Footsteps #93

The biblical account of Paul’s missionary activity is set in the context of ancient Rome. As we see Paul wrestling with everyday issues, we can learn how to better apply the principles and lessons that God placed in Scripture for us today. In 1&2Thessalonians, Paul was guiding ancient urban Christians through challenging times. The keywords in this letter are waiting and advent. The twin ideas are affliction and the second coming. 

 Paul wrote, “We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly.  As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Thess.1:2,3, NLT). 

Paul has many good things to say to the Thessalonians, at least when he begins writing to them in the first letter. What he praises them for is worthy of our attention. Paul opens his first letter to the Thessalonians by emphasizing prayer, stressing how much he prays for them, which itself reveals the deep love and concern he has for the church there. He then rejoices that the Thessalonians, on the whole, appear to be remaining faithful. Their lives offered abundant evidence of the life-changing power of the Spirit, despite the many challenges that they faced. He concludes his first chapter by remarking how the Thessalonians’ openness to himself and his teaching led them to become true Christians. They were believers who lived every day in anticipation of the day Jesus would come from heaven to deliver them from “the wrath to come.” 

In his prayers, Paul concentrates on reality, not light-headed spirituality. Faith provokes serious work. Genuine love produces much labour. And hope requires plentiful patience. The stress in these words is on action, not abstract ideas. The order of faith, love, and hope varies in the New Testament, but the most important of the three is listed last in each case (see 1 Cor. 13:13). The order in v3 underlines the importance of last-day events in Paul’s mind throughout the two letters to the Thessalonians.