In June, hundreds of people attended a service at St. Paul’s Church in Fuerth, Germany. Curiosity was high as people joined in a worship time planned almost entirely by artificial intelligence. Four young-looking avatars, two females and two males, directed music, read Scripture, led prayers, and preached.
Attendees videoed the service, as if a celebrity were in the pulpit. Many spoke positively of the experience. Others were not so pleased. Some refused to join in the Lord’s prayer. U.S. News and World Report interviewed a young pastor who expressed surprise at the overall quality of the service yet felt that it lacked emotion and spirituality. Others reported that the sermon had “no soul.”
Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna, conceived of the idea of an AI planned and led service. Though he does not foresee AI taking the place of pastors and worship leaders, he does believe it can help in structuring services and preparing sermons. “Artificial intelligence will increasingly take over our lives, in all its facets, and that’s why it’s useful to learn to deal with it,” he said.
The role of AI in religion, something at least one Christian publisher is currently exploring, remains unclear. I do not believe an AI can do theology. However, a chatbot may be helpful to pastors looking for illustrations, literary quotes, or sermon titles. I suspect that AI will be useful in providing insights into raw linguistic data from the biblical texts. But can a chatbot preach a good sermon?
That all depends on how one defines a good sermon. AI, I suspect, is capable of fashioning a sermon in the style of Martin Luther King, Jr. It might mimic Dr. King’s cadence, his use of metaphors, and lyrical phrases. But a computer program cannot feel moral indignation. It cannot empathize with its hearers. It cannot hope.
Good sermons are always incarnational. The word of God comes through flesh and blood people to flesh and blood people, people who experience love and rejection, hope and fear. The eternal word of God becomes timely and relevant in the lives of real people with real problems, some who are happy, others who are sad, or shamed, or angry.
A chatbot does not experience sadness or joy, nor does it feel shame. It does not feel anything, Perhaps the word of God can be encoded in a chatbot, but it cannot be incarnated. For that, a human being is necessary.
Chatbots do not communicate with humans; they compile and present data. Communication requires communion, a sharing of life and of mind. Since a chatbot is not alive and is not rational, the kind of sharing humans experience is not possible, though it may be mimicked.
A good sermon comes from a preacher who has been personally impacted by the Scriptures. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The Word of God is the sole foundation of all Christian proclamation.” Similarly, Karl Barth, arguably the 20th century’s most influential theologian, claimed, “The Word of God is not a human invention but a divine revelation. It breaks into our human existence and calls us to respond in faith and obedience.” The best sermons always come from a preacher whose existence has been broken into by God’s word.
A good sermon is not gauged by its entertainment value, though it may thoroughly capture a hearer’s attention. It does not depend on emotional appeal, though it may bring tears or laughter. It does not merely instruct; a lecture will do that just as well. A good sermon speaks.
Or rather, God speaks. He tells his good news through the preacher to his people. In a good sermon, the hearer encounters God himself for it is His voice he hears in, with, and under the words of the preacher.
Can God speak his word through a chatbot? The Bible records God speaking through a donkey, through dreams, and through angels. He could certainly speak through an AI. But I believe he prefers embodied persons to embedded codes, for “God, the Scriptures say, “was manifested in the flesh.” He was not displayed on a monitor.
In this part of 1 Thessalonians, Paul thanks God for how the Thessalonians received the word of God and how that word has gone to work in them. How does God’s word “work”? We’ll explore that in this message.
Viewing time approximately 23 minutes
Our text today is a difficult one to sort. It is full of complex sentences, parenthetical statements, explanatory notes, and changes of subject. That makes it hard to outline, but there are a couple of themes that emerge that we will be looking at this morning. They are: The Working of the Word (that is, the word of God); and the Persecution of the Church. We’ll look at these in turn, but first let’s read part of our text.
(1 Thess. 2:13-14; 3:1-4) And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews …
So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. in fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.
Let’s read verse 13 again: “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” A very wooden, literal translation would go, “When you received God’s word of hearing from us…” The New Testament places great emphasis on the importance of hearing.[1]
Jesus regular refrain was, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). In other words, be careful that you hear. It is possible to go through life with our ears stopped up. God may speak to us, but we might not hear him. I suspect this happens more often than any of us realize, and the results are more tragic than we know.
In Mark 4:24, Jesus says literally, “Be careful what you hear.” We can hear the wrong things. While the orchestra is playing, we can tune our ears to the gossip the couple in the seats in front of us is sharing. We can form our lives around what the news media says rather than around the word God has spoken. The racket around us, some of which we make, can drown out the quiet voice of God. That’s the way some people want it.
Jesus also said (literal translation again), “Be careful how you hear” (Luke 8:18).[2] We can go to church, listen to the word of God, even take notes, and yet listen in a way that is unhelpful. We can listen with what Paul called “itching ears,” only tuning in to the things that entertain us. We can turn God’s church into an echo chamber where all that comes back to us are our own political or theological views.
We can be “forgetful hearers,” to borrow a line from St. James. That is, we can listen, register facts, and even think about how it might apply to our lives. But then we walk out of church and forget what we heard, thought, and felt. Then we come back next week and do it all over again.
The words can enter our brains but not reach our hearts. Neurotransmitters fire, but our wills remain in neutral. People are not transformed by what passes through their minds but by what lodges in their hearts. That means we must listen to God’s word with our heart as well as our ears.
When the Thessalonians received God’s word, they received it with their ears and their hearts. They received it, Paul says, for what it is: the word of God. If you find a word written on a piece of paper but don’t know whose wrote it, you won’t know who it’s for and probably won’t do anything about it. Perhaps it spells, “Run,” but if you do not know who is saying it, you won’t run. The power of a word, as Dallas Willard said, always lies in the personality that word conveys.
Tomorrow, if your mail includes a glossy investment opportunity in Micron Technologies, it will probably go in the trash. But if you receive a personal letter from Warren Buffet urging you to buy Micron, you’d own stock in Micron before the closing bell. The Thessalonians recognized whose word it was that Paul and Silas shared. It was God’s, and so they acted on it.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her older brother was Hector, the famous Trojan hero. In the story, the god Apollo tried to win Cassandra’s love by giving her a special gift: the ability to see the future.
In Aeschylus’s version of the story, Cassandra promised herself to Apollo, but after receiving the gift, went back on her word. Apollo was incensed but was powerless to revoke the divine gift. So, he added a curse to it. Though she could foresee the future, he made sure that no one would ever believe what she said. She knew the truth and spoke it, but no one accepted it.
I suppose that Paul sometimes felt like Cassandra. When he told people the good news of Christ, he knew he was sharing a word from God, but people often did not believe him. When he and Barnabas spoke at a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch and people scoffed at them, a Cassandra-like Paul said, “Since you reject [the word of God] and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). It’s no wonder Paul was thankful when he arrived in Thessalonica and people received the word as coming from God.
The Thessalonians didn’t merely receive the word as God’s, they welcomed it. The verb the NIV translates as “accepted” is the same word that is used of welcoming someone into your home. I might receive a notice of jury duty, but I probably wouldn’t welcome it. I might receive a cold virus, but I won’t welcome it either. The Thessalonians received God’s word and they welcomed it. They were eager to hear it, know it, and live according to it. They were enthusiastic about hearing the word of God.
In our church, and in many churches, people stand when the Gospel of our Lord Jesus is read. This is a small way that we convey our welcome of the word of God. We are eager to hear and receive it.
Notice that the word of God works. Paul speaks of “the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” There is something here we need to understand about how God interacts with his creation: he works through his word. He created the universe by speaking it into existence. The Big Bang was but the echo of his voice. “…the universe was formed,” writes the author of Hebrews, “at God’s command” (Hebrews 11:3). The refrain of the opening chapter of the Bible, repeated 8 times, is, “God said.” When God speaks, things happen. The psalmist wrote, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:9).
If I want to create something, let’s say a raspberry pie, I cannot say, “Let there be raspberry pie.” Perhaps I could say that, and my wife would bake a raspberry pie, but she would need to pick the raspberries, clean them, combine them with sugar, cornstarch, and tapioca. She’d add some butter, and put it into a crust made of flower, salt, and shortening. My word might result in the creation of a raspberry pie, but it would not be instantaneous, and would need to be effected in steps.
God’s word sometimes works through others over time, but he is not limited to that approach. If he works through others, it is for their sake, that they have the honor and joy of being his co-workers. He does not work this way from necessity but from compassion. Unlike our words, his words can bring immediate results.
There is, however, one instance in which our word or thought (the Greek term λόγος covers both) brings the same kind of immediate results. When we think, “Raise hand,” our hand raises. We do not need to go through a series of steps or involve others (under normal circumstances). We simply think, and it is so.
As your body is wired to your thoughts, your interior words, the universe is wired to God’s thought and word. So, the psalmist says, “…lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds … do his bidding (Psalm 148:8). God not only created the cosmos by his word, he also sustains it by his word: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
Understanding that God creates and maintains his universe by his word is a great help to faith. If we assume the universe runs on its own, like a watch that the watchmaker wound long ago, but has ignored ever since, we won’t be able to trust God. If we believe the universe is merely the result of interactions between the four forces of nature (the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity) as they mindlessly bump into each other, faith will be impossible. But if we believe that those four forces of nature are the expressions of God’s thought, his word, which he still speaks, faith becomes possible.
So, the word of God works. It is at work in the universe around us and, according to Paul, it is at work in us who believe (verse 13). If his powerful word created and sustains the vast universe, what might it do inside a person? The Bible mentions various things.
It is God’s word that gives us new life: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). The word of the faithful God inspires faith. St. Paul says that “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). James says that God’s word implanted in people is able to save their souls (James 1:21).
According to the author of Hebrews, God’s word goes deep into our being and is able to judge our most intimate thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). That is a wonderful thing. We are incapable of judging the truth or justice of our own deepest thoughts. Indeed, we can rarely even access them, but God’s word can. A wise person will take advantage of that and regularly open his thoughts to the living and active word of God.
We like to hear how God’s word heals us and satisfies our needs, but this is not so welcome. This is not what we want to hear.
But Paul knew it is what we need to hear. The question is not whether we will suffer; God’s people have suffered throughout history. Paul and Barnabas encouraged the believers in the churches they started to remain true to the faith. They told them, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 13:22).
The question is not whether we will suffer but whether we will stay true to God when we do. Many of us – most of us – will suffer from illness and disease or at least old age and we will die. Will we remain true to God when that happens? We will—if his word is at work in us. Some of us – who knows – may suffer a persecution in our lifetimes that rivals or exceeds the persecution the Thessalonians experienced. Will we endure it with faith in God or will the earthquake of trials shake our faith loose? We will endure—if God’s word is at work in us.
How can we make sure it is? We can begin by making room in our lives for his word. Jesus once said to the people “…you have no room for my word” (John 8:37). Might he say the same to us? We fill our lives so full of activities and worries that we leave no room for God to speak to us. I sometimes wonder if that is not intentional. Hearing God speak might be inconvenient. We might need to change, to surrender control. So, like the inn at Bethlehem, we keep every spot filled and leave no room for the inconvenient God.
We can experience the word of God at work in us by regularly engaging the Scriptures. What does the word of God have to do with the Bible? The answer to that question is long and involved, too long and too involved to go into in any depth in this setting, but I will say this: The Bible resulted from God speaking. It is God’s word to us in written form, unique, reliable, and priceless. Anyone who wants to encounter the word of God, can do so in the Bible.
It is true that God doesn’t need the Bible to speak to us. He has spoken to countless people directly, as the Bible testifies. But anyone who wants to hear God speak cannot afford to ignore what God has already spoken. It is no coincidence that the people who genuinely hear God speak to their hearts are the one who consistently hear God speak through the Bible. Listening to God speak through the Bible trains our ears to recognize his voice when he speaks to our hearts. People who say they want to hear God speak but who don’t make room in their busy lives to read or listen to the Bible, do not want to hear God speak very badly.
The application today is simple: Start reading the Bible and think and pray about what you read. Ask the God who spoke his word to give you ears to hear his voice. Doing this daily has had a more profound effect on my life than any other practice. I treasure the Bible not because of the doctrine of biblical inspiration I’ve been taught but because of the God I’ve encountered in its pages. Those encounters have yielded guidance, brought me peace, given me hope, and changed me for the better.
When I first started reading the Bible, I went in fits and starts. Bible reading felt like a chore. It was a chore. I didn’t know if I was doing it right. My mind wandered. I frequently felt like I got nothing out of it. That still happens sometimes. But I would not trade my time in the Bible for anything, for it is there, again and again, that God meets me.
I urge you to read the Bible, not trusting in the Bible, which is a kind of idolatry, or in the ritual, which is a kind of legalism, but in the God who spoke it and still speaks through it. Spend 90 days (that’s about how long it takes to develop a habit) reading, thinking about, and praying about what you see in the Bible.
If reading the Bible intimidates you, or if you just don’t know where to begin, or if you’ve tried it already and failed, take heart. Many of us have had the same experience. Talk with me. We’ll set up a reading plan that is doable and I’ll give you some pointers on how to start. You can do this. You really can’t afford not to.
[1] Kittel, G. (1964–). ἀκούω, ἀκοή, εἰσ-, ἐπ-, παρακούω, παρακοή, ὑπακούω, ὑπακοή, ὑπήκοος. In G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 1, p. 219). Eerdmans.
[2] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary: 1 Thessalonians.
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.
The Way Home 