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The
Thessalonian letters of the apostle Paul were written to a young church
struggling to survive in an extremely dangerous world. Within 20 years of
their writing, the whole of the ancient East was convulsed in warfare and
rebellion. In AD 70, the armies of Titus surrounded the city of
Jerusalem. Following a bloody siege, the city was overrun, the temple was
destroyed, and the Jews were taken captive. The movements that culminated
in these events had already begun when this first letter was written.
Thus it is clear that the Thessalonian Christians were facing perilous
times.
Sound
familiar? We too are living in dangerous times. Many years ago, E. M.
Blaiklock, who was then Professor of Classics at the University of
Auckland in New Zealand, said "Of all the centuries, the 20th is
most like the first." We can, therefore, feel very close to this
young church in Thessalonica. Well, now it is the 21st century and little
has changed.
Many
today sense an approaching world crisis. The Middle East, Korea, a nervous,
jittery stock market; a growing sense of cynicism and distrust of the
political process; an increase in drug and alcohol dependency, with the
resultant physical and mental toll in human lives; scientists tinkering
with our genetic makeup and actually developing a business of selling
fetal tissues--all these portend a frightening crisis looming on the
horizon of our times. Add to this the now familiar threat of AIDS, the
spread of famine in many countries, and, of course, the ever-present
threat of nuclear and biological warfare, and it is clear that something
terrible is about to happen. We are living in a world in chaos.
In
1980, leaders from all over the Western world attended the First Global
Conference on the Future, held in Ontario, Canada. The chairman of that
conference spoke these sobering words: "The bad news is that the end
of the world is coming. The good news is, not yet. But the decade of the
1980s is going to be the most important in human history. If we don't
make the right decisions, the odds of our going beyond this decade are
very slim. The danger of war and the collapse of Western civilization is
a very real possibility."
Even
earlier, in 1972, a group of international industrial leaders and
thinkers, called the Club of Rome, suggested six proposals that humanity
must put into effect if we are to survive on this planet. I will share
only the first, which is a very significant proposal: "The survival
of this planet necessitates new forms of thinking that will lead to a
fundamental revision of human behavior and, by implication, of the entire
fabric of present-day society."
That
simply says that if we cannot discover how to change people, there is no
hope for saving the world from ultimate collapse. In the immortal words
of Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us." There is no way
out unless society can find a means of fundamentally changing human
beings.
Right
here is the glory of our message, for the gospel changes men and women.
Paul's letters to the young church at Thessalonica were written because
the people there had found, in the good news about Jesus, a way to be
changed. The focus and purpose of their lives had obviously been
drastically altered.
Paul
himself founded this church in Salonica (as it is now called). Today it
is a bustling center of northern Greece, one of the few New Testament
cities that is still flourishing. The ancient gate through which the apostle
entered the city spanned the Egnatian Way, the Roman road that ran from
the Adriatic Sea to the Bosphorus. After Paul and his friends had been
treated shamefully in Philippi, they journeyed on about 100 miles west to
Thessalonica. Paul remained there at least 3 weeks, probably longer, but
he was able to minister in the synagogue for only 3 sabbaths.
The
Jews of the city became so enraged by his teaching about Jesus that they
created a riot and captured Paul's host, Jason, holding him responsible
for the apostle's behavior. Paul left the city, traveling south to Berea,
and there began to preach again. The Jews from Thessalonica, however,
followed him, causing another uprising in Berea. Finally, Paul was sent
on alone to Athens. He remained there but a short time, and then moved to
Corinth. It was from that city, in the year AD 50 or 51, that he
addressed this letter to the Thessalonian believers, only a few months
old in Christ.
In
the salutation, Paul gave a double address for the church: one geographical
and the other spiritual. The new believers lived in Thessalonica, but
they were also found "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ" (1:1). Of the two addresses, the latter is the more
important. If we have come to Christ, we must see ourselves as primarily
new creatures "in God the Father" and in "the Lord Jesus
Christ."
Paul
was continually thankful in prayer for three things these believers
possessed: their faith, their love, and their hope. In the New Testament,
these are always listed as fundamental characteristics of those who have
come to Christ. At the close of that wonderful 13th chapter of 1
Corinthians, Paul said, "And now abide faith, hope, love, these
three; but the greatest of these is love" (13:13).
In
reading Paul's letters, I never tire of noting how his mind worked. He
had a marvelous ability to summarize many points in a single verse and
then amplify them in easy-to-follow steps. As we see in the early verses
of 1 Thessalonians, Paul was not speaking of mere faith, hope, and love.
He was very careful to be specific--a faith that works, a love that
labors, and a hope that endures--the great motives of the Christian life.
If you have true faith, if you have love born of the Spirit, and if you
have hope in the coming of Christ, you will be motivated to live as you
ought today.
Curtis |
