Bible Study on 1 Thessalonians - Part 3 1 Thessalonians1:9-2:16

We began this week’s study with prayer and a quick review of last week’s lesson. In Chapter One, Paul is so thankful to God that some people in Thessalonica had come to faith in Jesus and were continuing in that faith by the grace of the Triune God. News of their faith and love and hope was already spreading to other places, as a good witness and example to people. Thessalonians had been turned away from idols to serve the “living and true God” and were now “waiting” for the return of His Son, Jesus, on the last day (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Paul talked about the second coming of Jesus here and in each chapter of I Thess., because there apparently had been questions from the Thessalonian believers about the when, and how, and the judgment and the “wrath of God” and what happens to those who had already died before Jesus came back.

Jesus and John the Baptist had already spoken about the wrath of God in the Gospels. Sin is evil and is rebellion against God and His will and deserves punishment. (See passages like Matthew 3:7, John 3:14-18 and 3:36.) Paul assured the believers of Thessalonica, though, in I Thess. 1:10, that Jesus had delivered them and us from that wrath to come, because of His payment of that debt of sin on the cross and brought  His forgiveness and faith to us.

In Chapter Two of 1 Thess., Paul asked the Thessalonian believers to remember how he had come to them and had presented the Gospel in a sincere and honest way. He called them “brothers” here and 27 other times in the two letters to Thessalonica. They, both men and women, had become part of the “family” of faith by trusting in Jesus. (There were many “preachers” traveling around in those days, supporting many gods and goddesses and philosophies of life. Often these people did so for personal gain or honor and in dishonest ways.)

Paul then reminded the believers in Thessalonica of how he had come to their city. He and Timothy and Silvanus had already suffered and been shamefully treated in Philippi, by Jewish authorities and public officials, just for telling people of Jesus as the Messiah and Savior, as we heard in the introduction to this letter. They were falsely accused and beaten and imprisoned and then forced to leave the city. If Paul and the others were imposters and false teachers, would they have then continued to preach the same message that got them in such trouble and gave them no benefit? Yet, Paul and the others spoke “boldly” of God and his “good news” in Jesus, even when it brought them “much conflict” in Thessalonica, too. It was not “in vain,” though,  because a church of believers was established there (1 Thess. 2:1-2).

Paul went on to give a long list of what false teachers did that he did not do, in presenting the Gospel. His message did not spring from “envy or impurity (uncleanness) or with deception.” He did not speak just “to please” others and give them what they wanted to hear, or to “flatter” them or to “seek glory from” them and not “with a pretext for greed” and personal gain. He simply wanted to ”please God, Who tests the hearts of all.”

Paul knew well his owns unbelief and sin against God in earlier times. Only by the grace of God was his life turned around and he “was judged faithful” through Christ. See 1 Timothy 1:12-17. His goal now was simply to love and serve God and share His good news, as he was doing in Thessalonica and wherever he went, by God’s power and grace (1 Thess. 2:3-6).

Paul went on to explain that he could have expected help and support from the people in Thessalonica, as an “apostle." He chose instead to work (likely in his earlier “vocation” as a tent maker) and support himself in that way, so as not to be a “burden” on the Thessalonians. He and the others worked “night and day” at their jobs, while still “proclaiming the Gospel of God.” He and the others truly cared about the people they were serving, and the people became “very dear” to them (1 Thess. 2:6-9).

Paul also used the picture image of being like “a gentle nursing mother who takes care of her children, in love” and yet also being like “a father with his children, exhorting and encouraging and calling them to walk in a manner worthy of God, Who had now called them into His own Kingdom and glory" as they were brought to faith. In Lutheran terms, Paul laid down the Law, when needed, but also gave them the Gospel of God’s love and grace and forgiveness and hope. Paul and the others sought to do all this with as much good and righteous conduct as they could, too (1 Thess. 2:7-8, 10-12).

Paul went on to make two more very important points. He was especially grateful that the Thessalonian believers had heard and accepted the words of Paul, “not as the words of men,” but as they really are, the very “Word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). That means that all of the Old Testament and New Testament, all of the Bible, including this letter of Paul that we are studying, is the Word of God. (See, for example, also, 2 Timothy 3:14-17.) The Bible does not just contain God’s Word, and then we have to try to figure out what is true or not or what we like or not. All of it is inspired, breathed out by God, and all of it is His Word, to be heard and trusted by us.

Paul also added one more very important point about the Word of God. The Word of God is at work in us who believe (1 Thess. 2:13). It is not just ordinary words, but the Holy Spirit is at work in us through that Word,  whenever we read or hear the Word. Read again what Paul said in 1 Thess. 1:5, in what we heard last week. Look at Ephesians 6:17. “The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.” See also 1 Corinthians 2:12-13. “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in Words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” The Word of God is effective and can accomplish what God wants, when we use it.

This does not mean that understanding the Word is always easy. See 2 Peter 3:16, where Peter says that there are some things in Paul’s writings that are “hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people can twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” That is why it is important to pray and ask for the Spirit’s wisdom, as we study, and let Scripture interpret Scripture for us, and be willing to ask questions, if we do not understand, and look at other good resources to help us, as study Bibles do.

Paul adds, in 1 Thess. 2:14, that through the powerful Word of God, the Holy Spirit has also made the believers in Thessalonica “imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.” They by faith in the Word are truly “brothers” in Christ and members of the one Holy Christian Church, with all the promises of God.

That also means that they will have some suffering and trouble just for being Christians, as others in the early Christian church and even our Lord Jesus had suffering. In the early days, much of that came from Jews who rejected Jesus and His Word and claims to be Lord and Savior. See 2 Timothy 3:12-13 and 1 Corinthians 2:8, for example.

Paul is telling the Thessalonians not to be surprised that following Jesus and His Word might bring even more persecution and other challenges. If Jewish people helped kill Old Testament prophets and Jesus Himself and drove away Paul and others from city after city, then who knows what else might happen. Most sadly, Paul said that opponents of Jesus were really opposing “all mankind” because they did not want the good new of God’s love to get also to non-Jews (Gentiles) so that they also could be saved through faith in Jesus, or to get to their own fellow Jews! This was a tragic, sinful situation, and God’s wrath would eventually come upon Jews and the Jewish nation, if they kept rejecting the Jewish Savior, Jesus, Paul concluded. (1 Thess. 2:14-16. See also passages like Mark 13:1-2, and 14-18, and Romans 9:30-10:4.) But there is still hope for all, in listening to Jesus and His Word.