I Thessalonians 1:1-10

Paul says a lot in these first few verses of his first letter to the Thessalonians. First, there is one small literary item that I’d like to point out. In many of Paul’s letters we will see him speak in triads – three items typically tied together by the conjunction “and”. Here we see it right away in verse 3: …your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope… A faith, love, and hope triad – the first of many we will see in Paul.

A second triad: …how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven… (vv. 9b-10a) Turned, to serve, to wait. (My thanks to my Study Bible for pointing out this triad that I had not seen.) In these few words Paul repeats every Christian’s experience. We turn away from our former lives to Him; we serve Him by serving others; and we wait for His return.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you… (v. 9a) This sequence is a bit difficult to follow. Essentially Paul is saying that he gets reports from other congregations (v. 7, …all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia…) as to how he and Silas and Timothy were received by the Thessalonians. These are third-person affirmations…! Frankly, it’s one of the best affirmations we can get for us to know what is the truth. If anyone (the second person) tells us (the first person) that we have done well in what we did for them, then we may wonder if they are speaking the truth or simply being nice. But when an “outsider” (the third person) tells us that this second person had spoken well of us, then we know that it’s true – clearly the second person told the third person of our service, and that third person reported the same comment to us. Follow? Let me give you an example. If one of our Avanza tutors tells Carol or me that we do really well with the music and the reading/teaching, we accept their compliment and feel good about what we have done. But if someone else from our congregation comes to one of us and says that one of the Avanza tutors was telling him or her about how well we were serving the Avanza kids, then that is a compliment more warmly received – because this word had been passed from that “second person” to that “third person”, then on to us. In the end, all encouragement is good!! (Am I repeating myself…??!!)

Finally, another theme that we will see occasionally in Paul’s letters is imitation. Here we see it in verse 6 and 7: And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, (v. 6) …so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia (v.7). Paul even says it of himself on occasion – I Corinthians 4:16, 11:1; Philippians 3:17. Are we able to say that of ourselves to someone else?

Slava Bohu!

Acts 18:12-28

It was hard to organize today’s reading without breaking it up into smaller pieces. There’s a lot going on in these 17 verses. Paul starts in Corinth, moves on to Ephesus, then to Caesarea, then Jerusalem (maybe; see below), then Antioch, then Galatia and Phrygia – with more activity at Ephesus as we end our reading. But the real confusion comes in the likelihood that Paul wrote I and II Thessalonians while he was in Corinth. So where to split chapter 18 – how to fit all these things together? So we end up with Paul’s third missionary journey interrupted by his writings to the Thessalonians. We’ll just go with the flow!

So we begin with the Jews hassling Paul again: …the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal… (v. 12) The Roman proconsul would have none of it and dismissed them all. So then the Jews …seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. (v. 17) That sounds really strange, except for the introduction that Paul writes back to the Corinthians in his first letter: Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother… (NASB). Is this Sosthenes in Paul’s Corinthian introduction the same man who was beaten in front of the proconsul? And if so, when did he become a “brother”? So maybe the Jews beat Sosthenes because they were angry at losing their case before the proconsul and they took it out on Sosthenes because they suspected him of following Jesus? That’s the only reasonable explanation I can imagine! Strange!

Paul takes Priscilla and Aquila with him to Ephesus and leaves them there, which turned out to be a good move, since Apollos came to Ephesus and had to be instructed correctly by Priscilla and Aquila (vv. 24-26). One wonders why Paul did not leave Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth in the first place – why take them along at all? Clearly Paul was hearing from the Lord in all this!

There’s a lot of travel in verse 22: When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. It’s very likely that the church he greeted was the Jerusalem church. Jerusalem is about 2500 feet above sea level – we’ve talked earlier about travelers going “up” to Jerusalem even when it was a journey to the south. In addition, Caesarea is much closer to Jerusalem (about 75 miles) than to Antioch (250 miles), and the verse continues with Paul going “down” to Antioch (to the north and at sea level again). Luke leaves out a lot of intermediate information in today’s reading!

Verse 23 begins Paul’s third missionary journey. We’ll pick that up again after we read through the Thessalonian letters.

Slava Bohu!

Acts 18:1-11

A number of different thoughts running through my mind… First, Paul rejects the Jews and says that he’s going to the Gentiles (v. 6). Then we see Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, turning to faith (v. 8) and Paul moving in with Titius Justus, whose house was next to the synagogue. So even if Paul rejected the Jews, he was still readily available to them. And very possibly, many of the Corinthians who believed (v. 8) could have been Jews.

Second, when Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul seems to have stopped tentmaking – but that’s a bit confusing. The ESV says When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word (v. 5a), but that translation falls short of the NASB: …Paul began devoting himself completely to the word… So, did he quit work completely? And did Silas and Timothy then begin working? Small matter…!

Finally, I am intrigued by the Lord’s encouragement to Paul: Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you… (vv. 9b-10a) Evidently Paul was still afraid, but of what? My guess is that he might still be fearing the Jews from Macedonia who had wanted to bring him before the Roman authorities with a count of treason against him (Acts 17:6-7). Even though he was a Roman citizen, his citizenship could not protect him if he were found guilty of treason. But, for whatever reason, the Lord’s words must have been encouraging to him. And yes, as always, there’s an application for us. So often we don’t know what someone else is going through, but whether good times or bad a word of encouragement is always helpful. Bad times can be lifted and good times can be made to soar. Encourage one another. Do it!!

Slava Bohu!

Acts 17:22-34

OK, the critical me coming out…, with repentance! In the past I have criticized Paul’s preaching to the Athenians (today’s reading). Yes, who am I to criticize Paul…??!!! Moving on…

All of Paul’s sermons (and Peter’s and Philip’s) to date have been kerygmatic. […the preaching of the gospel of Christ, especially in the manner of the early church. (www.dictionary.com/browse/kerygmatic)] Today’s sermon has very little of that. All that we see of “the Gospel” in today’s sermon is a call to repentance, a couple of pronouns, and a Man reference: The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. (vv. 30-31) Except for his mention of idols, much of Paul’s sermon has to do with the physical world – creation and nationalities and philosophies. So in the past I observed that Paul wrote letters to the Galatians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, and the Ephesians – places where he had preached and had converts, but no letters to Athens. That is, I had surmised, his preaching fell on deaf ears in Athens because it was not kerygmatic.

But I was wrong!! By separating yesterday’s and today’s readings, I was able to see that yesterday’s reading had Paul preaching in the synagogue and in the marketplace, and at the end of today’s reading we see the converts: But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (v. 34) That is, his preaching in the synagogue and the marketplace and the Areopagus (Dionysius was an Areopagite) had its impact – to draw some men and women to belief and to draw the philosopher crowd to want to hear more. All along I have focused on his “Mars Hill” (Areopagus) speech and not his prior preaching. So, in fact, Paul had been preaching the Gospel, probably daily in the synagogue and marketplace, and when he preached about creation to the Mars Hill crowd, he was speaking to them with reference to where they were – he connected to their surroundings so as to get their attention. And I’m sure that he had more to say about Jesus that is not recorded by Luke, but the point is made – we need to reach people “where they are”. Start by relating to them in where they are or in what they’re doing (my trash-trailer friend from a few days ago) and move the conversation along. The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest. As I have said many times before, “Walk the walk and talk the talk.” We can do this!!

Slava Bohu!

Acts 17:10-21

Carol and I have been intrigued by our Study Bible notes talking about the “Egnatian Way”, how Paul and Silas traveled that road from when they first landed in Macedonia at Neapolis (Acts 16:11) and then stayed on that road to Philippi and Thessalonica. Here’s an interesting online item about that road: “The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey as a continuation of Via Appia.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Egnatia) There is a nice map of the Egnatian Way at that Wikipedia link.

The last part of that Wikipedia text was particularly interesting to us – the “Via Appia” is the Appian Way, the most famous Roman road from that time period. That is, Paul and Silas may have been planning to stay on that highly-populated road with an intent to go on to Rome. [NOTE: That’s a big MAYBE, folks.] But instead they detoured south to Berea: The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea… (v. 10) Berea is NOT on the Egnatian Way. It may be that Berea and Athens and Corinth were Paul’s and Silas’ original targets or it may be that they got off the main road on which they had been traveling to elude capture by the Thessalonican authorities who wanted to try them for treason against Rome. Am I adding too much to the text? Maybe. And I’m no Bible scholar, but it’s interesting to try to reason these things out!

But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. (v. 13) It’s just really strange to me that the Jewish leaders were so opposed to this new religion that they followed the same pattern in Macedonia that the Galatian churches had followed on Paul’s first missionary journey, following him and attacking him wherever he went!

More on Athens tomorrow…

Slava Bohu!

Acts 17:1-9

But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob… (v. 5) This sounds so much like the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem bringing a mob to Gethsemane to arrest Jesus! (BTW, both the NASB and NKJV translate “of the rabble” as “from the marketplace”.) Clearly the synagogue was split; the previous verse had said, And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. (v. 4) The “them” in “some of them” refers to Jews from the synagogue, since Greeks and leading women are also included in that verse of those who were persuaded. From his teaching/preaching, some Jews were persuaded, but not all. My sense is that it was the Jewish leaders who were not persuaded and who became jealous (v. 5) when the less-learned Jews were persuaded; the leaders probably feared that they would lose many from their congregation.

Paul explains three distinct items to those attending in the synagogue: (1) that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah) and (2) that as the Christ He had to suffer and (3) that as the Christ He had to rise from the dead. Verse 3 says that Paul not only explained these things, but that he also proved them. As a young rabbinical student Paul was well trained in the Old Testament and could cite “chapter and verse” from …Moses and all the prophets… (Luke 24:27), especially Messianic verses from Isaiah. So he was able to prove to some of the Jews that their long-awaited Messiah had come. That would have taken a major leap of faith for those Jews who joined Paul and Silas to leave behind their Jewish friends (and leaders). Paul must have been very convincing!

The Jewish leaders speaking: …they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. (v. 7) My Study Bible pointed out this Messianic preaching from Paul was blasphemy to the Jewish leaders, but also that the Thessalonians were under Roman rule and that this claim from the Jewish leaders was effectively a charge of treason against Paul and Silas. The very first verse in tomorrow’s reading says The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night… (v. 10), clearly to avoid having to face that charge before the Roman authorities.

Slava Bohu!

Acts 16:25-40

I was re-thinking my post from yesterday, as to why Paul and Silas accepted the beatings from the Philippian magistrates instead of claiming their rights as Roman citizens. Then this morning I remembered the following verse, where the Lord is speaking to Ananias as He is sending him to visit Paul after Paul’s Damascus road experience: For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. (Acts 9:16) So Paul knew that he would be suffering as he spoke about Jesus; maybe he was just accepting that beating in stride, knowing the Lord had told him it would be so.

Today I’m thinking about Lydia. It was on the way to their prayer meeting that Paul and Silas were apprehended, beaten and put in jail. So Lydia and her household and any other converts would have known about these events and very likely would have been praying for Paul and Silas – for their comfort and maybe even for their deliverance. So yes, Paul and Silas …were praying and singing hymns to God… (v. 25), but prayer on their behalf was probably being offered by the Lydia crowd. I can imagine the Lydia crowd rejoicing when Paul and Silas arrived at her house; I can hear them reporting about their own prayer time. And now as Paul and Silas have …encouraged them and departed (v. 40), the Lydia crowd can hold on to and regularly recall their prayer time and the Lord’s deliverance. Yes, I’m reading into the text thoughts that are not explicitly there, but there’s a point worth making: our prayers matter! Pray without ceasing! (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Slava Bohu!

Acts 16:16-24

I’ve always wondered at Paul and Silas allowing themselves to be beaten, when (as we will learn tomorrow) they were Roman citizens and should have been tried before a judge and jury before being punished. I feel like I would have claimed my Roman citizenship immediately. But maybe it happened all too quickly and they were set upon by vigilante justice.

And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. (vv. 23-24) These verses are ESV translation; the NASB translates “to keep them safely” as “to guard them securely”. That seems a better translation, since the jailer seems to have been more concerned with security than safety. He put them in the INNER prison, a much more secure location than the “entry-way” cells, and he put their feet in the stocks. All that seems excessive for two men who hadn’t even been formally tried! But then again, it makes their release that much more powerful! But again, I’m getting ahead of today’s reading.

Verse 18 has a small item, And this she kept doing for many days. The slave girl had been crying out to Paul and Silas as they were on their way to the place of prayer – every day!! That is, the slave girl “kept doing” her crying out “for many days”. I find myself impressed at Paul’s and Silas’ dedication to evangelism. With Lydia and her household already converted, Paul and Silas must have seen an opportunity for more converts. And even if no one new showed up, they could still share more with Lydia and her household, increasing their faith. This evangelistic ministry was a daily activity for them. So what about us?

I find that I want to keep encouraging all of you, all of us, to keep speaking out. It’s really not that difficult. Today I took a trailer load of trash to our county-wide dump station building in Nicholasville. Two truck-trailer loads were already dumping and I was next in line. Two days earlier I had gone to the same dump station and had to unload my trailer by myself. (Normally men from the detention center are there to help.) So after waiting a few minutes, I decided to offer my help to one of the people offloading their trash. The man was quick to grant permission for me to help. After working opposite the trailer from him for seven or eight minutes and exchanging a few pleasantries I asked him, “Are you part of a local church?” It was an easy question to ask and there would be a yes-or-no answer – and hopefully a follow-up conversation to either answer. He said, “Yes, we attend Southland Christian Church.” I could tell that we both rejoiced at our shared faith! We parted ways with warm expressions of that shared faith – by the both of us. Bottom line – it was an easy question to ask. We can do this!!

Slava Bohu!

Acts 16:6-15

So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (vv. 8-9) What’s strange to me in these two verses is that Paul is even at Troas. If you look at a map, the Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe are in east-central modern-day Turkey, directly north of Cyprus, very far inland from the western coast of modern-day Turkey. In fact, Galatian Antioch is closer to Syrian Antioch than it is to Troas. So, having visited those four Galatian cities where he had preached before, Paul continues northwest through Phrygia and Mysia. Paul had been prohibited by the Spirit to speak further in Asia (modern-day Turkey), so he was intending to go to Bithynia, on the northern coast of modern-day Turkey (the southern coast of the Black Sea), a couple hundred miles east of Istanbul. But he was prohibited by the Spirit to go there also. So his only course was westward, to the west coast of modern-day Turkey, where Troas was located. And at Troas, as fortune (and the Holy Spirit) would have it, he gets the call in a dream to cross the Aegean Sea to go to Philippi, a city in what was then Macedonia and is now in the northeastern strip of land in modern-day Greece.

Why is this strange to me? It took two prohibitions from the Holy Spirit and one dream to get Paul to where the Lord wanted him. That is, Paul had made his plans, but the Lord took over and gave Paul His plans! I look at Paul’s change-of-plans and compare his journey to how Carol and I have found our way to St. Andrew’s. I failed at Texas A&M University – I was denied tenure in 1990. I failed at the University of Delaware – I was not hired into an open position in 1996 even though I was a visiting professor there. And the Episcopal Church failed to follow Scripture faithfully in 2003, leading to St. Andrew’s being formed and forcing us to look for fellowship outside the Episcopal Church. Three major failures and here we are!! Each of those failures was heartbreaking at the time, but the Lord had His plan for us. Blows me away when I really think about it…!! GLORY!

Slava Bohu!