Some biblical passages have become so much a part of popular culture that they have been given their own titles. Examples include, “The Prodigal Son,” “The Great Commission,” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” None of these titles appear in the actual text.
Perhaps the best known passage of this type, both inside and outside the church, comes from “The Sermon on the Mount” (which is itself another post-biblical designation). As Jesus was preparing to wrap up the sermon, he told his hearers to “… do to others what you would have them do to you…” It was in the 17th century that this instruction was first known as “The Golden Rule.”
Some scholars are quick to say that the Golden Rule was not original to Jesus but had been a staple in moral instruction for generations. For proof of this, they cite the Chinese philosopher Confucious, who lived approximately 500 years before Christ. He said, “What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men.” The ancient Indian sage Brihaspati similarly said, “One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”
There are many other versions of the rule of reciprocity, some of which were known in Judaism when Jesus was on earth. However, unlike Jesus’s instruction, these are negative injunctions. They direct people not to do to others what they would not want someone to do to them. Jesus, however, takes a different and more demanding approach.
Jesus phrases his directive positively: “Do to others what you would have them do to you,” and then adds that this sums up the law and the prophets, what we now call the Old Testament. Obeying the negative command is a good thing – just think how much better the world would be if people simply followed Confucious’s example. But following Jesus’s instruction is nothing short of life changing.
If people followed Confucious’s instruction, they would not steal from other people. But if they followed Jesus’s instruction, they would not only not steal from people, they would also give to people when they were in need, and help them when they were able. Instead of not talking badly about people, they would speak well of them whenever possible. In the negative version of the rule of reciprocity, we are taught not to harm. In the positive version, we are taught to love.
This makes sense when we consider a chief theme of the Sermon on the Mount: that the righteousness needed to enter the kingdom of God is expressed in love. Those who follow the Golden Rule will convey love to the people they encounter.
The Golden Rule is not a moral instruction that can be followed thoughtlessly or, in most cases, acted on spontaneously. To follow the Rule, I need to put myself in someone else’s shoes and this requires thought, intelligence, and imagination. It will frequently take time to work through how I would want people to act toward me if I were in their position.
Imagine that a relative asks you for help. His girlfriend is pregnant, and neither set of parents is speaking to them. They have no money to pay rent. Before you can act on his behalf, you need to place yourself, as best you can, in his situation. What would you want people to tell you if you were him? What would you want them to do for you? The Rule is more involved than most people realize.
Anyone who sets out to keep the Golden Rule will quickly discover they need to think. It is not a compendium of laws with detailed instructions on every situation we might encounter. It is rather, as John Stott put it, a “remarkably flexible” and powerful principle. Thinking, however, is not enough. They will also need to pray, for following the Rule demands more than intelligence and imagination. It requires divine assistance.
The world would be a better place if we all followed Confucious’s example. It would be heaven if we followed Jesus’s.
I am not posting this sermon in the order it was preached because something happened during the sermon that caused a delay in posting it. While preaching, my vision became distorted, and I needed to sit. Our medical team cared for me and sent me home. The following day, I had a cardiac ablation. I am doing well now.
My son Kevin was leading the band that morning, and he stepped up and finished the sermon I prepared – and did a great job! The message examines what St. Paul knew about the Thessalonians, what they knew about Paul, and what everyone knew about what God was doing in Thessalonica. The passage reveals important truths about God and his love for us.
There is only one principal verb in the 78 words of this sentence, and it comes at the beginning of verse 2: “We thank.” What follows are Paul’s reasons for thanking God. We saw last week that he was thankful for the Thessalonian’s faith, love, and hope, which he took as clear signs that God was working in them.
Today, we will pick up with verse 4 and read through verse 10. “For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you,because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”
These verses can be divided into three sections. In verse 4 and the first part of verse 5, Paul writes what he knows about the Thessalonians. Then in the middle of verse 5, he turns to what the Thessalonians know about him and his companions. And in verse 8, Paul turns to what everyone knows about the Thessalonians’ faith in God.
We’ll start with what Paul knows about the Thessalonians. First – and this is an aside in the text, but an important one – he knows that the Thessalonian believers are loved by God. What does it mean that God, the energy and the genius behind the material universe, loves human beings? Before we can answer that question, we need to define love.
If I asked you to finish the sentence, “Love is…,” how would you do it? Did you know that there are over 10,000 songs on file at the U.S. Copyright Office that begin with the words “Love Is …”[1]
For example, “Love is like a shoogy shoo.” That was a song from 1912. “Love is an I.O.U.” (1925). “Love is like the influenza” (1927, about 9 years after the Spanish flu epidemic). “Love is a dimpling doodle bug” (1943). My dad probably listened to that one in high school. Weren’t people weird back then? They were much more mature in my day: “Love Is Hell in a Small Hotel” (1966); “Love Is Psychedelic” (1968); “Love Is Groovy” (1969); “Love Is a Four-Letter Word” (that was the year I graduated); “Love Is a Funky Thing” (1976); “Love Is a Loaded Gun” (1988); and “Love Is for Suckers” (1988).
Is God’s love for us funky or is it groovy? And if God is love, as St. John says, does that make God a “dimpling doodle bug”? What does it mean to say that God loves us?
It means that God always pursues what is good for us. He is committed to his relationship with us, the relationship he established by creating us and redeeming us. The most common Old Testament word for God’s love has the idea of faithful or loyal commitment to a relationship. God is faithful in his relationship to us, even when we are not.
To be loved by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and to know yourself so loved, is central to being a follower of Jesus. If you don’t know yourself as God’s beloved, whatever spiritual experiences you may have had, you are missing out.
The Italians say, “Ti voglio bene,” which is translated into English as “I love you.” But a more literal translation would be, “I wish you good,” or “I want what is good for you.” That is a great way of expressing God’s love. He wanted what was good – what was best – for the Thessalonians, just as he does for us.
Paul knew that. He also knew that God had (verse 4) chosen the Thessalonians. A literal translation might go, “For we know, brothers loved by God, your selection,” or “your election.” Paul knew that God had selected the Thessalonians for his own. He wanted them. To be wanted by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe is an unparalleled honor.
There has been endless discussion over what it means to be elected or selected by God. If God selects some people, it must follow that he does not select others. In an election, there are winners and there are losers. The idea that God would select some people for himself and not others has caused many people to question God’s goodness. How is it fair if God elects you to go to heaven but not me?
The idea of God’s election/selection is so deeply rooted in the Scriptures that it cannot be dismissed. Election is a thoroughly biblical concept – Old Testament and New. But we mustn’t smuggle unbiblical ideas into it, like I did just a moment ago.
I said: “How is it fair if God elects you to go to heaven but not me?” But in the Bible, this word is never used of selecting people to go to heaven. It is used, however, of selecting people for service. For example, the apostles were selected to be with Jesus, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons (Luke 6). God selected Peter (Acts 15) to break the racial barrier by sharing the good news of Jesus with non-Jews. Paul was selected to carry God’s name to the Gentiles (Acts 9). It is used of God’s special people who are selected to declare his praises (1 Peter 2). It is used of Jesus’s disciples, who are selected to be Christlike in character, “to be holy and blameless in God’s sight” (Ephesians 1).
That last one implies that God changes those he chooses. If nothing changes, something’s wrong. A person cannot connect to the transformative life of Christ without being changed.
But how did Paul know that God had selected the Thessalonians? He saw that the gospel came to them with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. That does not happen because the preacher is really good. It happens because God is at work. That the good news of Christ should come to us with power, the Holy Spirit, and deep conviction is something that you should pray for whenever I or anyone else stands in the pulpit to share the word of God.
Remember too that Paul had seen the signs of God’s election: faith, love, and hope. The Thessalonians had responded to the good news with faith in God; they went on to love each other; and their hope was set on Christ’s return. In a political election we count ballots. But in the election of the saints, what counts is faith, love, and hope.
Knowing that God loved the Thessalonians – had committed himself to them – freed Paul from the “It’s all up to me” trap in which so many pastors and missionaries get caught. I’ve been snared by it myself, and I know how quickly it robs a person of joy and peace of mind. But Paul knew that God was on the job.
So that is what Paul knew. What did the Thessalonians know? They knew how coming over to Jesus’s side would affect them, because they had seen the effect it had on Paul, Silas, and Timothy. Paul says, “You know how we lived among you for your sake.” You got to see what living for Jesus looks like in real time.
The church needs people who can play keyboards and guitars and sing, but that is only a few of us. She needs people who can preach and teach. She needs those who are mechanically inclined and can fix things. She needs people with the gifts of evangelism, mercy, administration, and leadership—but again, those who are gifted at any one of these things constitute a small percentage in any church. But all of us should be good at demonstrating how to live as a follower of Jesus. There is hardly anything more important to the overall success of the church. Paul, Silas, and Timothy were intentional – “You know how we lived for your sake” – about modeling the Christ-follower’s life for the Thessalonians.
In verse 6, Paul writes: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord.” To a student of the New Testament, the word order here is, to say the least, surprising. We would expect Paul to say, “You became imitators of the Lord and of us,” giving the Lord top billing. But Paul knew that is not how it works in real time. People see the Lord in us, or they don’t see him. They learn to imitate him by imitating us. Whether one is a pastor or a parent, there is hardly anything worse than affirming the gospel in words while contradicting it in life.
A youth pastor once told me that he had seen students live beautiful Christian lives whose parents were fully committed Christ followers. And he had seen students do very well whose non-Christian parents had modeled all the wrong things—anger, bigotry, drunkenness, unfaithfulness. But he had never seen a student do well whose parents talked like Christians but lived like unbelievers.
We’re in the process of discerning Lockwood’s next lead pastor. It is important to have a capable leader, a good preacher, someone who can handle the word of God. But it is more important to have someone who lives the word of God.
Paul knew that God had chosen the Thessalonians because he saw their faith, love, and hope. The Thessalonians knew what it looks like to live the Christian life because they saw how Paul, Silas, and Timothy did it. And the people all around knew the message of Christ because (verse 8) “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.”
Even non-Christians in Macedonia and Achaia had a good idea of what the Christian faith was about because they saw it lived out by the Thessalonians. Their faith was making a difference in the world.
According to a Barna study, only 21 percent of non-Christians have a favorable view of the church. Fewer than half of non-Christians consider the pastors who live in their community trustworthy. Almost one in three think the church is irrelevant, hypocritical, or judgmental.
That’s a big problem, but the bigger problem for the church is that non-Christians don’t think about us at all unless they are asked. We’re not even on their radar. Twenty percent of non-Christians in the United States say they don’t know a Christan. But the Thessalonians faith in God was known everywhere (v. 8). How were they so successful at this when the contemporary church is not? Did they have some effective branding strategy? They did. God had branded them as his own with faith, love, and hope. That is God’s branding strategy.
The faith we read about back in verse 3 was evident in the Thessalonians (verse 9) because they had turned to God from idols. In first-century Thessalonica, people prayed to Isis and Cabirus. They opened guild meetings with offerings to Dionysus. But those who put their faith in Christ were ignoring Cabirus and Dionysus and worshiping the God and Father of Jesus. Their friends wanted to know why.
The love we read about in verse 3 shone through the Thessalonians’ service to God. They weren’t all talk. They got involved by serving God in the lives of his people. Your friends and neighbors know what you love. It’s where you spend your time, talk, and money.
And the hope we read about in verse 3 was also obvious in the Thessalonians. Do you know how to discover where a person has placed their hope? Find out what they are waiting for. Some people are waiting for college, some for marriage, some for a job, some for retirement, some for success, some for revenge. What a person is waiting for will always reveal their hope.
The Thessalonians were waiting for Jesus. They talked about Jesus. They ordered their lives to be ready for his return. When a person’s faith has been transferred from cultural idols to God, when their love is evident in their service to God, and their hope is in Christ’s return, and when that is not just true of scattered individuals but of an entire church, people will hear about it.
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but I’d like to zero in on one of things already mentioned: God’s love for us. When Jerry Root, the C.S. Lewis scholar from Wheaton College, was waiting on a flight in Vienna, he was approached by a young woman who was taking a survey for the airport. Dr. Root asked what her name was. She told him it was Allegra. He asked, “Allegra, are you from Vienna?” She answered, “No, I grew up in southern Austria.” So, he asked, “What brought you to Vienna?” She had come for school.” Where do you go to school? What are you studying?
After about 20 minutes of this, Root knew a good deal about Allegra. Her mother had abandoned the family and gone to Canada with her lover. Her father’s bitterness was toxic. Her brother attended the University of Vienna with her, but he and Allegra weren’t speaking.
When Root expressed sadness over her estrangement from the people closest to her, she admitted that things were even worse than she had told him. Her boyfriend, who had gone to study art in Florence for six months, had asked her to wait for him. He had arrived back in Vienna the day before and told her he had met somebody better in Florence.
Twenty minutes had gone by, and Root hadn’t answered even one question on her survey. He told her that he knew she had a survey to fill out but that he had been sent to tell her something. She immediately thought that the airport had sent him to spy on the student survey-takers. He assured her it was nothing like that but said he did have something to tell her once she finished her survey questions.
She rushed through survey, put down her pen, looked him in the eye, and asked, “What were you supposed to tell me?” He said to her, “Allegra, the God of the universe knows you and loves you; He would never abandon you or forsake you.” He said it to her again: “Allegra, he loves you!”
Knowing that it can take three times for the words to sink in, he said it again: “Allegra, he loves you!” After the third time she burst into loud sobs. Everyone in the gate area turned to look. Through her tears, she blurted out, “But I’ve done so many bad things in my life!” Root said, “Allegra, God knows all about it and that’s why he sent Jesus to die on the cross for all of your sins and to bring you forgiveness and hope.”
Followers of Jesus, I want to say this to you: The God of the universe knows you and loves you. He will never abandon you or forsake you. He loves you.
If you are not a follower of Jesus, I want to say this to you: The God of the universe knows you and loves you too. You can experience that love by entrusting your life to Jesus Christ. I invite you to do that this morning. If you need help in knowing how to do that, or if you need to know more before you make such an important decision, someone here will be glad to help.
[1] Neil Genzlinger in Harper’s Magazine (February 2003), p. 28
Imagine that you were born with an expiration date on your wrist or scalp. Your parents would know from the moment you were born how long your life would last. When you became old enough to understand what the numbers meant, you would know too. Perhaps you were born in the summer of 1957, on the bubble of the baby boom, and you have known for all these years that your expiration date would be January 3, 2024. Would this be a good or a bad thing?
Some people, I think, would ignore the date, and refuse to acknowledge it or think about it. I was once asked to visit a seriously ill man in the hospital. When I introduced myself as a pastor, he turned his back to me and refused to acknowledge my presence. Perhaps he hated clergy for some understandable reason, but my impression was that he suffered from the fear of dying. To his mind a pastor was the harbinger of death.
Living in denial would be an unhealthy response to the knowledge of one’s expiration date, but there could be other responses that proved just as bad or worse. Someone who knew his expiration date might consider himself invulnerable prior to that date. He might drink heavily, drive wildly, and eat unhealthily because he knew he had twenty more years to go. Of course, those final twenty years might be spent in a wheelchair or on life support. Or they might be spent alone because his reckless lifestyle had alienated friends and family.
Someone else might create a bucket list and begin early to try to accomplish everything on it. They might end up being so busy trying to scratch things off the list that they wouldn’t have time to enjoy the things they do or to love the people they are with. As their expiration date drew near, their only thought would be to finish their list. They would have accomplished much but lived little.
If medical technology were capable of ascertaining expiration dates in utero, some parents would decide to terminate the pregnancy rather than have their child die young. My older brother died from leukemia at 14 – it was a terribly painful time for our family – yet my brother’s short life had an impact for good that reverberates to this day in the lives of many people.
Is it possible that good could come out of knowing one’s expiration date? Certainly. Wise people would “number their days,” in the words of the Psalm, so that they could “gain a heart of wisdom.”
Some people would learn to live in the present, rather than lament the past or worry about the future. In my work with Hospice, I sometimes met people whose impending deaths had taught them to live fully in the moment, to appreciate it, and enjoy it. They are a joy to be around because they have learned to delight in the life they have rather than despair over the life they might miss.
If we all had expiration dates, some people would stop wasting time on things that don’t make a difference. They would quickly develop a sense of whether something was worth spending two hours on or not. I suspect that they would actually be happier, not because they knew when they would die but because they had learned how to live.
I have written, “If we all had expiration dates,” as if this were a far-fetched, sci-fi-like idea, but the writer of the ancient biblical Book of Hebrews believed that this was in fact the case. He wrote: “Just as it is appointed for man to die once…” Appointed to die – an expiration date. We don’t know what that date is, only that it has been set. Knowing this, we can choose how to live fully in the time allotted to us.
I suspect that living this way is psychologically impossible for those who do not believe in a life after death. To live well, a person needs to know that he will die. To die well, a person needs to know that he will live again. Faith is not a substitute for such knowledge but the door that leads to it.
Imagine that you are a first century citizen of the great, free city of Thessalonica. You are from a land-holding family, you have money, status, and leisure—none of which ordinary folk have in any measure. Your friends are all from your social class, and you frequently meet together for entertainment.
There is no television, cinema, or online streaming. Even people that belong to the upper class don’t own many books. Although you and your friends go to the theater to watch plays, there are not many productions in a year’s time. So, what do you do for entertainment?
Your group meets for a meal, and either you or one of your rich friends hires a philosopher for the evening. Perhaps he is a Stoic, who lectures for an hour and then engages in Socratic dialog with the group. Or perhaps he is a religious teacher from the Cult of Serapis, who tells the tale of Osiris’s murder and dismemberment, Isis’s search for and magical reunification of his body, the birth of Horace, and his struggle for the throne. When he gets done, you would say, “Now, that’s entertainment!” Sometimes you go out to hear a Cynic, who makes you laugh, insults you, and even swears at you – a first century stand-up routine of sorts – even as he endeavors to get a handout from you.
There was an abundance of teachers, preachers, philosophers, and snake oil salesman all around the ancient Mediterranean. For them, it was a gig economy. On any given night, a number of these kinds of teachers would be holding court in the atriums of wealthy Thessalonian’s homes.
Of course, telling the story of Osiris was not as much work as digging latrines, harvesting wheat, or doing the hard manual labor of the lower classes. So, you can imagine that many people were vying for these gigs and not all of them had anything worthwhile to bring to the table.
There was a famous philosopher by the name of Dio Chrysostom, who lived in the generation after Paul’s. He criticized these false philosophers for being afraid to speak the truth. He called their teaching “vain,” the very Greek word Paul uses in verse 1. Dio Chrysostom said that true philosophers (and of course, he numbered himself among them) spoke with “boldness even in the face of opposition.”[1] That sounds just like what Paul says in verse 2.
It is possible that the criticism of traveling teachers was so widespread that Paul and Dio Chrysostom (being traveling teachers themselves) felt the need to defend themselves against these reproaches. But it is also possible (and many Bible scholars think that it is more than possible, that it is likely) that after Paul’s missionary team left Thessalonica, people raised all these criticisms about them.
So, here were new converts being told that Paul and his friends were just trying to get money out of them. Or that their teaching came from error, self-deception, or greed. Or that they were just in it for the women they could seduce.
Our text represents Paul’s response to these accusations. Why did he bother responding? Because he didn’t want the Thessalonians’ faith in Christ to be shaken by doubts about his integrity. If your financial advisor turns out to be a notorious con man, you’re going to have doubts about your portfolio. Paul doesn’t want these new converts to have doubts about the gospel because people are calling him a false teacher. So, he uses this letter to answer the various charges against him.
In so doing, he gives us truth that is especially timely for our church. We are in the process of selecting our next lead pastor. Paul’s description of the actions and demeanor of the mission team reveals the kind of person we want for our next pastor. If we look closely at this text, and God’s Spirit helps us, we will see a picture of the next pastor of Lockwood Church take shape before our eyes.
This part of the letter is formatted as a response to charges against the character and intelligence of the missionary team. But as we focus on those responses, a picture (like one of those “Magic Eye” pictures) of God’s type of leader will emerge.
In verse 2, Paul reminds the Thessalonians of how he and Silas suffered and were outrageously treated in Philippi. (We get the word “hubris” from the Greek word here.) But mistreatment couldn’t stop them because their message came out of their dedication to God, not their circumstances in the world.
That’s the kind of pastor we want. Because he is called by God, he won’t be stopped by hardship. Whether he is met with praise or contempt, whether it is easy or hard, he has a calling to fulfill. The measure of the man is not how smart or successful he is, but how faithful he is to his God. And that is not only true of pastors but of all of us.
One way to undermine the message is to undermine the motives of the messenger, and that seems to be what is going on here. Verse 3 reveals what people were saying against the missionary team. The charge is three-fold: Paul and his friends were mistaken (think self-delusion); they were acting from impure motives (more about that in a moment), and they were trying to pull one over on the Thessalonians.
The first part of this charge is that Paul’s message was the result of his own error and self-delusion. This is a cheap shot because it does not deal with the content of the message at all. How could anyone know if the message sprang from error without examining the message itself?
The second part of this charge is that the missionary team’s motives were impure. The Greek is merely, “Our appeal does not come out of uncleanness.” Paul uses this same word in chapter 4, where it clearly refers to sexual immorality. Religious teachers who use their authority to take advantage of women didn’t start with the #Me-Too movement. They were around in Paul’s day, and someone may have been implying that Paul and Silas were such teachers.
This he flatly denies. Our next pastor must be above reproach in this regard. I told our search committee, based on 1 Timothy 3 and 4, that our next pastor needs to be a one-woman man who he has not engaged in extramarital affairs, does not have a roving eye, and is not a flirt.
The third part of this charge is that the missionaries were trying to pull one over on the Thessalonians. They were just in it for the money. Hadn’t they snuck out of town in the middle of the night? That doesn’t sound like something honest people would do.
Paul responds by reminding the Thessalonians (v.5) that people who are in it for the money use flattery, but they never did. Nor did they wear a mask – no pretense at all. They were not greedy. The word translated “greed” is a compound word made of two roots: “to have” and “more.” Greedy people are never content. Whatever they have, they want, yearn, and need more.
When I first entered pastoral ministry, Karen and I were at a small group meeting with eight or so pastors and their wives, and I was the youngest person present. I was surprised and disillusioned by how much of the discussion was given to complaining about what the pastors got paid. I was expecting a group of experienced pastors who were excited about serving the Lord and found people who were upset about what they got paid.
A church needs to take care of its pastor financially – that is a biblical directive – and Lockwood has done that well. When we hire, we need to look for a person who doesn’t work for money but works for the Lord. When we find that person, we need to make sure we provide for him and his family, as the Scriptures teach. I have no doubt we will do so.
That completes Paul’s response to the specific charges of verse 3, but he doesn’t stop there. He presses on to remind the Thessalonians of what they knew – what they had seen and experienced. Four times in this section, Paul writes, “You know…” Whatever our enemies say, you know. You were there. You remember.
Paul uses three images to recall to the Thessalonians minds how he and his missionary partners acted among them. As he reminds them of their character and behavior, we can see the kind of person Lockwood needs for her next pastor.
In verse 7, he writes, “Even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority…” Greek is something like, “As Christ’s apostles, we could have been a burden to you.” Think about that for a moment. Paul was deeply aware of his authority as an apostle of Jesus. He could have used that authority to boss people around and insist on his own way.
“Instead,” he says, “we were like young children among you.” Some versions will say “gentle among you,” but “young children” is the more likely reading. Children came last in the first century. They did not have rights or power. To be like a child was the opposite of bossing people around or insisting on one’s own way.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy took Jesus seriously. He said, “…the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.” That is something we need to remember as we get ready to call our next pastor.
Our sister-in-law was the music director for a large, multi-campus church in one of the biggest cities in the country. She told me once that when the founding pastor walked down the hall, staff members would duck into classrooms to avoid him. He was a tyrant, a bully, and everyone was afraid of him. This was a guy who spoke at major conferences around the country, wrote books, and was extraordinarily gifted. He was a major talent, but he was not like a child among his church family. We don’t want that kind of pastor, however talented he might be.
So, in the first of these pictures of God’s servants, we see a child. Not a muscle-bound warrior, as we might expect, not a competent CEO, but a child. In the second picture we also see someone we wouldn’t expect: a nursing mother.
A nursing mother tenderly holds her child. That will be one of countless touches that mother gives her child: she will straighten her hair, wipe her tears, hold her hand. She will pick that child up from her crib and lay her down. She will change her diaper and wash her hair. Talk is important, but it cannot take the place of touch, nor can it succeed in the absence of touch.
A nursing mother shares her life with her child. She gives herself. This is what Paul goes right on to say in the next verse: “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” The Christian leader does the same.
A nursing mom eats food which her body, by God’s brilliant design, converts into milk so that she can nourish her child. The Christian leader does something like this: he or she feeds on God’s word, then shares its nourishment with God’s children.[2]
Of course, the nursing mom but be careful not to ingest anything that is toxic for the baby. The same is true of pastors. They must be careful not to feed on the wrong things themselves, because they will surely come out in their teaching and cause harm.
Paul puts the finishing touches on the nursing mom picture in verse 9: “Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day…” Mothers are not only tender nurses; they are (forgive the metaphor) workhorses. They toil and labor. They are up at night and busy all day. For Paul, the image of a worker looks a lot – looks just – like a young mother.
The picture of a nursing mother to represent an eminent apostle may seem counterintuitive, but before Paul ever used it of himself, the prophet Isaiah used it of God. Paul probably had this passage from Isaiah 49 in the back of his mind: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” God is gentle with his children, and he expects his servants to be gentle too.
The third picture comes in verses 11-12: “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” The Christian worker will look like a good dad as he serves God in the church.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of fathers in the spiritual lives of their children, so it is not surprising that Paul chose this picture. A four-decade, longitudinal study published by Oxford University Press found that fathers are the most important people in a child’s life when it comes to the child making faith in Christ his or her own.
This concurs with a study I read many years ago. When kids are taken to church by their mother alone, the likelihood that they will continue in church after they become adults is relatively low. If they are taken to church by both father and mother, the likelihood goes up significantly. That’s no surprise. The real surprise was that if kids are taken to church by dad alone – mom doesn’t go – they are the most likely to stay in church after they become adults. Dads play an extraordinarily important role in their children’s spiritual development.
Paul compares the father’s role in his children’s development with the Christian worker’s role in the church. Like a good dad, the Christian worker relates to individuals, not just to congregations or boards or committees. Verse 11 uses a Greek construction – “one each of you” – that emphasizes Paul’s relationships with individuals.
Years ago, I attended a “Breaking the 200 Barrier” conference. There were some helpful things shared, but there was also something that didn’t sit right with me: the contention that the pastor needs to be more of a CEO than a physician of souls. The phrase the keynote speaker used again and again was: “You need to move from being a shepherd to being a rancher.” But Paul worked with people “one each.”
Like a good dad, the church leader (verse 12) encourages people. He comes right alongside church family members. He prays not only for them but with them. He urges them to keep trusting God, no matter what. Encouragement, in the sense the word is used in the Bible, is not just cheering people up but urging them on. This is something a pastor must be able to do.
He also comforts the church family. Life is hard. Horrible things happen. The God of all comfort comforts his suffering children through the embraces of his other children, including the pastor and Christian worker. The good pastor’s mouth is filled with the praises for God, but his eyes are often filled with tears for his brothers and sisters. But he not only has tears; he also has hope. Without hope he cannot comfort anyone.
Paul says that like a good father, his ministry team urged the Thessalonians to live lives worthy of God. The word the NIV translates as “urging” is translated “imploring” by the NASB, “charging” by the ESV, and “insisting” by the NET. This verb takes us a step beyond urging someone to do something; this is insisting they do it. This is not the bully pastor insisting his staff do his bidding, but the compassionate father insisting his child do what’s right.
I’ve said that we should look for the characteristics that Paul’s missionary team displayed in our next pastor, but the next pastor (like me and like all of us) will be imperfect, a work in progress. What we have here is not an SAT test that he can ace; it is a picture that he can approximate. Nevertheless, he must bear a resemblance to this picture.
Make sure you do too. Remember that the church in Thessalonica imitated Paul and his team (1 Thess. 1:6). That should happen with a church and its pastor, who must be worthy of imitation. One question to ask about pastoral candidates: If I imitate this man, will I be more like Christ?
Our search committee has been receiving and sorting through resumes and will meet Monday to identify qualified candidates to present to the church for prayer and consideration. Will you pray for them and for the process? Will you implore God to send us his person, give the entire church the discernment to recognize him, and the unity to stand together?
[1] Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (1 Th 2:1–2). InterVarsity Press.
[2] Wiersbe, Warren. The Bible Exposition Commentary.Electronic Edition, Copyright 1996, by SP Publications, Inc.
Recently, my son and I co-taught a class titled “What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture.” If one thinks of the scriptures as an ancient way or road, we spent the class hanging around the places where American culture intersects with it. At those intersections, we looked at cultural views of work, sexuality, success, inclusivism and diversity, and many others. Each week, we compared what American culture, especially in media and in the academy, is saying on these subjects to what the biblical writers have said.
The sessions generating the most discussion were on same-sex relationships and gender identity. There were so many comments in the class on same-sex attraction and homosexuality we could not finish in one session. This was not because the topic was more important than others but because it was where people felt the most angst.
People who espouse traditional sexual morality are feeling pressured. They believe a cultural campaign has been mounted against them to force them and their children to change their views or keep silent about them. When a couple of transgender activists bared their breasts at a recent White House Pride Month event, the rank exhibitionism disturbed traditionalists less than the president’s enthusiastic endorsement of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle.
People who hold traditional views of sexuality, believe such views are in harmony with the universe and its creator’s intention, and hope their children will share their beliefs, feel threatened. With the president himself undermining their convictions, they sense that their backs are against the wall.
And what about people who endorse a non-traditional sexual morality—do they also feel attacked? The Department of Homeland Security recently released a report stating that attacks against the LGBTQ+ community are increasing. News media outlets report a surge in threats. Activists viewed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay Law,” as a political assault.
Battle lines are being drawn between the two camps and their allies. The Republicans have, for the most part, aligned themselves on the traditional morality side, the Democrats on the non-traditional. Shots have been fired back and forth. The question is whether these skirmishes will turn into an all-out war.
My son fears they will and worries about what will happen to the Church when it does. What will be its options? Offended by the violence and discrimination, it may compromise long-held convictions by choosing to believe the Bible does not prohibit same-sex sexual relationships. Or it may join the culture warriors and make a do-or-die stand against LGBTQ advances.
Some Christians have chosen the first option. They have lovely LGBTQ friends, and it is hard for them to reconcile what they were taught the Bible says with their positive relationships with gay people. So, they latch onto scholarly arguments that claim the Bible does not really prohibit same-sex sexual relationships.
But even Luke Timothy Johnson, the famously progressive New Testament scholar who affirms same-sex relationships, considers this a dead end. He writes, “I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties … we know what the text says.” Johnson knows what the text says, but he unambiguously rejects its authority, and appeals instead “to the weight of our own experience.”
The other option, joining the attack against LGBTQ+ people, is also a dead end. The Bible is clear that God loves gay people; they must not be hated by those who claim to be his. The orthodox Christian must remember that “God so loved the world” – which includes the LGBTQ community – “that he gave his only begotten Son.”
Does this mean that legislative change should not be pursued? Not at all. But legislative change is a poor substitute for the lasting change that happens when people encounter the love of Christ. That must have priority.
The contemporary Church balances on the razor’s edge. We cannot be malicious toward LGBTQ people nor unfaithful to the Bible’s clear directives on sexuality without being disloyal to Christ. We are called to speak the truth in love. For that, we need the wisdom of the one who, on the razor’s edge himself, said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you. We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess. 1:1-3)
When Paul and Silas got out of jail in Philippi, they arranged a final meeting with the church and then headed west on the Egnation Road. They were only incarcerated for one night before the charges against them fell apart, but they were beaten while they were in custody. As they traveled west, they bypassed two significant cities, Amphipolis and Apollonia, for their destination was Thessalonica. They arrived there after about five days on the road, which gave them time for the bruises and cuts they sustained in the beating to begin to heal.
Their reception in Thessalonica was encouraging. They spent at least three weeks there – possibly longer – and saw great success. Some of the Jews they met at the synagogue became Christ-followers, along with a great many God-worshiping Gentiles, including more than a few people from Thessalonica’s upper crust.
But their success led to trouble, as success often does. People from the synagogue who felt threatened by this new Christian movement became hostile, instigated a riot, and used their influence to get arrest warrants issued for Paul and Silas. At the urging of the church, Paul and Silas fled in the middle of the night, leaving a church of brand new believers to make it on their own.
Paul was terribly worried about the people he left behind, who were so new to the faith and now undergoing persecution. So, he sent Timothy, whose name had not been included in the warrants, back to Thessalonica to check on them. When Timothy returned, weeks or even months later, he brought good news: The new church was doing well, though it was suffering serious persecution. He also told Paul there were some significant gaps in the Thessalonians understanding of discipleship to Jesus.
Immensely relieved, Paul sat down to write this letter. He wanted to encourage the Thessalonians to remain faithful despite their suffering and to provide instruction in the areas where they lacked understanding. The letter follows the typical format of a first century Mediterranean letter, starting with the name of the sender, then with the name of the addressee, and then a brief greeting. We have that in verse 1.
In most of Paul’s letters, the address is usually stated more formally: “Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,” or something similar. Here, it is just “Paul”. He had developed a very close bond with the people in Thessalonica.
The opening lines of an ancient letter often included a statement of thanksgiving, and Paul’s letters were no exception (though in Galatians he skips the thanksgiving and gets right to business). Here, the thanksgiving comes in verses 2 and 3 and gives us rich insight into what the Apostle Paul expected of genuine Christians as well as insight into the nature of prayer.
Paul wrote: “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.” Notice that Paul always thanked God for all the Thessalonians. Was there no one in the First Thessalonian Church that Paul wasn’t thankful for, no one he wished he could trade to the Baptists? There were difficult people; Paul mentions them both in this letter and the next. Yet he was thankful to God for these people too.
Paul says that he mentions the Thessalonians in his prayers. Does that mean that he just lists names as he prays? “Lord, bless Jason, Cletus, Sophia, Sebastian, Damon, Eirene,” and so on? I don’t think so. The word translated “mention” is the ordinary Greek term for a memory or a remembrance. A literal translation of this verse could be, “We always thank God for all of you, making a memory of you in our prayers.”
When we talk about making memories, we’re thinking about a vacation or some special event that we and our kids and grandkids will look back on with fondness. But when Paul talks about making a memory, he is talking about making a memory come to the surface of his mind. He recalls Jason to his mind, remembers him – his nature, his friendship, his strengths, and weaknesses – and he ask God to accomplish his will for Jason. With Jason before his mind, he waits to see if God’s Spirit will prompt him to pray in some specific way.
I encourage you to try praying like this. Bring the person you are praying for to mind, not just their name but their nature: what they look like, how they act, what they desire. And then, with that picture of them in mind, wait on the Lord to guide you in your prayers for them. This is one way to practice praying in the Holy Spirit.
In verse 3, Paul gets specific about what he remembers when he prays for the Thessalonians. “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” The memory of these things kept Paul praying when he might otherwise have grown discouraged and given up.
First, he remembered the work produced by the Thessalonians faith. (A literal translation is, “Your work of faith.”) There is something important here that we don’t want to miss. Faith works. In some religious traditions, the words “faith” and “work” never appear together except in opposition to each other. Faith is presented as the good guy and work as the bad guy.
Many of us have been taught to think of “work” as a theologically dirty word. Work is what people do who don’t know Christ and are trying to bribe their way into heaven. But notice that Paul does not see faith and work as opponents but as friends. Faith produces work, as surely as fire produces heat, Congress produces deficits, and the Detroit Tigers produce disappointment.
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, put it this way: “Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again—until you can scarcely distinguish which is one and which is the other.[1]
Paul would have agreed. If faith doesn’t work, bury it; it’s dead. Living faith works, but faith can be alive or dead, as St. James says. Dead faith is worthless, but so also are “dead works” – a phrase the author of Hebrews came up with. Good deeds and religious rituals that are produced by something other than faith – for example, by a desire to impress God or look good to others – are simply useless.
The Global Wellness Institute released a report that found Americans spent $264.6 billion dollars on physical activity in 2018, which is far more than any other nation. The United States leads the world in spending across every category: fitness classes ($37 billion), sports and recreation ($58 billion), apparel and footwear ($117 billion), equipment and supplies ($37.5 billion), and related technology ($8.1 billion).
And yet, for all of this spending, we rank 143rd globally for actual participation in physical activity. According to the Wall Street Journal, spending on athletic apparel marked a 50% increase over the last few years, ten times the increase in the number of people exercising. In other words, we want to look like we work out, but we don’t. That kind of hypocrisy is bad enough, but the hypocrisy that wants to look like it believes – that wears the apparel of church attendance, Christian radio, and religious jewelry – and yet never exercises faith, is worse.
Faith works. If it doesn’t, it’s either sick or it’s dead. The comedian Louis C. K. is an example. He once said, “I have a lot of beliefs.… And I live by none of them. That’s just the way I am. They’re just my beliefs. I just like believing them—I like that part… They make me feel good about who I am. But if they get in the way of a thing I want, I” – and I paraphrase here, “just do what I want to do.”[2]
When Paul was in Thessalonica and saw people doing things that they would not have done had they not believed in Jesus, he was sure that they had a living faith. The “work of faith” was a clear sign to him that God had given these men and women the eternal kind of life that comes from Christ.
But it wasn’t just their work of faith, it was also their “labor prompted by love.” A literal translation, which made its way into the title of Shakespeare’s comedy, is, “labor of love.” We use that phrase differently than Paul did. We mean by a “labor of love” some project we have undertaken without hope of reward: “I’m not doing this for a paycheck; it’s a labor of love.”
That is not what Paul meant. The NIV captures his thought with its translation, “labor prompted by love.” If faith works, love labors. Labor is the stronger word. It has the idea of doing difficult, exhausting toil. Faith can move mountains, but when they won’t move, love climbs over them or tunnels through them for the sake of the beloved. Love is the preeminent sign that a person belongs to Christ.
A businessman from Katy, Texas, was packing for his flight when he noticed that his suit had something on it and needed to be dry cleaned before he left. He remembered the “One-Hour Dry Cleaner” on the other side of town, so he rushed over there. As he was filling out the laundry tag, he said to the clerk, “I need this in an hour.”
She said, “I can’t get this back to you until Thursday.”
“I thought you did dry cleaning in an hour?”
She seemed confused at first, and then it dawned on her where he got such an idea. “Oh, that’s just the name of the store.”
I would call that false advertising. And we can be guilty of a similar kind of false advertising when we identify ourselves as Christians – we bear the name of Christ – but don’t love like he did. Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). When people come to a church of loveless Christians, they will feel about it the way that man felt about the dry cleaner: it’s a sham.[3]
That is the negative side of it, but Paul saw the positive side in Thessalonica. The Thessalonian believers were laboring out of their love for him, for each other, and for Christ. They were new Christians, yet they were sacrificing for each other, helping each other even when it hurt, and expressing affection for each other.
When Paul saw their love, he knew that God had given them the eternal kind of life that was incarnated in Jesus Christ. Their love was a sign that God had been there.
According to Guiness World Records, the world’s largest indoor illuminated advertising sign is in Texas (where else?) and measures over 2,040 square feet. You can imagine what it was like to be there when those Texans fired that thing up. Paul had a similar experience when he saw love lighting up all across the Church of Thessalonica. He could read that sign. It said, “Jesus is here.”
But we need to understand that labor is not a substitute for love any more than work is a substitute for faith. Labor is the result of love and love’s labors, contrary to Shakespeare’s title, are never lost, for love always has a transforming effect on the one who loves.
Through faith in Jesus, we enter the path of love, but it is through hope that we stay on the path. Without hope, love stumbles and falls. It gets weary and gives up. Hope is not an option; it is essential. I realized a long time ago that people do not kill themselves because their life is so hard. They kill themselves because they lose hope that it will ever get better. As long as hope lives, so will they.
When marriages end, it is often because one – and sometimes both – of the spouses has lost hope that things will get better. Hopelessness kills marriages. It kills people. We need hope, yet like faith and love, hope is not something we can manufacture. Real hope, in contrast to wishful thinking, comes from outside us. It comes from God. When Paul heard from Timothy about the Thessalonians’ endurance in the faith even under severe persecution, he knew that God was at work among them, filling them with hope.
That hope, Paul says, is “in our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is not in the next presidential election. It is not in our doctor, our pastor, or our investments. It is in Christ, and it comes to us through a connection to him.
What exactly are we hoping for? We are hoping to become Christlike (1 John 3:2), that is, happy, holy, loving and beloved. We are hoping to experience God’s salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:8) and be rescued from our bondage to sin and death. We hope for eternal life (Titus 3:7), in a resurrected body that is a joy to us and to others (Acts 23:6), amid the company of people we love and value (Ephesians 1:18) in resplendent glory (Romans 5:2). We hope to be right (Galatians 5:5), to finally fit, and to do so in a world where evil no longer exists (Romans 8:20-21). There is no place in heaven or on earth to find this hope, except in Jesus Christ.
The NIV ends verse 3 with the words “hope in our Lord Jesus Christ,” but the Greek text has a clause after that which the NIV inserted earlier in the verse. So, the NIV starts the verse with, “We remember before our God and Father,” but the Greek has “before our God and Father” at the end of the verse. Since words can come anywhere in a Greek sentence, the NIV might be right to connect it to Paul and his remembering, but the NASB connects it to the life of faith, love, and hope – a life that is lived before God, in his sight and with his help.
When Timothy returned with news about the Thessalonians’ faith, love, and hope, Paul saw signs that God was at work in them and that they would be okay. Better than okay, they would be great. If Paul sent Timothy to Coldwater, to the church that meets on Lockwood Road, would he see the same signs that God is at work?
I think he would. He would see people whose faith in Jesus moved them to undertake service in and out of the church, teaching children, visiting shut-ins, mowing lawns, showing hospitality, telling neighbors and friends about Christ. He would see people whose love for each other moves them to give rides, make meals, clean houses, write cards, donate money, and much more. He would see people who refuse to give up because Jesus has given them hope – they keep trusting and keep loving even when it is hard. He would see signs – signs, everywhere a sign.
If Timothy were to come to your house or mine, would he see the signs? Do you have a faith that works, a love that labors, and a hope that steadies you and spurs you on?
Faith, love, and hope are wonderful, but I won’t mislead you: having them will change you. If you don’t want to change, you won’t want faith, which will set you working, or love, which certainly means labor, or hope that keeps you working when you feel like quitting. It is a costly life.
But doing without faith, love, and hope is no life at all. It is just a prolonged death. If you find that you are short of faith, empty of love, or devoid of hope, those things are found in God. The closer you come to him, the more your faith, love, and hope will grow.
I invite you to move closer to God, starting right now. You can begin by praying and telling God that is what you want to do and asking for his help. He will hear that prayer and will answer.
[1] William Booth in “The Founders’ Messages to Soldiers.” Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 10.
[2] Source: Quoted from David Zahl, “So Nice of Louis C.K. to Think of That (But Never Do It),” Mockbird.com blog (12-14-11)
[3] Ed Rowell, pastor and writer, Franklin, Tennessee
After I came to faith, I had a pastor who spoke often about “the new nature.” I’ve heard this terminology many times since. The idea is that a person receives a new nature upon conversion. This new nature makes life more complicated, for one also has an old nature and the two are in continual conflict.
The concept of the two natures is often supported with illustrations. So, for example, it has been said that the new nature and old nature are like dogs. Whichever one you feed will get stronger and eventually conquer the other.
These two natures are sometimes referred to as “the sinful nature,” a phrase frequently employed in the 1984 edition of the New International Version, and “the spiritual nature.” Human beings are born with a sinful nature – “in sin my mother conceived me” – but are “born again” with a spiritual nature. The sinful nature is sometimes called the “old nature,” while the spiritual nature is referred to as the “new nature.”
The language of old and new natures is not particularly helpful, especially for a person who is newly converted. For one thing, it does not follow biblical usage closely enough. The Bible speaks of “the old person” and “the new person,” not the “old nature” and the “new nature.” The Greek word that is normally translated “nature,” which appears fourteen times in the Bible, is never used biblically to describe pre and post conversion personas or temperaments.
Such talk about “natures” can be misleading. It implies that there exists a ready-made nature which one can slip into as one slips into a car – in this case an autonomous vehicle that is capable of driving itself. It makes the new Christian a passenger, rather than a driver. But “natures” do not come ready-made.
It would be more in line with biblical usage to say that the believer receives new life – even a new kind of life – and a new spirit. That new life only becomes a new nature when it becomes natural, and it only becomes natural as a person chooses it again and again. A new nature is not automatic; it results from choices a believer makes with God’s help.
Imagine kayaking along a river and coming to a fork. The main branch goes to the left and a small stream, hardly deep enough for a kayak, goes to the right. The main branch, which is deep and wide, has a strong current. The stream does not.
It is not difficult to follow the main branch of the river. In fact, if you lift your paddle out of the water, the current will carry you that way. But the river’s main branch does not lead where you want to go.
This image of a forked river illustrates what happens to people who experience Christian conversion. They receive God’s Spirit and, with the Spirit, a new kind of life which, like a river, is headed somewhere. It is drawn to God.
In the beginning, this new life is not a powerful current in the believer’s life. It is more like a small, rocky stream. It hardly seems significant—a mere trickle compared to the broad river of the old, natural life.
After conversion, a person will come to many forks in the river. In one direction, the branch of the old life flows with a strong current. It is familiar, easy, and natural. In the other direction flows this new stream. It is unfamiliar, shallow, and with little current, yet it flows with “the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus,” as the Apostle Paul put it.
People choose this new life by trusting God and obeying his instructions. Early on, this requires what seems like constant attention, but if one continues this way, the current will grow stronger, the stream fuller. It eventually becomes easier – more natural – to follow the new course than to return to the old. To the degree this happens, we can rightly say that the person has a new nature.
Easter celebrations frequently focus on the fact that we will continue to live after we die. As true as that is, it’s important to realize that most people believed that before Jesus rose from the dead. They believed that humans continue to live in some form (as ghosts or spirits or as some amalgamation of life forces) after they die. The resurrection of Jesus signaled something more radical and far-reaching than that.
This introduction to 1 Thessalonians (the series is titled, Hopeful) goes back to Acts 17, where Luke narrates the exciting story of Paul’s arrival in – and hasty departure from – Thessalonica. We will look at the background of the First Letter to the Thessalonians, its structure, and its themes.
Viewing time: 24 minutes (approx.)
Today, we begin a series on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians that I’ve titled “Hopeful.” We will have more teaching than preaching today, as we get an overview and introduction to the letter. We’ll look at the letter’s background, structure, and themes -what it’s all about and why it makes a difference to 21st century Christians.
We’ll begin with a little background, which will be helpful when we delve into the letter itself, which we will do next week. Paul is on the second of his three missionary journeys. His partnership with Barnabas has come to an end – a Martin and Lewis, Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel sad kind of an end – yet the reach of their ministry has effectively doubled. Barnabas and John Mark take the gospel to Cyprus, while Paul enlists Silas to go with him on a tour up the coast, revisiting churches Paul already knew and loved.
Silas was a ministry veteran from the Jerusalem church. He had considerable gifts, a strong character, and a great reputation. Silas is also an excellent writer with a large vocabulary and an impressive style. When it came time for St. Peter to write his first letter, he went to Silas for help (1 Peter 5:12).
When they reached Lystra, where Paul and Barnabas had once planted a church, they met a young disciple named Timothy. Paul knew his mother and grandmother – sterling people – and was so impressed with Timothy that he invited him to join the team. Timothy was young and inexperienced, but he had a great heart, considerable gifts, and was quick to learn. He was also only half-Jewish. His father was a Gentile.
Not too long after Timothy joined the team, Paul had a vision at night, perhaps in a dream, of a man from the Roman province of Macedonia begging for help. The next day, Paul and the team decided that this was a sign from God and booked passage on a freighter headed for Macedonia.
They eventually came to Philippi, which was a Roman colony. The city did not have a Jewish synagogue, so Paul went down to the river on the Sabbath. He wasn’t going fishing – not exactly, at least. He knew that if there were any Jews in Philippi, this would be a likely place for them to come for Sabbath prayers—and he was right. Among them was a businesswoman named Lydia and, as they talked about Christ, she became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. She became the first convert in the province of Macedonia.
In Philippi, Timothy got to witness the birth of a church and its nurture by Paul and Silas. He was able to see how seasoned veterans plant a church; watched them teach, coach, and pray. It was an amazing experience.
Paul and his companions spent some time in Philippi, teaching the inexperienced converts what it means to be disciples of Jesus and helping the new church get established. The team and the church people became fast friends, and they maintained that friendship throughout Paul’s life.
Everything was going great until Paul and Silas – but mostly Paul, came between a greedy business and its profits. The businesspeople had Paul and Silas arrested. They probably didn’t even know about Timothy, who was still a wet-behind-the-ears junior partner, but Paul and Silas were dragged off by the authorities and beaten. In Roman criminal law, a suspect could be beaten before he was tried. They thought it made him more likely to tell the truth.
The next day, when the two men were released – Acts 16 tells the very interesting story – they reconnected with the team and, glad to be done with all the drama, headed west on the famous road known as the Egnation Way.
That brings us to our text, which is Acts 17:1-9. Let me read it and you can follow along on the screen. “When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob” – a lynch mob – “and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.”
Paul, Silas, Timothy, Luke, and whoever else was on the team traveled the Egnation Way through Amphipolis and Apollonia, which were both fairly large cities. Why didn’t they stop there? There were thousands of people in these cities that needed to know about Jesus.
I think the simple answer is they did not have synagogues. Paul was strategic in his approach. The synagogue was his bridgehead into a new community. He was a highly trained Jewish rabbi. Silas was a prophet and a teacher. The presence of a synagogue was to Paul what a landing strip is to a pilot. There were people at the synagogue who were interested in what he had to say. And because many of them were God-fearing Gentiles – Gentiles who worshiped Israel’s God but had not become Jews – he also had a bridge into the Gentile community.
Thessalonica had a synagogue and a sizeable Jewish community. So, Paul passed by Amphipolis and Apollonia knowing that if people came to Christ in Thessalonica, they would take the gospel to these other cities, which is exactly what happened. A wise strategist can be guided by the Spirit and a Spirit-guided person can be strategic. But strategy without the Spirit soon degenerates into selfish ambition.
What this means is that we can be strategic in talking to our friends, family members, and co-workers about Christ and we can depend on the Spirit at the same time. In fact, the Spirit leads most effectively those who think most clearly. Have you thought about – strategized – how best to tells friends and family about Christ?
Paul spoke in the Thessalonian synagogue on three Sabbaths. Since there were also meetings at the synagogue on Mondays and Thursdays, Paul and Silar might have been giving addresses and holding question and answer sessions nine or more times. Some of the Jews were convinced that Jesus was their Messiah. So were a large number – “a great many” would be a quite literal rendering of the Greek – of the God-worshiping Gentiles who attended synagogue, along with quite a few of the city’s prominent women – probably moneyed folk.
Things were going great in Thessalonica … until they weren’t. Luke writes that some Jews who were jealous of Paul’s success (and troubled by the effect it was having on the synagogue), rounded up some bad characters, who started a riot by claiming that Paul and Silas were violating imperial law.
To understand what is going on, you need to know that Thessalonica was a “free city.” That means that the Thessalonians were allowed to rule themselves without any interference from Rome. No imperial troops were stationed there. Free cities enjoyed unparalleled freedoms. For a city that might have been as large as Grand Rapids, this was extraordinary.
But the people knew that if imperial law was being flagrantly violated, all those freedoms could go away in a matter of days. And fomenting revolution by declaring someone other than Caesar king – this Jesus that Paul and Silas proclaimed – was a clear violation of imperial law. That’s what the “bad characters” claimed Paul and Silas were doing (verse 7). So, the mob went to Paul’s and Silas’s last know whereabouts with murderous intent, but in God’s sovereign wisdom, they weren’t there.
But their host was: an almost new believer named Jason. So, they dragged him and his friends before the court. Verse 9 says that they were made to post bond. In other words, Jason and his friends had to give the court money – possibly quite a lot of money – with the idea that if they were caught associating with Paul and Silas again, their bond would be forfeited, and they would be jailed. What this did was force Paul to stay away from Thessalonica to protect Jason and the other Christians. The whole thing was ingeniously diabolic, and in chapter 2 Paul attributes his inability to return to Thessalonica to Satan.
Notice that nothing has been said about Timothy. It’s possible he wasn’t there, but I think it is more likely that he flew under the radar. He was young, for one thing. He was half-Gentile for another. He was not a principal speaker, like Paul or Silas. So, his name was not included in the charges. That meant that while Paul and Silas could not return to Thessalonica without causing trouble for the Christians there, Timothy could come and go as he pleased.
Two more things about the background to the letter. Paul and Silas were forced to leave in a hurry. They had more to say to the church, but no time to say it. They were leaving brand new Christians behind, men and women who were being oppressed and threatened. And that worried Paul. He says in his letter that he reached a point where he could no longer stand it.
And so, he sent Timothy back to find out how the church was doing and, to his joy, found they were doing great. They were going through some rough times, but their faith held. He also learned from Timothy that there were some pretty big gaps left in their understanding of Christian living and Christian doctrine, which was understandable given the short time they had with Paul and Silas.
There were also some gaps regarding Paul’s sudden departure. Friends and family who were hostile to the faith were saying things like, “Those guys came in here, sold you a bill of goods, then left under the cover of night. How much money did they squeeze out of you before the skedaddled?” The Thessalonians didn’t know where Paul and Silas were when the riot started and didn’t see them before they left. So, they lacked a clear answer to these accusations.
Hence the need for a letter. In it, Paul celebrates the Thessalonians’ faith, gently corrects their misunderstandings, and encourages them to stay true to Jesus during the difficult times ahead.
Now to the structure of the letter. Like many of Paul’s letters, it falls into two main parts. It is an oversimplification, but we could say that the first part is doctrine, and the second part is application. Or we could say that the first part is a description of what God has done while the second part is instruction on how people ought to respond. Or the first part, which covers the first three chapters, looks back, while the second part, which covers chapters 4 and 5, looks forward.
Paul constructed the letter to the Thessalonians so that its two main sections are buttressed by three supporting prayers, one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end, like a building braced by support pillars. The first prayer (1:2-3) is a thanksgiving prayer for what God had done in the Thessalonians lives through Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
The center prayer (3:11-13) supports Paul’s instruction in the second half of the letter. He prays that the Thessalonians will love each other well, that they will live counterculturally as God’s holy people, and that they will endure with hope until Jesus returns. Love, holiness, and hope are the focus of Paul’s instruction in chapters four and five.
Paul ends the letter with a final pillar prayer in 5:23-24, a hopeful request for God to keep the Thessalonians blameless until Christ returns. I have found these to be some of the most reassuring verses in the Bible. I have meditated on these verses often, sometimes in the middle of the night, and have been deeply encouraged. They are great verses to memorize.
So, what can 21st century Christians get out of this ancient letter that will help navigate life in our complicated world? For one thing, we will see what it means to live counterculturally and get some pointers on how to do it. We are like people dancing an Irish reel at a rave. We are in everyone else’s way, and they are in ours. Our dance is going somewhere, theirs is not. That can make for opposition and temptation.
Paul gives attention to these stress points. The Thessalonian Christians had turned away from their culture’s gods – the things people sacrificed for and considered necessary. I say, “their culture’s,” but understand that meant their parents, their friends, and their coworkers. This led to misunderstandings and conflicts. We in our day face the same kind of thing.
Most people raised in Thessalonica didn’t understand the Christians’ thinking about sex. Christians believed that sex was a wonderful gift within the bounds of marriage, like a fire is a wonderful thing in a fireplace. Thessalonian culture believed that sex was an enjoyable diversion and placed no bounds on it.
That sharp distinction between what Christians and culture believe about sex is present today. Our culture has removed nearly all the protective limits to sex – the fire has escaped the fireplace – and they cannot understand why Christians think that is a mistake. When we say that sex should be reserved for a man and a woman within marriage, they say calls us bigots and haters. It is hard to stand by your convictions when people think you are a bad person. Many American Christians have forsaken their convictions. 1st Thessalonians can help us to stand firm.
Another important, time-transcending theme in this letter is the emphasis Paul places on hope. When people endure unremitting difficulty, like the Thessalonians (and like some of us), they can lose hope. This letter is full of hope. I don’t know how it ever escaped me, but it wasn’t until this time through that I realized that every chapter of Thessalonians ends on a hopeful note about Christ’s return. Paul ties the believer’s hope to the savior’s coming.
But that raised a question for the Thessalonians, a question which apparently had not been answered before Paul and Silas were forced to leave town. If our hope is that Christ will return and set everything right, where does that leave people who die?
It seems that during the interim between Paul’s hasty departure and the arrival of Timothy, there were deaths in the Thessalonian church. Some scholars believe those deaths were the result of persecution. How unfair it seemed that these people – brothers, sisters, friends – would die for Jesus before they had the chance to be rescued by Jesus. It was a cause of great grief.
In chapter four, Paul responds to this concern. He says, “Your friends won’t miss out. They’ll be with Jesus when he returns.” Nothing, as Paul says in Romans 8, will separate Jesus from the people who love him, not even death. Death is not a problem for God.
Another relevant theme for us from this letter is love. Lockwood has been working for years to create a culture of caring and a climate of love. The Thessalonians had such a culture. In that center pillar prayer, Paul says: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” In chapter 4 he wrote, “…about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other… Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.” We can learn about a culture of caring from the Letter to the Thessalonians.
It is not easy to pull out application points from an introduction to a new series, so I am only going to give you one thing to do: read the Letter to the Thessalonians – it will only take the average reader about 7 or 8 minutes. If you are able, read it two or three times over the next few weeks. You will be amazed at the difference that makes in what you get out of this series. You won’t just hear Shayne teach. You will hear God speak. And that is what is important.
My dad taught me a lot of things, some intentionally, but most inadvertently. In the intentional column were things like how to tie an improved cinch knot, how to change a tire, and how to bowl. He taught me how to fight, how to ride a bike, and how to use a circular saw.
In the inadvertent column there are some good things, like standing up for people who are being bullied, but also things that were unhelpful and even untrue. He did not do this intentionally – he would have cut his hand off rather than harm me – but he did it nonetheless.
For example, he taught me early on that the world is unsafe. One way he did this was by offering vague, unexplained warnings: “Watch yourself when you are at the YMCA. There are bad men who live there.” Who these bad men were and what they might do was left a mystery. Or “If a stranger wants you to get in his car, run away from him.” Not bad advice, but it added to my sense that the world was out to get me.
When I was in elementary school, my dad made a body-sized punching bag from a sailor’s duffle filled with sawdust and taught my older brother and me how to fight. Of some future opponent, I remember him saying something like, “Don’t turn your back on him until you’ve made sure he can’t get up and hurt you.”
My dad was not wrong to teach me to defend myself or to teach me to be alert to potential dangers, but he taught me a view of the world that left God entirely out of the picture. My dad knew little about God in those days. He believed he was sending me into the world to make it on my own and was convinced I needed a distrustful spirit to succeed.
It wasn’t just the world “out there” that was unsafe; home was too. My dad could grow angry in a moment and for reasons that were not always clear. So, I learned to be guarded and to keep my own counsel. Without intending to, my dad taught me to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself, which has proved a relational handicap throughout life.
In families that believe in God – as most did in those days – parents, especially dads, are the model on which a child constructs his idea of God. The God I believed in was distant, like my dad. Though he occasionally played catch with us, threw the football around, or took us fishing, dad rarely showed much interest in what we were doing—except when report cards came home. He was determined that his sons would measure up.
Another thing my dad taught, both intentionally and not, was that in this life you cannot depend on anyone for anything. You’re on your own in this world. Everyone is out for themselves. Learning this has made trusting others, even God, more difficult.
Dad began to change when my brother was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He could not fix it – at that time, the mortality rate for this kind of leukemia was about 95 percent – and so was forced to depend on someone else. He turned to God.
My brother died, and it looked like God was no more dependable than anyone else. Yet out of the ashes of that catastrophe a spark of faith flared up in my dad and grew stronger throughout his life. Very slowly, he began to unlearn some of the things he had believed and taught me.
Our relationship, which had been tense since my teen years, improved. I began again to listen to my dad and to learn from him. He showed me that a tough man can develop gentleness. He modeled generosity with his time and money. He demonstrated kindness to his wife, my mother. He developed a love for the Bible. He taught me how a brave man dies with confidence in God.
On this Father’s Day, I remember my dad with gratitude. I am who I am in large part because of him, and because of him I know that I can become more than I’ve been.
The Way Home 