Tuesday, Sept 1 –
I want to welcome you to September and raise a toast to you.
You and I have completed eight months of reading thru the New Testament in a
year. With just four months to go, let us be encouraged. To borrow the
Scripture, “let us not be weary in well-doing”! Today our reading continues in
1 Thessalonians 2:13 – 3:13. Please read the passage first and then come back
so that we might look at it again.
We see that in Paul’s opening words today to the
Thessalonian believers –
“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you
received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the
word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you
believers” (2:13).
Paul knew that the Gospel message was a revelation from God;
thus “the word of God.” While Timothy was with Paul, later he would write to
Timothy and remind him that the Word of God is sacred revelation, not just
religious writing –
“…from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred
writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ
Jesus. All Scripture is inspired (breathed out) by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (3:15-16).
In 1978, a summit of Evangelical scholars, pastors, and
theologians met in Chicago to create a document that would stand to affirm the
teaching of Scripture as the word of God. Over the preceding decades, liberals
attacked the Scriptures as nothing more than religious writings of sincere
people, but ultimately they are purely human religious ideas and thoughts.
Liberal theology does not believe Scripture is the revelation of God –
“inspired” – “God’s words.” The “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” was
an important landmark in calling Pastors, teachers, scholars, theologians to
remember what Paul was saying to the Thessalonians – [1]
“…you received the word of God, which you heard from us,
you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of
God, which is at work in you believers”(2:13).
Returning to Paul’s statement in 2:14-16, he reflects that
they understood what was occurring because they suffered for believing God’s
word. His language isn’t an exclusive attack on Judaism when he says “the
Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets,” but rather pointing
out that Jewish rebellion to God’s word has been going on for a long time. In
other Scripture, Paul makes clear that any who reject God and his word are in
danger of “filling up the measure of their sins…and God’s wrath” (2:16).
While it might seem Paul is exaggerating the difficulties Jews had, it was
historically true that Rome was more and more turning against the Jews in the
Empire, and would launch total destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. All of this
was temporary (see Romans 11:25-29), and God was not done with Israel, but
their rebellion to his revelation was not something without consequences – as I
would add is also true today.
Paul now explains the absence from the church and why he did
not return. He had an eager desire to see them face to face (2:17), but “Satan
hindered us.” First, Satan had stirred up an angry group of Thessalonian
Jews to follow Paul south and made his life unbearable in Berea. The believers
there didn’t want him to stay, and they sent him on to Athens, alone. While he
wanted to return, he couldn’t.
“Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were
willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and
God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your
faith” (3:1-2).
It is difficult for us to understand, but the early church’s
believers were often persecuted – sometimes by being kicked out of the
Synagogue and ostracized from their families; and at other times by physical
beatings, and confiscation of their children and their household. This was
something that Paul told them would happen -
“For when we were with you, we kept telling you
beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and
just as you know” (3:4).
We must see that being a Christian is not easy in a world
that rejects God’s word. Standing true to the faith is a bit like swimming
upstream – you can do it, but it is tiring.
Paul’s hopes for their well-being was eventually satisfied with
Timothy’s return that reported their faith and love –
“ But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has
brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always
remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason,
brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you
through your faith. For now, we live if you are standing fast in the Lord”
(3:6-8).
Paul's joy is overflowing. They are loving, holding on to
the Faith, and standing firm in it. The circumstances weren’t always good, but
their life together was proof that they would last. I have been watching the
PBS series, “The War,” and one cannot help but be moved by the terrible things
that happened in Europe as a nation after nation fell to the Nazi juggernaut. Yet
at the height of despair, in October 1941, Winston Churchill spoke to his
people, and also to the rest of the world in an address at Harrow School. Among the things, he said, “…We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today, but
then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and
their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience
of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has
been this long lull with nothing particular turning up… as Kipling well says,
we must ‘...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just
the same’… - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never
give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -in nothing, great or small,
large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the
enemy.” [2]
Paul prays for the Thessalonian church as he ends –
“Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus,
direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love
for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your
hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus with all His saints” (3:11-13).
May this be said of us today. May we be directed in God’s
ways, growing wiser in following Jesus’ way. May we increase and abound growing
emotionally stronger in our love for others. May we have a heart that is pure,
growing stronger in God’s ways (holy). There are many distractions in our
world, may we understand the difference between the immediate and the ultimate.
Peace
[2]
There are many sources for Churchill’s Speech, Harrow School, October 1941. One
is found at America’s National Churchill Museum - https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/never-give-in-never-never-never.html
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