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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Section - Chapters 3 - 5 ch. 3:6-13 ch.4:1-13 ch. 4:13-5:12 ch. 5:12-28 Previous Section - Chapters 1 - 3 Timothy’s
Encouraging Report (ch. 3:6 - 13) In
verse 6 Paul mentions that Timothy had just arrived with good news, which
was most likely the occasion for writing this letter.
The good news that Timothy brought was concerning their “faith
and love”. Once again, Paul
often puts faith and love together. First
comes faith, that is, trust in Jesus.
Then comes love, that is, selfless actions that are a result of
true faith. Part
of what Timothy told Paul was that these people “always had pleasant
memories” of Paul and his team, even though they were with each other
for a short period of time. Timothy
also mentioned that “they longed to see” Paul again, which was
reciprocal. In
verse 7 Paul says, “therefore (suggesting a conclusion to what he just
said) in all of our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you
because of your faith”. Once
again, you see the importance of faith, or trusting Jesus in the thinking
of Paul. As
a result of hearing such good news about the Thessalonians Paul responds
by saying, "now we really live…”.
It is as though a great burden was lifted from Paul’s shoulders
once he found out that they were “standing firm in the Lord”.
Paul, a man of great emotion would feel the feelings caused by fear
for his people. Once knowing that they were okay, these feelings would
revert to feelings of great relief and ecstasy.
Paul
goes as far to say in verse 9, “how can we thank God enough for all of
the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you”.
Can you see Paul’s emotion coming through in these words?
He just can’t thank God enough for hearing such good news from
Timothy, which produced overwhelming joy in Paul’s life.
Paul
goes on to say that “night and day we pray most earnestly that we may
see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith”.
Again and again in Paul’s writings you see the intensity he has
for his people. Here you see
it by him saying that he prays day and night for these people.
Even
though Timothy’s report concerning their faith was good, Paul wanted to
visit them again “to supply what was lacking in their faith”.
Once again, you see Paul’s genuine
concern about the faith of his people.
Yes, their faith was strong in the midst of trials, but Paul knew
that even with the greatest of faith, there was still room for
improvement. Trust in Jesus is
a growing virtue that never ends. These
words of Paul that show us his love and compassion for those in his care
is a text book of how Christian leaders
should minister today. I
believe such conviction can only come from a serious relationship with
Jesus Himself. Too often
ministry becomes pure routine. This
was not so with Paul. Verses
11 to 13 is somewhat of a doxology, an ending to a letter which gives
praise to God, even though this is not the end of the letter.
Yet in chapter 4 verse 1 Paul says “finally…” as if he were
closing his letter, in which he did, although it took him two more
chapters to do so. He
says, “may our God and
Father Himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come and see
you”. Notice it was God the
Father and the Lord Jesus that would clear the way, that is, remove satan
from the path to Thessalonica. He
continues by saying, “may the Lord make your love increase and overflow
to each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you”.
Part of the result of faith in the life of a believer should be
love seen in action. This was
evident in Paul’s life and he wanted to see it evident in the lives of
his people. Paul
closes this section by praying that these people “may be blameless and
holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus
comes with all of His holy ones”. Paul’s
desire was maturity in his people, maturity that would be seen on the day
of judgement. Notice
Paul speaks of the return of Jesus. Jesus
would return “with his holy ones”, those who have died in the Lord.
Some also suggest that these holy ones might be angels.
There could be evidence for both in the Scriptures, yet in context
I believe Paul is speaking of Christians.
Paul speaks more about this later. Living
To Please God (ch. 4:1 - 12) In
chapter 4 verse 1 Paul mentions that he had previously told the
Thessalonians how they should live to please God.
In fact Paul says that they are doing just that , but now he urges
them to please God in their lifestyle even more. There
is no end to maturing in Christ. If
we think we're mature, we're really not. He
reminds them that the instructions he gave them was from the authority God
gave them as apostles. Paul
believed that he had special authority as an apostle over those churches
that he started. Indeed this
is the nature of an apostle. The
difference between modern day apostles and Paul is that modern day
apostles, yet having authority as Paul did, are subject to what Paul
taught. Modern day apostles do
not preach their own gospel as some think.
They preach the gospel as found in the New Testament .
Thus modern day apostles differ from Paul in that Paul preached the
gospel as it was taught to him by God, while modern day apostles preach
the gospel as taught to them by Paul. In
verse 3 Paul says that “it is God’s will that you should be
sanctified”. This means that
it is God’s will that these people should be set apart unto their God,
that is to live for Him and not themselves.
If this is the case then, they “should avoid sexual
immorality”. Each person
should “learn to control his own body …
not in passionate lust as the heathen…” (ch. 4:5)
Paul says that such sexual sin is a “wrong to your brother”.
Elsewhere Paul says that sexual sin is a sin against your own body,
but here he says that it can also be a wrong towards your brother as well.
In
verse 6 Paul says that “God will punish men” for such sins”, unless
they have been covered by the blood of Jesus because of their trust in
Him. It is for this reason
that Paul says each man should have his own wife and vise versa in 1 Cor.
7:2. In
verse 8 Paul is quite pointed when he says that anyone “who rejects
these instructions does not reject man but God, who gives you His Holy
Spirit”. Once again Paul is
making use of his God given apostolic authority.
Remember, God has entrusted Paul with His message, and Paul is
relating this message to others, so if someone rejects the message, they
aren’t really rejecting Paul, but God. The
day in which Paul lived is no different than our world today.
Sexual sins were prevalent then as they are today, and in some
instances maybe even more prevalent. Part
of pagan religion was the participation in sexual orgies in the centre of
town. Some pagan gods promoted such activity.
In
verse 9 and 10 Paul repeats himself when he tells his readers to love
their brothers, something that they were already doing, and something that
Paul says God Himself taught them. But
even though they were doing well in this area of their lives Paul urged
them on to do better. There is always room for improvement, even in the
stronger areas of our lives. Paul
exhorts his readers “to live a quiet life, and to mind their own
business, and to work with your own hands…” (ch. 4:11)
This is something that Paul himself did.
Paul got into much trouble with his opposition, but he did not
really go looking for such trouble. Paul
minded his own business, that is, he worked hard in the ministry that God
had for him. He supported
himself in this ministry and he was encouraging the Thessalonians to do
the same. The
reason why Paul thought such a lifestyle was important was to “win the
respect of outsiders”. We
should live our lives in such a way that non-Christians, even though they
don’t believe like us, will respect us for the life we live.
If there is to be disrespect shown to us as Christians, it should
be a result of us preaching the gospel, not because we are living a unholy
life. Christians should not be seen as immoral, cheats, drunkards, or any
other such thing. The
other reason why Paul tells these people to work with their own hands and
to live a quiet life is so that they will “not be dependent on
anyone”. This too was very
much evident in his life. He
did not want to be dependent on others.
He would rather give than be given to, because of his love for
those God had given him. The
Coming Of The Lord (ch. 4:13 – 5:12) Paul
goes into a teaching mode when he tells his readers that he “does not
want them to be ignorant”. What
Paul is about to speak about now is the return of Christ, and concerning
these issues he wants his readers to be in complete understanding,
especially since there were some who were teaching things different than
what Paul taught . Paul
did not want these people to be ignorant like “those who fall asleep”
(die) with no hope. Paul
himself had great hope in death. He
looked forward to the day when he would pass from this life into
resurrection life. In
1 Cor. 15 you read Paul’s most conclusive thoughts concerning the
resurrection of the dead. Here
he says that because Jesus died and rose from the dead, so we also will
rise from the dead at some future point. He
goes on to say that because of the resurrection of Jesus, when Christians
pass away, they will also return with Christ at the end of the age.
To me the picture looks like this.
A Christian dies, they are immediately with Jesus in what is called
In
verse 15 he says, “according to the Lord’s own word,
… we who are still alive … will certainly not precede those who
have fallen asleep in the Lord”. There
is no direct quote by Jesus found in the New Testament that makes this
statement, so we cannot be conclusive in just where Paul heard this quote
from the Lord. Did he hear
Jesus say this by a revelation, or possibly when he was caught up into the
third heaven? Maybe.
We simply don’t know. We do know that Paul believes that Jesus
made this statement. I am sure
that there are many statements that Jesus made that are not recorded in
the Bible. Note
here that Paul considered himself in the group that would survive unto the
day of Christ. Does this mean
that Paul felt that he would really see the coming of the Lord from an
earthly position. Not
necessarily. In 1 Cor. 6:14
and 2 Cor. 4:14 he groups himself with those who would be raised into a
new body and return with Christ. This
letter was written most likely before the Corinthian letters, so unless he
changed his mind between the two time periods, we really don’t know for
sure just how Paul felt about this point. It is my feeling that as time
went on Paul knew that he would die for the sake of the gospel before
Jesus returned. Paul
says that those still alive at Jesus’ second coming “will certainly
not precede” those who have died in the Lord.
The dead in Christ will rise first to meet Jesus, then after that,
those alive in Christ will be “caught up”, or “raptured ”, that is
taken from this earth. At
the moment of the return of Jesus three things will happen, maybe
simultaneously. They are;
there will be a trumpet call, an archangel’s voice will announce this
coming, and Jesus Himself will give a loud command.
What specifically the angel and Jesus say at this point is not
stated by Paul. Earlier
in this section we noted that Jesus was coming back to earth with those
who were dead in the Lord. Here
we note that Paul says that those who are dead in the Lord will rise first
to meet Jesus. Then after that
those who are still alive will be raptured up, or taken up to meet Jesus
in the air. How can we correlate these
two verses? This is my
explanation. You have Jesus
coming to the earth. He is literally in the sky.
He does not have the dead in Christ with Him until He gives the
command for them to rise. At the command they rise.
Then at the command those who are living in Christ will be taken up
to meet Jesus “in the air”. Then
Jesus will come all the way to earth, that is He will come with those He
has just called up, and we will all return to earth with Him. To
help explain this we can take a look at history.
In Paul’s day the Romans had a custom that when an outside Roman
official visited the city, some of the city leaders would leave their post
and meet them while entering the city gates and then escort them to
wherever that official was going to. This
would be understood by Paul’s readers.
This is how it will be at the end of this age, when Jesus comes.
We will go and meet him and escort Him, or at least return with Him
to his destination, that being the earth.
The
Greek word “harpazo” is the word translated as “caught up” in this
passage. This word is also
used when Philip was caught up, or transported super-naturally from one
place to another. It is also
used when Paul says that he was caught up into the third heaven.
This word basically means to “snatch away”.
The word implies a sudden and forceful snatching away”.
This will be a very dramatic event, one that comes suddenly and
forcefully on the world. This
is where we get our ideas concerning the “rapture” of the church.
One thing we need to note here is that there is no hint of just
when this catching up will take place. Paul will shed a little more light
as he goes on. Of course many
doctrinal positions have been taken from these verses over the years
concerning just when this event will take place.
As it stands right now, I am not totally convinced by any one
positions. We
all want to know “about times and dates” when it comes to the return
of the Lord. This subject is
one of the most well discussed, well studied, and well speculated topics
in Christendom. In chapter 5
verse 1 Paul says, “about times and dates, we do not need to write to
you, for you know very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a
thief in the night”. No one
knows the exact date, or the exact time of Jesus‘ return.
Some say that you may not know the exact date and time but you will
know the season. This could
easily be true for Jesus Himself spoke about these days and gave us many
clues, or signs of His coming. He
told us to “watch and pray”, to look for the Day of the Lord. In
verse 3 Paul says that when “people are saying peace and safety,
destruction will come on them suddenly”.
To me this suggests a generation of people who are not looking for
Jesus’ return. They are
caught up with their own way of living, their pursuit of “peace and
safety”. When we finally
believe we have reached societal peace and safety, and everyone is
relaxing, Jesus will suddenly come with destructive force.
As the rapture, or catching up of God’s people is sudden and
forceful, so will Jesus’ dealing with the world be sudden and forceful.
Paul calls it destructive. Jesus
will not only come for His people, but He will come to bring judgement,
which means destruction, “and they (the unsaved) will not escape”,
Paul says. With no warning Jesus will suddenly appear out of nowhere and
bring quick and force judgement to the world.
This judgment is seen in two ways.
God will judge the Jews for forsaking Him, and He will judge the
world for not living for Him and how they have treated In
verse 4 Paul clarifies his thinking concerning the subject of the thief in
the night. He says that his
readers “are not in darkness”. The
Day of the Lord will not come as a surprise to the Christian who is
actually watching and praying for this day.
This day will only come as a surprise to the unbeliever, and even
perhaps to the believer who is not watching and praying.
So for you and I, we should not have to be caught off guard by
Christ’s second return. It
should not be a surprise to us. It may not be a surprise in one sense of
the word, but I think it will still be a shocking experience for all men,
saved as well as unsaved. Because
we are “sons of the light, and do not belong to the night”, we will be
living righteously. We will
not be like drunkards who get drunk at night.
We will be “self-controlled”.
This is Paul’s exhortation to his readers, that they should be
self-controlled, “putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the
hope of salvation as a helmet”. Once
again we have faith and love used together in the same phrase.
To faith and love Paul adds hope.
When speaking of hope, most of the time Paul is thinking about the
hope that he has in the resurrected life.
Faith, love and hope will keep us on the right track.
It will keep us awake and help us not to fall asleep so that day
catches us by surprise. Some
Christians don't think much about hope, buy if you read Paul's writings
carefully, you will noticed that he speaks a lot about hope, something he
has a lot of, especially since his life on earth is very difficult. In
verse 9 Paul says that “God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but
salvation”. This is one of
the great messages from Paul’s letter to the Romans.
The wrath of God is real. There
will come a time when the world will see God’s wrath in its fullness.
On the cross God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus in order for us
to escape His wrath in the day of judgement.
If God was so upset that He killed His own son to make provision
for our salvation, how much more upset will He be with those who refuse
this provision. I
believe the “wrath of God” here in verse 9 can be linked with the
“sudden destruction” mentioned in verse 3.
You should be able to conclude that when Jesus returns and brings
sudden destruction, some of this destruction may be the wrath of God in
judgement. Those
who believe in a pre-trib rapture use this verse as part of their defense.
The Great Tribulation is the time in which God pours out His wrath
on the earth. It is meant to
once and for all punish Paul
continues by saying, “He died for us so that whether we are awake or
asleep, we may live together with Him”.
Once again this is the message of the gospel that Paul preached and
he told his readers to encourage themselves with these words.
In
Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians he speaks more of the return
of Christ. In summery what we
have learned in this chapter goes as follows. Christ will come with a
trumpet sound, an archangels shout a command from His own mouth. This day
will come when the world appears to be relatively in peace and safety,
when the unbeliever least expects it.
It will be as a thief in
the night to them but not to those Christians who are watching for that
day to come. When Jesus appears in the atmosphere, the dead in Christ will
rise first, then those who are alive and saved will rise afterwards.
We all will meet Jesus in the air.
We will return to earth with Him and He will bring destructive
judgement to the world. Final
Instructions (ch. 5:12 - 28) Paul
gives some closing exhortation as he ends this letter to the
Thessalonians. He says “to
respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord …”
(ch. 5:12) Paul is telling his
readers to think highly of those “who work hard, and who are over you in
the Lord”. We need to
understand the sentence structure in the Greek language in this verse.
“Over you in the Lord” is what you call a participle.
A participle is a half verb and half noun.
Sometimes this particular Greek word is translated as “leader”,
which is a noun. This is
significant. Paul is telling these people to respect those who are
actually “taking the lead
over you”. He is not saying
merely to respect your leaders,
but respect those who are doing the job of leading. This
is important because just because one holds the office of a leader, does
not mean he is doing the job of a leader.
Paul says to respect the person who is actually doing the job, not
simply holding a title or an office. In
the case of the Thessalonians, their leaders appear to be doing the job.
This is not always the case. In
our day and age when church leaders are not necessarily Christian, we are
only to respect the leader who is leading according to Scripture. Even
certain Christian leaders can lead from wrong motives and in unbiblical
ways. Paul is not saying we
should submit to them. We submit to godly leaders who are actually leading
in a godly fashion. Some
people claim we submit to a leader simply because he is the leader.
I don't believe that to be Biblical. Verse
13 confirms this in a grammatical sense. It says, “hold them in highest
regard … because of their work”, not because they are called a leader.
Respect for leaders is based on the work they do, not simply the office
they hold. It's time for us to
hold our leaders to proper Biblical practice.
Paul
continues by saying, “live in peace with each other”, something that
as a father in the Lord he wants to see in all of his children. Verse
14 states some more exhortations. Paul
says to “warn the idle”. Christians
are not to be idle, but to be busy in pursuit of the things of the Lord.
Being idle leads to time spent in things that are not Godly. He
also says to “encourage the weak, help the timid”.
We note here that there are weak and timid Christians.
This is partly due to people’s God given character traits, as
well as life experiences. Not all people are strong. Yet these weak and
timid Christians can receive encouragement which would help them grow as
they should. The weak and
timid may not end up as a Paul, but they don’t have to stay weak and
timid. In
verse 14 Paul says to “be patient with everyone”.
In all we do, in all of our relationships there needs to be a
measure of patience. I am not
suggesting that we be so patient that we condone sin in a person.
Paul himself would not
do that. Yet at the same time
one cannot have good relationships with others without a measure of
patience. In
verse 15 Paul says “to be kind with each other and to everyone else”.
Kindness is a key ingredient in Godly love.
In
verse 16 Paul tells us and his readers what God’s will for our lives
are. We all want to know
God’s will, yet many times we seem to miss it.
Paul says that God’s will for us is to “be joyful, pray
continually, and be thankful”. This
is not deep and heavy, but makes good sense if we are Christians.
Not doing these things makes a poor witness to those around us. In
verse 19 Paul says “to not put out the Spirit’s fire”.
This is one of the biggest downfalls of individual Christians and
the church in general. We too
often dampen the fire that the Holy Spirit lights within us.
This can be done through out and out sin.
It can be done by ignoring the moving of the Spirit, and replacing
His activity with our own. Humanism
is in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit, something the church is way to
content with. He
also tells us not “to treat prophecy with contempt”.
Prophecy is speaking forth the Word of God, no matter what form it
is presented to us in. Prophecy can be inspired preaching, or it can be
God using a person in the first person singular to speak to the church.
That is, when someone stands up in a meeting and says something
like “thus says the Lord…” Yet
once again, our preaching way to often is not Holy Spirit inspired, but
humanistic in nature. Then in
many churches the “thus says the Lord…” prophecies are not allowed. The
KJV says, “despise not prophecy”.
The Greek word used here is “exoutheneo” which means “to make
of no account”, or “to regard as nothing”.
Churches who don’t allow prophecy regard it as nothing.
Also in many charismatic churches you may hear it so often that you
regard it as nothing.
Paul
continues by saying, “test everything”.
Not all that is called prophecy, or Holy Spirit preaching is of
God. He tells us to test
it. See if it lines up with
Scripture and the truth of the gospel.
Then he says to “hold to that which is good”.
The good things we hear, we should cling to and follow after.
The bad things we hear we should expose as being bad. Also,
in verse 22 he says, “avoid every kind of evil”.
The KJV says to “abstain from every appearance of evil”.
This verse has been misunderstood and misused over the years
because of the KJV translation. There
is no hint in the original manuscript where we are to abstain from the
“appearance” of evil. It
simply says to “abstain from evil”.
Some KJV adherents would
tell us that going into a restaurant that served alcohol
is wrong because there is an appearance of evil.
This is not right. We
are told to abstain from evil, not the appearance of evil.
Jesus Himself was criticized for His association with drunkards.
If He were to interpret this verse as staying away from the
appearance of evil, He should not have made friends with drunks.
This Scripture should not have the word “appearance” as part of
the text. In
verse 23 Paul says, “may God .. sanctify
you”. That is to say,
may God set you apart for His own purposes.
Non-Christians should view us as being set apart for Jesus, not by
the way we dress, and not necessarily by the things we do or don't do, but
by a holy lifestyle. Paul
goes on to say in closing, “may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept
blameless…” at the coming of our Lord.
He also says that God can do this for you.
It is this verse that those who believe that we are made up of
three parts, that is spirit, soul and body use as a proof text for their
thinking. They may quite well
be right but the subject is not that simple that you can use one verse to
prove your point. When God
made man in the first place, He
made him as a “living soul” (or being Gen. 2:7)
Is the totality of man a living soul, or being, or is part of man a
soul? I am personally not
convinced of either as yet. And
what is the real difference between spirit and soul?
Do the two overlap, or are they distinctly different? Many
people believe in spirit, soul, and body, but they really don't know why
they believe as they do. The
Genesis 1 and 2 account is important to this subject and must be
considered when dealing with spirit, soul and body. Paul
closes his letter in verses 25 through 28.
He tells his reader to pray for him and his fellow workers,
something Paul most likely feels he needs a lot of .
Along with this request he says to greet the brothers with “a
holy kiss”. Then he
“charges” them “before the Lord” to read this letter to all of the
brothers. This letter was not
meant for a select few, but for everyone. Paul
closes by saying, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you”.
It all boils down to the grace that our Lord Jesus has for us.
It is His grace that has saved us and His grace that keeps us
saved. It is His grace that
keeps this world together. It
will be His grace that we as believers will see when He returns to the
world to bring judgement. Paul
will have more to say about this in his next letter
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