Thursday, May 19, 2016

I Thessalonians 1:1 – “Blessings”


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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