As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
1Paul
and Silas and Timothy to the church of [the] Thessalonians in God [the] Father
and [the] Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.
This should be an interesting study. I actually studied
through this book about 25 years ago. At the time I thoroughly enjoyed it and
felt like I learned a lot. What usually happens when I come back to something I studied years
ago is I feel like I just skimmed it the first time. Everything is so much more
meaningful now. It doesn’t mean anything different than it did before, just so
much deeper. So it should be fun!
The main reason I’m going back to it is that some time in
the last few years Joan gave me a copy of John Eadie’s commentary on I & II
Thessalonians. He is my favorite commentator and exegete and this work is the
only one of his books I’ve never been through. So it will really be fun to
follow along with my old friend once again.
This first verse is, as usual, chalk full of profound truth,
even though it is, in a purely human sense, “just a greeting.” As usual, the
Bible reminds us there are and always have been people who do things “differently”
than us. We start our letters with whom they’re written to and sign them at the
end. In the ancient world, they first said who they were, then identified the
intended recipient. Perhaps this came from writing on scrolls? If they had put
their name at the end, their recipient would have had to unroll the whole
scroll just to see who was writing to them! Perhaps that is the case, but,
regardless, they did things “differently.” It is very provincial and, I would
suggest, unchristian to think everyone else should be like us, do it our way,
and that if they don’t, they’re wrong. The Lord gave us a world with only a
very few non-negotiables and beyond that, He intended it to be a world of
almost infinite variety.
I also notice some encouraging thoughts. Note that it is “Paul
and Silas and Timothy” who address the Thessalonians. Of course only Paul is
writing the letter, but he has Silas and Timothy with him, they were very
familiar to the Thessalonians, and they wholeheartedly support Paul’s ministry
to the church there. My thought is that the Lord could have sent Paul alone,
but one thing our Lord is never is stingy. He always gives a full measure,
pressed down and running over. He sends not one but three men to care about the
Thessalonians. So it is with all of us, if we have the eyes to see it. He has
blessed our lives with countless hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have
benefited us in a million different ways. “More are they that are for us, than
they that are against us.” It is a good thing from time to time to stop and
just remember all the people who have done us good, from parents to teachers to
pastors and leaders to bosses and co-workers and friends. The night sky of our
lives is lit with the stars of those who’ve done us good. Paul and Silas and
Timothy were those people in the Thessalonians’ lives. God help each of us to
be one of those stars in someone else’s life today.
Notice too it is “to the church of the Thessalonians in God the
Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Thessalonica was a large and very
important city in Paul’s day. Yet he didn’t write to the whole city. He wrote
to the church that was there. It is easy to forget how singularly we are
blessed to be found “in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Of
course, God loves everyone, even the “120,000 who don’t know their right hand
from their left, and much cattle,” but, if I am born again, I have a very special
place of blessing in the eyes of God. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly
places in Christ …” Paul isn’t writing to just anyone and everyone in Thessalonica.
He’s writing to the church. He’s writing to what is probably a very small
segment of the total population. He’s writing to this small gathering of people
who know what it is to be saved, to know God, to be indwelt by His Spirit, to
have hope, to be forgiven, to be loved and to be able to love. May we never
forget how blessed we are. I don’t know why the Lord chose to save me. I
certainly don’t deserve it. But here I am today in my 59th year and,
although I’ve made a lot of very bad decisions and failed Him almost
constantly, yet He has been my Savior and my Rock and my Redeemer. He has
carried me all these years and I live in the hope of who He is and always will
be. Let us never forget our blessing and may it move us all to pray for that blessing
on everyone He puts around us.
Finally, notice what the Lord wishes for us: grace and
peace. Paul is an apostle. He is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
He’s writing the Word of God. He’s writing God’s words. He’s writing the very
words that God Himself would speak to the Thessalonians. And he’s writing the
very words God Himself would say to us. And what does He say? What does the Creator
of the Universe wish for us? What does the Judge of all the earth, He who holds
the keys of death and hell, the One who sits on High, wish for us? Grace and peace.
The vast majority of the human race (and that of professing
Christians too, I’m afraid) sees God as austere, demanding, dissatisfied,
irritated, distant. He says in one place, “You thought I was such a one as you
are.” Well, He’s not. That isn’t who God is at all. God is love. His thoughts
toward us are not judgment and hell. He Himself describes hell as a place “prepared
for the devil and his angels.” Not people.
He is the father who runs to the returning prodigal. He is the One who says, “I
know the plans I have for you, plans to do you good and not to harm you, plans
to give you a future and a hope.” He is the One who bore a Cross and said, “Whosoever
will may come.”
Can He be angry? Of course. Can He mete out horrible
judgments? Of course. But even that is done in love. He is a good Father, a
good Coach, a good King. And in a fallen world of evil, He’d better be able to
swing a sword against evil and even to subject His children to hardship to
whatever extent is necessary to help them rise above their self-destructive
sins. In Deut 12:28 He said to the Israelites, “Be careful to obey all these
regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your
children after you …” “So it may go well with you …” Even in the OT, even under
the Law, what the Lord wanted for His people was that “it go well with them.”
He hasn’t changed. His name is Jesus. He is a redeeming God.
Jesus came into the world, “Not to condemn the world, but that the world should
be saved through Him” (Jn 3:17). Grace and peace. Unmerited kindness and the
peace that flows from it. That is what our God, the true God, the only God,
wants for you and me. If we don’t enjoy grace and peace, it will be because we
refused it, not because the God of the Universe was somehow unwilling to give
it. It’s what He wishes for us.
And that is what godly people are like too. The closer we
get to God, the more we see the world through His eyes, the more we’ll wish for
others grace and peace. The Pharisees’ “religion” of rules and “standards” made
them into proud, cruel, judgmental, hateful people – people who would crucify
Love itself. But, for all their “religion,” they did not know God. It’s only in
looking into His face that we are “changed into that image, from glory to
glory.” It was Mary who sat and the feet of Jesus while her sister was “encumbered
with much serving.” And it was Mary of whom He said, “Mary has chosen the better
part and it will not be taken from her.” To know Him, to see His face, to know
His grace and peace, transforms us into people of grace and peace.
Oh, may we ourselves embrace the grace of the gracious One and enjoy
the peace He gives, His peace, and may somehow the world around us see the One
who would give them grace and peace as well.
Lots of blessings in one little verse. On to the treasure
trove!
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