimation? And maybe on the contrary, a sober understanding of himself and of all the situations forming in relation to the personal personality? Indeed, Paul obviously, remembers perfectly his own spiritual biography. And he understands what he deserves, and what he does not. And when he writes that man receives the Kingdom, as an undeserved gift, he includes first of all there himself. But he also understands another thing: God is ready to wait and have mercy; He did not send His Son to the world for that, in order after to spoil everything with His impatience. The apostle understands perfectly that all the problem is not in man, and not in the fact that he is good or bad (nobody is good for the Kingdom), but in this luck, that God is ready to give to everyone.

And this luck is absolute: in the life of man, in case of repentance, there cannot be a sin, which could prevent from using this luck. Paul could himself say and really spoke many time about himself, that the Christ revealed to him the Kingdom, even in spite of the fact that formerly he (when he was still Saul) was the persecutor of His Church. Of course one could imagine again the situation more seriously, because Paul, with all his errors when he was a persecutor, was still a very sincere man. But the apostle himself, as seen, is absolutely persuaded that, although nobody is worthy for the Kingdom, God wants all the same to save everyone. Maybe, sometimes such a testimony became really actual: for, among Christians in all the times, we found those whom their own sin led to despair. It happened sometimes like that from the fact that people, formerly not knowing seriously the spiritual life, were horrified, discovering in themselves this measure of sin, which they expected not to discover at all.

And sometimes a nasty trick with the recently converted Christians was played by their own theories of a new "sinless" life in the Kingdom, which, as it seemed to them, had in a certain magic way to open to them once after the conversion, as if the conversion was not the first, but the last step on their spiritual path. Here is, for such Christians who fell in sadness, Paul's words became a spiritual reinforcement and encouragement: he let them know by his own example that God will chase away nobody, if only the man does not leave by himself. For, speaking with the words of the prophet, He wants not the perdition of the sinner, but that the sinner turns from his sin and lives.