I Thessalonians 4:13-18

I get the feeling from today’s reading that Paul thought Jesus’ return was in the very near term. Now, almost 2000 years later we still wonder about His return – yet we still believe and wait. I appreciated Paul’s compassion for his readers, especially his regard for their concern for their fellow believers who had already died. His words were both encouraging (v. 13, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope) and full of force (v. 15, …we declare to you by a word from the Lord…).

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air… (v. 17) My Study Bible said that this is the only place in the New Testament where a rapture of living Christians is clearly stated. Yet so many people/denominations make such a big deal about it!

Today’s reading is a really hopeful message for all of us!

Slava Bohu!

I Thessalonians 4:1-12

Paul writes “more and more” twice, in verses 1 and 10. There are really different senses for what Paul is saying in different translations. For example, the NKJV has that you …abound more and more… and that you …increase more and more… (respectively). The words “abound” and “increase” have an evangelistic ring to them. Contrast with the ESV which says that …you ought to walk and please God … more and more (v. 1) and …to love one another … more and more. (vv. 9b and 10b) This translation is more a sense of personal growth. Although these two translations carry very different meaning, they each carry good messages – evangelism and personal growth. More and more…

Not because it’s a triad, but because it’s just good common sense: …live quietly, … mind your own affairs, and … work with your hands (v. 11) More and more…!

Slava Bohu!

I Thessalonians 3:1-13

I would have let you find your own triads today, but there is one that shows up in the NKJV only. Whereas the ESV has …we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ… (v. 2), the NKJV has …Timothy, our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ… Minor, but interesting…!

Paul shows his concern for the Thessalonians in today’s first five verses and his joy at Timothy’s good news in the next four verses. It’s especially touching to see that he longs to see them face to face (v. 10). That phrase hit me this morning, when I thought about someone in our lives. You may remember a Slovak couple and their four-year-old son, Vlado and Maria and Oliver. They attended St. Andrew’s irregularly (they lived about 100 miles away), but St. Andrew’s effectively became their home church. During a Pastor’s Briefing in December 2016 they said good-bye to the church, thanking us for our reception of them and the strengthening of their faith that had occurred in their times with us. Slightly built, small Maria was especially touching – near tears as to how Father David and St. Andrew’s had brought her back to faith.

We visited them in Poland in the summer of 2017 and baptized them with Mark Bruner in a public swimming pool in Czechia. Then we also visited them in Slovakia in 2019, always desiring to encourage them and strengthen their faith. They have really missed our worship services and had been in the early planning stages to visit us when the CV pandemic hit. HOWEVER, with our worship services videotaped we were able to forward those links to them and they have been with us online for the past three weeks. Then we SKYPE’d with them each day after the service. So, we have mirrored (and imitated) Paul, with our concern and love for them and finally seeing them “face to face”. It has been as touching for us as I’m sure it was for Paul!

I can’t help wondering about Silas. In Acts 18:5 Luke reports that Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia to Corinth where Paul was staying. But we only read about Timothy being sent on his round trip to Macedonia, to the Thessalonians – no word about Silas. Then I thought Silas might have been sent to Philippi, but only Timothy is mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (v. 1:1). Also, after the beating and jail time in Philippi I wondered about Silas’ desire to return!! But then I imagined, reading clearly outside the pages, that Silas might have been sent to Berea – I imagine a letter from Paul to the Bereans similar to I Thessalonians that has never been recovered. But I’m going too far afield…!! Please forgive…!

Slava Bohu!

I Thessalonians 2:13-20

Please forgive my focus on the triads! But when you look for the triads, you find them. The triad in verse 19 is clear: hope, joy, crown of boasting. But another is more hidden in verses 13 and 14: …you received … and accepted the word of God… (v. 13), you became imitators of the churches … in Judea (v. 14), and you suffered the same things from your own countrymen (v. 14). One thing worth noting about this second triad – whereas some triads are simply listings, as in verse 19, the triad in verses 13 and 14 is sequential: You received the word, you became imitators, you suffered.

In Paul’s letter he is affirming what Luke had written in Acts 17: …you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they (Judean Christians) did from the Jews (v. 14b). You may recall that Judean Christians were being murdered (Stephen in Acts 8, James in Acts 12) and that in Acts 17 Jews from Philippi had come to Thessalonica to create [made] havoc for Paul, driving him out of town whereupon he headed to Berea. Paul has three references (vv. 14, 16, and 17) to their harsh treatment in Thessalonica. We’ve already seen Paul in Galatians 1, 2 affirm Luke in Acts 9. We’ll see this on other occasions in Paul’s letters.

Slava Bohu!

I Thessalonians 2:1-12

The triads… Once you are aware of them, you tend to see them quite often. I counted three today; the first two are obvious: …how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct… (v. 10) and …we exhorted … and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God… (v. 11). But the third triad is hidden a bit in verses 5 and 6: For we never came with words of flattery, … nor with a pretext for greed (v. 5) … Nor did we seek glory from people… (v. 6).

This third triad is more interesting. Paul is talking about how he might be preaching – actually how his preaching could have been misguided. First he could have come trying to win coverts with flattery, making the Thessalonians feel good about themselves. Or he might have come preaching and asking for their support – I so remember a “teaching” that I attended in my early born-again years where the last half of the two-hour “teaching” was their need for support to maintain their ministry. Turned me off!! Finally, Paul could have courted praise from his listeners, winning them over with HIS (not the Lord’s) manner and elocution. Again, misguided. Instead Paul spoke as a person …approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel… not to please man, but to please God. (v. 4) There’s a bottom-line message in all that for us: we must be genuine when we share the Gospel. Our listeners will see right through any insincerity in our words or in our hearts. We are entrusted with Jesus’ Gospel. Don’t misuse it!

Slava Bohu!

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!