What a miracle took place on the day when each of us heard the news of Christ and met Him Himself! For, as the apostle Paul writes, almost every person is inclined to 'choose teachers for themselves who will flatter their hearing' (2 Tim 4:3). But by the wondrous mercy and love of God these barriers are broken - and the heart is set free to listen and to learn what truth is. The conversion of each of us is truly a gift of God, a miracle over which the angels rejoice (see Luke 15:10). And it is the Lord who brings us to Himself, patiently awaiting the moment of our meeting.

But Paul writes the lines of today's reading precisely to warn us. How often, after finally meeting God and living for some time in the life of the Church, a person begins to consider himself 'knowledgeable,' and at times more knowledgeable than someone else! This can certainly be true, but how easy it is to slide from the feeling of being more experienced and wise into the pitiful state in which you already 'know' everything better than others and think there is no need to listen to them...

Yes, that is an extreme, but more often it happens just as the apostle writes: 'they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to fables' (2 Tim 4:4). After all, how much more pleasant it is to listen to those who say what is pleasing to your own dear soul; in reality, you are listening only to yourself, carefully filtering the information that comes in...

At the conclusion of his instruction to Timothy, Paul again and again urges him not to retreat from the ministry entrusted to him, whose meaning is witness and faithfulness to what forms the foundation of Christian life. Sacred Scripture, which according to the apostle's testimony he had studied from childhood, should help Timothy in this (vv. 14-17). Paul, as can be seen, does not specify exactly which books he means, but it is not hard to understand that he has in mind first of all that part of the Jewish canon which in Judaism is called the "Latter Prophets." It was based on records of the preaching of Israel's great prophets, who testified, among other things, to the coming Messiah and to the advent of the messianic Kingdom. But the apostle, remaining faithful to his understanding of the Torah, reminds his disciple that all Sacred Scripture is useful for training in righteousness (v. 16; in the Synodal translation, "for instruction in righteousness"). Sacred Scripture for Paul is not a source of ideas for justifying one religious doctrine or another, but a spiritual compass that helps the faithful find their bearings on the road to the Kingdom, so as not to stray from the path of righteousness.

Meanwhile, judging by the apostle's words, there will be many who want to knock them off this path, especially since the time is already near when many themselves will be glad to be deceived, listening to teachers who say what their followers like to hear (vv. 3-4). Such mass spiritual dishonesty may at first glance appear strange, but it becomes more understandable if we remember the features of fallen human nature, which in general tends to avoid everything that can cause it pain or discomfort, even for the sake of its healing. Meanwhile, Paul had more than once had to say and write that everyone who wants not simply to talk about the Torah, but to follow it seriously, will be forced to go against his own sinfulness, a process that no one will find either easy or pleasant. Spiritual life is not intellectual pleasures and not religious raptures, but the path of resisting evil. And this path is much harder than the path of the theoretical theologian or the religious activist, for both of them can enjoy the fruits of their labor already in this world, while the righteous person will see them only at the end of a long and difficult road. It is no surprise that many prefer other, easier paths, to which the teachers mentioned by Paul call them, over the path of righteousness that leads to the Kingdom. But "myths," even the most colorful and fascinating, will not replace genuine life, and the apostle reminds his disciple of the ministry laid upon him by the Church, the ministry of a witness who points seekers to the path into the Kingdom.

Today we often complain that the church, as people say, has deteriorated: before there was faith and an understanding of the foundations of spiritual life, but now, they say, nothing of the kind can be found. Paul's letters, however, refute this very widespread church myth. The situation in the Church was never ideal, and in different churches it was less than ideal in different ways.

But there was also something common, and this common element had a single spiritual root. The apostle defines it clearly and briefly: the search for "teachers," for those who "please the ear," who tell people what they want to hear. And often, and in early Christian times most often, the issue was the understanding of the Bible, of the sacred books. It is no accident that Paul says that Holy Scripture is God-breathed in its entirety, and therefore it is also, in its entirety, "useful for teaching."

But one can learn something from Scripture only when one receives it as it is, and in all the fullness available at the moment. A rabbi-teacher could be a great help here: he not only explained the meaning of one text or another, as modern commentators do, but also helped a person work with the text. Or rather, he helped a person approach the text in such a way that the text could work with him, with its reader.

For behind every God-breathed text stands the One who is its true Author, and the meaning of reading the Bible precisely as sacred Scripture is to allow the Author, through this particular text in each case, to work with oneself. Such reading presupposed a certain skill, and least of all in this skill was what we often love so much today and what could be called the principle of "me and the Bible" or even "me in the Bible": my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, my experiences concerning one passage or another.

Meanwhile, an adequate perception of the sacred text is possible only when the principle of "the Bible in me" is at work: here there is no room for my reflection, whether intellectual or emotional, but only an inner silence in which the text of Scripture sounds, having become God's word addressed to me. The practice of such reading was known both to the Synagogue and to the Church, although in the Church it eventually moved almost entirely into the monasteries.

This kind of reading was a priceless spiritual exercise which, along with inner prayer and conscious life, helped a person grow within himself that spiritual core which in those days was called the inner Torah. But this was rather intense and not always pleasant spiritual work, and far from everyone wanted to engage in it. Whoever did not want to do so looked for a "teacher" ready to "reflect" and "experience" together with him, turning with his student before the inner mirrors of his own reflection.

There could, of course, be no talk here of any spiritual work, but this sort of pastime was pleasant for those who liked it, and it could easily be passed off, to oneself and to others, as "studying Scripture" and as "spiritual life." This is the profanation of true knowledge of sacred Scripture against which Paul warns his student, for whom it was especially relevant: Timothy, judging by everything we know about him from Paul's letters, was precisely a rabbi-teacher, and the temptation to become a "teacher who pleases the ear" was quite real for him.