And again, 'For David My servant's sake' (3 Kgs 11:13). And again, 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ' (cf. Rom 1:1)" (blessed Theodoret).
The man of God is guided by the fear of God and strives in every way to please God. Among such people, those especially are men of God to whom certain special works are entrusted by God.
They not only belong to the house of God and are God's own, but are also appointed as rulers over the house. Saint Timothy belonged to such people. Therefore he was called a man of God.
In this name there is already hidden an impulse toward "flee these things," toward fleeing covetousness and the injustices and disturbances joined to it.
Since you are a man of God, it is wholly unfitting for you to chase after possessions. You have a Master, rich in all things, and in Him a Father most solicitous.
If you begin chasing after possessions, you will subject your Master and Father to blasphemy. Nor do you have time to occupy yourself with this.
You have a work which must swallow up all your attention and fill all your time. "If you are a man of God, do not seek what is excessive and does not lead to God. Rather, flee it" (Saint Chrysostom).
"If you are a man of God, do not seek what turns one away from God and God's work. What then? Flee this" (blessed Theodoret).
"He suggests and commands the man of God to flee covetousness, so that he may be safe here and receive rich recompense in the future.
For it is not unjust to crown one who despises what very many cling to and are drawn toward" (Ambrosiaster).
Thus for you, O man of God, it is inappropriate to burden yourself with covetousness, even if this were a permitted matter. But when you know that it is contrary to God, and that God turns away from it as from idolatry, you must not step back quietly.
You must flee from it. Speaking of teachers of other doctrine, he wrote, "withdraw yourself" (1 Tim 6:5). Recalling old women's fables, he added, "reject them" (1 Tim 4:7).
But from covetousness and love of money, he says, flee, as from fire, as from certain destruction. Flee, not by directing yourself into emptiness, but by striving toward the opposite of what you flee.
"Pursue righteousness," and so forth. There he says, flee. Here he says, pursue. "Do both with intense zeal" (Saint Chrysostom). "He did not say, withdraw and approach, but flee and pursue" (blessed Theophylact).
He says "pursue," and he indicates various virtues as the goal of pursuit. Since this "pursue" is opposed to "flee," and he commands us to flee covetousness, all these virtues must be understood here in relation to covetousness.
They are opposed to covetousness, or non-possessiveness gives their manifestation and practice a spacious field, or acquiring them leads to non-possessiveness and confirms one in it.
"The Apostle commands the man of God to flee covetousness and run after righteousness, piety, and the rest that he mentions, because it cannot be escaped without cleaving to what is opposed to it" (Ambrosiaster).
Pursue righteousness. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, as the Savior commanded (cf. Mt 5:6). Strictly observe the laws of justice in everything.
Observe them in thoughts about others, in relations with them by word, in dealings with them, in conflicts, and still more in judgments. Render to each his own.
There is no law against mercy. But righteousness has its own definite measure. Departure from it, even a small one, brings one into unrighteousness.
You cannot preserve such a manner of action with covetousness. At every step it will bind your hands and entangle your feet.
With it the scales of your righteousness cannot stand straight, but will always incline toward injustice. Only non-possessiveness will give you full freedom of action.
Only with it can your righteousness flourish, and your deeds run unhindered along its path. "He suggests righteousness, that one should defraud no one, as those do who wish to become rich" (blessed Theophylact).
Pursue piety. Piety is the disposition of the heart toward God in the spirit of faith. Since it receives its direction from faith, it also includes "the content of the dogmas" (Saint Chrysostom, Oecumenius, blessed Theophylact).
In itself, however, it is properly composed of feelings and dispositions toward God, which arise and mature under the influence of sincere heartfelt faith.
Such a disposition is natural in the non-possessive person. It cannot exist in the covetous person, just as a bird cannot fly with frozen wings.
In the non-possessive person, the heart is detached from material and created things, and the spirit is free. Since by its nature it seeks to live in God, once it has received freedom, it strives toward God.
It begins to live by Him. From this height it bends down to the heart and fills it with reverent feelings toward God, in manifold shades.
These depend sometimes on views of God in various respects, such as God's essence, attributes, and actions. They also depend on the spirit's various states toward Him.
The totality of all these is piety. Its sign is nothing other than the presence and movement of these feelings.
Covetousness, on the contrary, weighs down the heart with the cares of life (Lk 21:34), and burdens the mind with much solicitude (cf. Wis 9:15). Attention to the demands of the spirit departs, and the spirit grows deaf.
Together with it, all feelings toward God are stifled. Piety remains only in its visible manifestations, through the ordered forms established for this in the Church.
Then a person's whole inner structure is earthly. He creeps on his breast over the earth and feeds on earth.
Pursue faith. Here faith is not the confession of dogmas, but assurance in God. Filled with it, a man believes that God will not abandon His servant, who works for Him with his whole soul.
Therefore he does not torment himself with care for tomorrow, as the Savior commanded (cf. Mt 6:25-34). One who begins to work for God as he should gives his life into God's hands.
He no longer returns to anxiety about himself. He does not lie idle, but he has no anxious care. He rests in God, content with what God gives, whether a piece of bread or even nothing.
Care for oneself is the illness of an unbelieving heart. It unfolds from a feeling of necessary needs not guided by faith. It begins with a little, but does not remain in one place.
It grows, and quickly grows into much anxiety. As care grows, love of gain grows together with it. When simple care becomes much anxiety, full covetousness already lies at its foundation.
As much anxiety and covetousness increase, faith is extinguished. In their final degrees, not even a trace of it remains.
Faith does not take away labor and the acquisition of what is needed, but sanctifies and guides them. It keeps the heart free from passion and attachment to acquisition and to what is acquired.
At the same time, it drives away laziness and idleness. With this disposition, even if wealth flows in, faith will not let the heart attach itself to it.
It will preserve the rich man's heart in the feelings of God's steward, God's manager. In this spirit the commandment to the rich is given below (cf. 1 Tim 6:17-19).
Pursue love. Love does not seek its own (1 Cor 13:5). Therefore it will not pull to its own side what ought to belong to another.
Nor, at the request of one in need, will it say, "I need it myself." Its nature is completely opposed to love of gain and covetousness.
It does not love to gather and keep for itself, but to scatter and give. Therefore, if you acquire love, you will extinguish covetousness. Or if you drive away covetousness, you will prepare the road for love.
Begin helping others from your own possessions and doing good. You will loosen the bonds of love of gain and receive the beginnings of love.
Continue to be rich in good works, as below in 1 Tim 6:18, and the bonds of love of gain will fall away completely. Love will reign.
On the contrary, begin to be stingy, and you will draw yourself tighter with the bonds of love of gain. You will receive hardness of heart.
Continue such a life, and the heart will become stone toward all. Those bonds will begin to strangle even you, bringing you to the point that you will feel sorry to spend anything even on yourself.
And whence come envy, enmity, plots, lawsuits, deadly hatred, murders, and every disorder? Most of all from love of gain. Where love is, there is no place for any of this.
Melting the bonds of love of gain, love also removes all its evil consequences. Pursue patience. One who does not seek much is naturally content with little, and this requires patience.
Therefore one who has resolved to be non-possessive must store up patience, laying it as the foundation of his good resolve. Why do people seek much?
From self-pity, because they are sorry to deny themselves. They are sorry to deny themselves because denial causes grief. Grief at denial comes from inability, unreadiness, and unwillingness to endure.
One who has resolved not to chase after much has already looked ahead at all these griefs, deprivations, and hardships. He has also seen the attacks of self-pity that will arise because of them.
He has resolved to endure everything. Therefore no painful accidents depending on the lack of much disturb him. They are borne with good courage and ease.
That is why the Apostle said, "Pursue patience," with the thought that if you overtake it and possess it, you will cut off all seeds of self-pity.
With this you will avert every stirring of impulses toward possessing much. Yet the demand of non-possessiveness is not a demand to have nothing.
It is only the demand of dispassion toward possessions and the means of acquiring them. One who has much can also be non-possessive.
But for such a person, in order to preserve non-possessiveness within himself and to act in its spirit, patience is even more necessary. Here love gives him the strongest helping hand, for love endures all things (1 Cor 13:7).
Pursue meekness. Meekness is opposed to anger, irritation, and every feeling of displeasure with others for any reason. This feeling arises from everything that in some way troubles our self-love.
But love of gain provides the widest field for the multiplication of this weed. Do not touch it; it is mine. Such is the law of covetousness.
If someone touches it, displeasures, irritation, anger, enmity, and hatred begin. But one who is detached from possessions is free from all such disturbances.
He is free even though he passes through the same circumstances of life which greatly agitate others. It is therefore clear that meekness is naturally joined to non-possessiveness.
In the words "pursue meekness," one must also see this lesson: be non-possessive, because otherwise you cannot be meek. But meekness may also have other sources, such as love, surrender to God's will, and the like.
Once it has entered the heart, together with its parents it also cuts off covetousness. Therefore one may also see in meekness a remedy against this passion.
Pursue meekness, and when it has settled in the heart, it will help you preserve non-possessiveness without disturbance.
THEOSIS