1 Thessalonians 2: 1 – 12
Covid study 3
Welcome to this third study from Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians. Can I remind you that if you are joining us for the live stream worship, I will be celebrating Maundy Thursday at 7pm and I invite you to have ready your own elements of bread and wine that we might commune together in spite of being apart. There will also be a service on Good Friday.
Paul Remembers His Visit
2 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters,[a] that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.
4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! 6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.
7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children[b] among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
9 Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.
City centres in the days of Paul were very different to what you and I would recognise. They were usually bustling markets full of stalls selling all sorts of household goods, meat and vegetables. There would often be travelling philosophers as well. Folk who would go from town to town explaining their own particular take on life or the take favoured by their particular school of philosophy, be it Aristotelianism, cynicism, Platonism or even epicureanism. A bit like Speakers Corner at Hyde Park in London they would promote their particular theories on life and then they would head somewhere a little quieter with those who wished to learn more to do more serious teaching on their particular philosophy. So when Paul and his companions arrived in Thessalonica he was not unique in what he was doing. It was a common practice of the day. However in these opening verses of chapter 2 he tries to persuade the Thessalonians that his message and his methods were unique.
They were unique because they continued to teach in spite of opposition. Upheld by God they did not back down or give up, heading away to the next town or city. They endured the opposition and remained faithful to the message they were called to deliver.
Secondly they remained fixed on the highest motives and goals, aware that God was always testing their hearts to make sure that their motives were pure and true. Paul talks about others who were shams using deceit, trickery and impure motives in order to promote their viewpoint.
In the third section Paul commends his team for not seeking glory and flattery, as many of the travelling philosophers did, nor treating the students, those listening harshly. Certain philosophical schools, such as the cynics were accused of almost bullying those who were learning their ways. A bit like the hazing that still goes on in some colleges and universities by certain societies or in America in the fraternities or sororities. If you want to join us then prove you are worthy by being abused first as if it was a tremendous privilege to agree to that abuse n order to gain entry. Paul and his companions refused to sink to that level and instead treated those inquisitive about the faith with love and respect.
Fourthly he points out that they never sought any material reward for what they did. Instead they used their skills and craftsmanship, in his case being a tentmaker, to support themselves and were therefore not a burden on those who became followers.
Fundamental to all of this was the relationship between teacher and student. This was very much a two edged sword, as indeed it should be as Paul points out the character of the teachers which earned them respect and also that the teachers knew their students like a father knows his children. This meant of course that the teacher knew where the individual students were on their learning curve and were therefore able to teach them at their level. It worries me sometimes that we assume that everyone is at the same level and so we exclude those wanting an entry level study, who are only starting their journey while others drift away after a while wanting to go deeper and not being satisfied with what is on offer. One of my biggest concerns is how I can help everyone in the congregation grow spiritually and I believe that it involves trying to help people on their journey, no matter where they are on that journey which is one of our greatest challenges.
For the idea of being on a journey, of being on a walk with God, is another major theme of this section. This journey is a response to the calling of God, a walk defined neither by the individual nor by society. The walk worthy of God is a walk which pleases God, a walk in which God’s will rules rather than selfish passions or greed. This has nothing to do with the transient fashions of polite society but is all about pleasing God and not people, as Paul says in verse 4. We are not looking for the transient glory of others, but the eternal glory of God. When you are on this walk then the prestige of society and a measure of your worth is not based on the size of your house, the diversity of your portfolio, the colour of your skin, your gender or the school you attended. You have worth, you have prestige because of the call of God upon your life. For just as Muretus said, “call no-one worthless for whom Christ died,” we could also say look at the worth of everyone, for Christ died for us all. Surely there is no greater status that we can gain than that the son of God was prepared to go to the cross for you. As we approach Good Friday, surely there is no greater thought than this.