1 Thessalonians 1:1
Notes
Transcript
Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.
Target Date: Sunday, 7 November 2021
Target Date: Sunday, 7 November 2021
Building Points:
Building Points:
They lived in a culture of idolatry.
They lived in a city of virtue-signaling.
It was not just that everyone did what was right in his own eyes – they had, in the absence of the instruction of God, created civic virtues that they held everyone else to.
They practiced patron-client relationships.
Sermon Text:
Sermon Text:
Today we begin a new book in our weekly holy consideration of the word of God – the book of 1 Thessalonians.
It is my intention, if God is willing, to move methodically through this book, making as full an accounting of its teaching as we possibly can.
There is no benefit when preaching in running through the scriptures simply to reach the end of a passage or a book.
Each paragraph, verse, and even word should be savored because each of them proceeded from the heart of God for our instruction in godliness.
It is the difference between gulping down a fabulous feast or tasting each element, each bite, savoring the time spent and allowing yourself to recall that experience in the future.
I have joked from time to time that we often spend a great many weeks looking at a very limited part of a book,
But all joking aside, what is the value of having read the verses, looked at the ideas, if we have not studied them, digested them, so that they have become implanted in our lives?
Reading longer passages – Bible Reading – is still of great use, and that is why we read lengthy passages each Lord’s Day as part of our worship.
But when it comes to the proclamation, the preaching of the word of God, we should never be hasty or cavalier in it, racing through as if we are checking off another accomplishment, reaching another milestone.
In Bible studies like the weekly sermon, we are called aside for a moment to consider in-depth the instruction of God to His people.
And we have squandered the time if we fail to find application for it in our own lives.
If we fail to ask – how must I be different from the way I was - before I was confronted by God through His word?
This morning, it is my hope to lay a foundation for studying this letter by looking at the particulars of Paul’s prior experience with the people to whom he is writing in the two epistles to the church at Thessalonica.
After investing our time each week since the establishment of this congregation looking at Ezra, a book written to the Jews about the Jews of the Old Testament,
I think it is important to understand the differences between the world of Ezra’s day and the world and culture of Paul’s day four-hundred years and two-thousand travel miles away.
Because I think for most of us, we do not realize the shocking differences between the nation of Israel and the world of Rome.
And Paul was thrust by the Holy Spirit into this very divide.
Even though Rome had conquered most of the known world, there was still a vast difference between the “Greek” world and the Jewish world where Paul was born, raised, educated, and called by God.
We see examples in most of his epistles of the differences he recognizes in the cultures in his many references to the Gentiles. A couple of examples are:
In Galatians 2:7, he tells us:
I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised
Ephesians 2:12-14 tells us:
you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall
When he says these things, he isn’t simply stating a fact or pushing a pet historical interpretation,
He tells his readers these things because it is important to know what the assumptions and customs of a people are if you want to take the gospel to them.
And for him, a Pharisee of the Jews, there was no more foreign mission than to go among the Greek and Roman Gentiles.
The people he met in Macedonia, which is where Thessalonica is located (just on top of the Greek peninsula),
Most had never heard of God’s Law as given to Moses:
It would have as much meaning for them as asking you to understand and recite the tenets of Zoroaster.
The difference in these, though, is that when they were taught that the Law of Moses contained commandments like “Do not murder” and “Do not steal”,
They would have found nothing in the commandment to dispute.
That is why, when Paul wrote to the church in Rome, most of whom he had never met, he dealt with the question “Why should I follow Christ if the Law of God is so similar to the laws of the state?”
He told them as he began outlining his answer:
For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them - Romans 2:14-15
And from that point, where Gentiles were condemned by their own consciences before God because they did not do what is pleasing to Him,
He continues by telling them “There is none righteous; not even one.” – Romans 3:10
In his presentation of the gospel, he couldn’t count on a solid moral or ethical commonality with these Gentiles – only one imperfectly translated through their fallen hearts - so, as in the case with the book of Romans, he led them to Jesus by the conviction of their own consciences.
So this morning, I would like to illustrate three key differences between the world of the Thessalonians and the world of the Jewish believers, from where Paul had come.
I have chosen these key features primarily because they are factually supportable, but also because as we look at them, we will recognize much of our American culture today.
They also explain for us later the arguments and statements Paul makes, even down to the words or illustrations he chooses.
All of them are attested by historians, both Christian and not Christian, although I do not think any would be debatable based solely on the Scriptural evidence.
The first difference is that the Thessalonians lived in a culture of idolatry.
But this would not be considered a “devout” idolatry, like the worship of the Baals in the Old Testament.
The Thessalonians did not, for the most part, worship their gods out of fear.
The idolatry practiced in Thessalonica was much more opportunistic: “I will worship any god as long as he or she does good things for me.”
They even went so far as to “make” gods, deifying men and creating idols because of their power or aid, or to seek that power or aid.
Thessalonica was a center, perhaps the greatest center, for the worship of the Roman emperor.
And much of that was helped along by their history of declaring two other former kings gods: Philip of Macedon and his more famous son, Alexander the Great.
When they bowed down to these gods they had made through their craft, they did not do so as needy seekers of divine help or wisdom,
But as literal god-makers, formally coercing or cajoling favors from these gods in exchange for their devotion.
And because of the selfishness of their worship, they saw every new god as an opportunity for gain.
And this was something Paul and his companions had to overcome in their assumptions about God:
Our Lord did not exist to cater to their desires and cravings.
The One True God is the creator of everything, and will not be represented by idols nor commanded by men.
They had to understand, had to have it revealed to them by the Holy Spirit, that it is God who is sovereign and not us.
Thus Paul, Silas, and Timothy gave thanks to God because:
when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. - 1 Thessalonians 2:13
This “atheistic idolatry” had to be rooted out of their hearts, leading them to God and His work and His purposes.
Sadly, this lesson has, in our time, become diluted and forgotten.
There are many who seek God on Sunday’s, particularly in our nation, who do so only for what they can get out of Him.
Or out of His people.
Entire churches are preaching that God is the way to wealth, or to health, to prosperity, or to the ease of pain.
Their message, preached today to many who greatly resemble those Thessalonians, is that God is someone who wants to serve YOU.
The idolatrous Thessalonians would have liked that message – but they would have been ultimately lost forever if they followed it.
For the “atheistic idolaters” around us today, the message of the gospel is this:
[Turn] to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. – 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
The second difference of the pagan Thessalonians from the Jewish Christians is that the Thessalonians had a different moral code.
Now, I know I just pointed out that they would understand instinctively much of the Law of God.
I am not negating that.
The problem with the Thessalonians is that they made new virtues that they expected everyone else to follow.
One Scriptural example is the accusation made against Paul and his companions when they had taught for weeks in the Thessalonian synagogue:
“These men who have upset the world have come here also; 7 and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” – Acts 17:6-7
The problem with the accusation is that there is no evidence they believed it was a legitimate charge.
Had they believed that real treason was going on, the city administrators would have done much more than
[After they] had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them. – Acts 17:9
What the missionaries had fallen afoul of was the fact they might jeopardize the goodwill of the emperor, who they had begun to worship as a god in exchange for his favors.
It is always dangerous when a godless society begins to make their own rules and virtues, to establish their own moral code.
Whether it is the Woke movement, the Pandemic Opportunists, or the constant propagation of the illusory “American Dream”,
Each of these examples represents the definition of a new civic virtue that has been elevated to sit on par with God’s Law.
These kinds of group-think virtues are arguably more dangerous and insidious than the failure of the people in the book of Judges – Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
That moral hodgepodge had the one small advantage that it made no demands on anyone else to comply.
But these new civic virtues pit a group against an individual, forcing compliance through shame, intimidation, or bullying.
When a godless society begins to build its own moral code divorced from the will of God, you get nonsense like:
What gender do you identify with?
What are your pronouns?
You are “systemically prejudiced” simply because you had some advantages at birth.
It is somehow unloving to refuse to receive a vaccine.
Or it is unchristian to take a vaccine.
Both are bad theology.
As is: how can you be a Christian and be a Democrat?
Or: How can you call yourself a Christian and vote for that Republican?
Or perhaps the suggestion that a good patriot is also a good consumer, buying those things that are offered simply because they are in fashion or popular.
We have to, as believers, to beware of dancing to the tune of the piper that is piping the loudest at the moment.
We are not called to simply signal our virtue by what we believe that matches the world’s beliefs.
Our guidance is from God, through his word, and that MUST be the sole basis for us to make moral choices.
just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. 5 For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness— 6 nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others - 1 Thessalonians 2:4-6
We are not here to please men, but God.
The final difference between the Thessalonians and the Jewish Christians is the Thessalonians practiced what would be called a patron-client relationship in many ways.
This one is a bit more foreign to us, but it is quite familiar among the Greeks back to antiquity.
The idea is that a lower-class person would be favored by a person in a higher class, who would care for that person as part of their civic virtue.
This can be seen in the idolatry practiced – that is why these idols were still considered “gods” – they would be obligated to care for those mortals who were devoted to them.
It is one of the main reasons the imperial worship was practiced so ardently – they considered if they were devoted to the emperor, the emperor would owe them.
We see an example in Jason, who we saw earlier was called to answer for his guests (Paul and the others), and who paid the fine for them, pledging his word in the process.
But where this becomes a real issue in the Thessalonian church is when people who come to Jesus begin to expect the church to take care of them completely – that they had become a client of the church and gave it their devotion.
I will say that this, I think, was the greatest surprise to Paul as he deals with it in his epistles.
It was so foreign to the way he was taught, brought up, or believed.
He tells them gently at first:
For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you - 1 Thessalonians 2:9
Then he makes a more direct appeal:
make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
And when his appeal is not heeded:
For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; 9 not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. 10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. 11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. – 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
But lest we think that is his final word, he quickly commends those who had been caring for these undisciplined:
But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. – 2 Thessalonians 3:13
In conclusion, there are many similarities of our time and place that are addressed in the epistles to the Thessalonians.
And it is our job to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone in our culture:
To the ones who appear to be following God’s commands.
And to the ones who are flaunting God’s commands for their own benefit.
Our Lord came to seek and save the lost, and that is the commission he left us: GO and make disciples, teaching them all He has commanded us.
For some, we will be called to preach to cultures we are familiar with.
But those who God blesses with an extra measure of grace will be called to cultures foreign to them.
And it is the same gospel we carry in both places among both peoples.
For many of us, this will also mean learning where we have been raised blind, unaware of the cultural assumptions we have trained into us.
And when we find those remnants, we bring them to the word of God and judge whether it is good or sinful based solely on His word.
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