WWUTT 486 Intro to 1 Thessalonians?

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky. And to everyone, greetings in the name of our Lord Christ. Welcome to a new week and a new study as today I'm gonna begin in the book of 1 Thessalonians. I know some were a little disappointed when after finishing Jude, I didn't jump right into the book of Revelation, but I would rather teach through a book first in my church before I bring it to this broadcast.

I've only been a pastor for about seven years. I haven't yet taught through Revelation, although that's about to change. Our high school group that meets on Wednesday night, I lead that group along with another elder and we're gonna be going through Revelation from August to May.

So all through the school year, that's what we're gonna be teaching to our high school class. After that, I still may not do Revelation on this broadcast. I may still wanna wait until after I've preached through it from the pulpit.

There's a certain mindset behind that. I want my labor over the scriptures to first be for the flock that I have been given to shepherd before it's to the listeners of this program. And not that I'm not grateful for you.

I appreciate every listener that I have. I look at the statistics and I see how consistent the listenership is, meaning that my listeners are pretty regular. If you listen in on Monday, you're also listening Tuesday through Friday.

It's not just a one-shot deal, but the graph looks pretty even across the board. And we've had emails from listeners. We've had listeners contribute to our church financially, also sending books to us to help us grow our library.

You have touched us immensely with your support of this ministry. When we understand the text, whether it's the videos or the podcast, but this is an extension of the work that I do in my church. My family is first, my church congregation comes next, and then this is another extension of that ministry.

And I speak on behalf of my church when I say to you, thank you for your support of what it is that we do. And a gentle reminder to you that I am not your pastor. Your pastor is the one who personally knows you and is caring for your spiritual needs.

Just like this is an extension of the ministry that I do in my church, this is an extension of the spiritual feeding that you receive from your church. You are regularly in fellowship with the saints, breaking bread together, hearing the word of God proclaimed together, singing songs together, everything that the church is supposed to do together, fellowshipping, encouraging, and admonishing one another.

But then you have your spiritual feeding that you receive during the week. And that's what this program provides for you. But this is not your shepherding care. That must come from the church that you personally fellowship with.

And I'm sure you know that. We talk about it all the time here on this program that this is not church for you. I think Becky even just mentioned it when the last Q &A that we did. So this is not your church, but it is a part of your sanctification.

And I am surely grateful that you have decided to include this Bible teaching as part of that. So everything that I've taught on this broadcast has been done in my church before I've done it here. And I remember going through 1 and 2 Thessalonians and enjoyed the series quite a bit.

So I'm looking forward to doing this again. Though we will not be talking about eschatology from the perspective of John in the book of Revelation, we will be talking about eschatology according to what we read in 1 Thessalonians.

The return of Christ is mentioned in every chapter in this book. So let's go ahead and read here. You'll hear that as we go through the first chapter, I'll read all 10 verses, and then we'll go back through and talk about the time in which this letter was written, the occasion for writing it, the planting of the church in Thessalonica and all that good stuff.

Paul Introduces the Letter and Greets the Thessalonians

So Paul introduces himself at the very beginning. Here's 1 Thessalonians 1, starting in verse one. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father, your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

This is a very pastoral letter and you probably picked that up with some of the language that Paul uses here in his introduction, very gentle, very encouraging. And there's a reason for that, that Thessalonians were not very mature.

Paul didn't have the chance to be with them for very long before he was cut off abruptly and forced to have to move on. He and Silas were with them for only a few weeks. He taught in the synagogue for three Sabbaths, that's what's told to us in Acts chapter 17, but then he probably spent a few more weeks teaching to the Gentiles before a mob was formed by the Jews who were very angry with what Paul was teaching, that Jesus is the Christ.

And so they meant to do him much harm and Paul and Silas had to be snuck out in the middle of the night. So having only been in Thessalonica for a few weeks, they did not receive much teaching from the apostle.

So after he left, he sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on them and he has come back with a report as to what he observed there. He also went to teach them some of the things that Paul didn't have the chance to teach them.

And so Paul celebrates the report that has come back to him from Timothy, which is why he begins by saying, we give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and father, your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So Paul really celebrating to hear that, even though he was with them for only a short time, yet they were enduring in the things that they had been taught. But because they were immature and had not really received like the full tenure of Paul's teaching, there were some things that he meant to encourage them in with this letter.

And that's concerning the return of Christ, didn't get to talk about that much while he was with them, also to encourage them further in their steadfastness. He praises them for it here, but he encourages them to persevere all the more because the Thessalonians were being persecuted and they were kind of surprised at how long that persecution was going on.

They thought, hey, Christ is returning soon and we haven't seen him yet. So how long is this persecution going to continue? Also, some of their brothers and sisters in the Lord had died. And because they had not yet received a complete teaching on the day of the Lord, they still had a little bit of a Greco Roman understanding of death.

And that's just simply the body dies, goes into the ground. There is no afterlife, which is why when Paul preached at the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17, when he talked about Christ being raised from the dead, they mocked him for it.

Because they're like, resurrection of the dead, that's silly, that's ridiculous. You have to have the spirit of God to believe in such a thing. Even the Greeks who were a very religious people and believed in the gods did not believe that when a person died, they went and joined the gods.

The gods were to bless them in the life that I am experiencing right now, but it wasn't something that they could attain to or a rabble of holy ones that they could join. It was just to make life beneficial for me as long as I'm here on this earth.

But once the body died and went into the ground, that was it. Just as a person didn't have a consciousness before they were born, so they did not continue in a consciousness after they died. And so likewise, the Thessalonians still kind of had that Greco-Roman understanding of death.

When they saw some of their brothers and sisters in the faith dying and the day of the Lord had not yet come, they're going, oh no, they've died and they're not gonna be with us on that day. So Paul meant to encourage them in their understanding of the return of Christ and saying to them, we're all going to be together on that day.

Those who are dead, they're gonna rise first and then we who are left, we'll meet them in the air and then we will always be with the Lord. And this is where we get our rapture talk from. This letter is where we get the concept of rapture.

It's in 1 Thessalonians 4, 17, where Paul talks about being caught up with the Lord in the air. The Greek word for that is rapio, or I'm sorry, that's the Latin word. The Latin word is rapio, the Greek word is harpazo.

And from that, we get the word rapture. That's where that comes from. So even though you don't see that in English in the Bible, if you look for rapture in your concordance, you won't find it, but it's in the Latin and the Greek rendition of 1 Thessalonians 4, 17, that's where we get that word from.

So there's a lot of talk about the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians, very famous, of course, out of chapter four and chapter five. Paul talks about it some more in 2 Thessalonians, because even in this letter, there were some things that the Thessalonians still found a little bit confusing.

So Paul found it necessary to expound on that all the more when he gets to 2 Thessalonians. So again, he spent a very short time with the Thessalonians when he planted that church. And we read about the planting of the church at Thessalonica at the beginning of Acts.

And so he's kind of continuing the teaching where he left off here and even says to them that he means to come to them again. So in a very pastoral manner, caring for their spiritual needs, the spiritual shepherding of their souls, he provides some very endearing language here at the start of the letter.

And it's one of the kindest greetings that we have from Paul. Of course, his letter to the Ephesians is very affectionate because he knew them personally, and it was the church that he probably spent the most time with.

But caring for those who are less mature, he is loving with his speech here, even using names that they recognize that are with him in this letter that he is writing. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. Timothy has been with them, has come back, and has reported to Paul.

And the way that he opens this letter very warmly also assures them that the report that Timothy brought back was good. He said good things about us, because Paul's not writing here to rebuke us, although we will see some elements of rebuke in this letter and also the next one.

Some of the Thessalonians had gotten very lazy. They weren't doing the work that they were supposed to do. And so Paul sets himself forward as an example. When we were with you, we worked, we labored to earn our own keep and did not expect any of you to provide for us.

So you need to follow our example and not live off of the wealth of others or the charity of others, but you need to do your work with your own hands. That comes out a little more clearly in 2 Thessalonians, the second letter, than it does in this one.

Paul is in Corinth at the time. I can't remember if I mentioned that or not, but anyway, that's where he is at the time that he is writing this letter. It's in somewhere between 49 and 51 AD. Some would put this letter as the oldest of the letters of Paul that we have.

So it would have been the first of Paul's letters, at least as far as what we've got chronicled in canon. Others would say that Galatians came first and it was a few years before 1 Thessalonians. So it just kind of depends on where you date the writing of the book of Galatians.

But 1 Thessalonians is nonetheless one of Paul's first letters that we have here in the New Testament. So introducing himself and mentioning Silvanus, who is Silas, just another name for Silas, who the Thessalonians knew, because it was Paul and Silas that were together that planted that church and their sharing of the gospel in Thessalonica.

This is a very large city, by the way. I didn't mention that about the town. It's over 100 ,000 people, which is large for that region there in Macedonia. There was a lot of religion. Of course, there was Greco-Roman influenced religion, a lot of philosophy.

This was a very center of philosophy since it was a coastal town and generally those coastal cities where you had ships coming in and out, you had ports, those kinds of things, trade. There was a lot of philosophy as well.

And in addition to the Greco-Roman religion, there were also Egypt, Egyptian religions that were influential there and a large gathering of Jews, a significant synagogue, which was where Paul went and first preached, did that again for three Sabbaths.

They didn't receive his message. He went to the Gentiles. The Jews assembled all the more and said, hey, we got to get Paul out of here. He's trying to tell people that this Jesus is the Christ. And so in fear of their lives, Paul and Silas got out under the cover of night, but the church would have been behind them on that, trying to get them out of town to be able to protect Paul and Silas.

And so it's Paul and Silas's names who are mentioned first. Timothy also mentioned in there who came to the Thessalonians and Timothy was Paul's most trusted protege. And so if somebody had Timothy come to them, well, that was a sure sign of love and affection from the apostle Paul that he would send his most trusted servant to them when he himself was not able to come to them.

The Thessalonians Test the Teaching and Receive the Gospel

So to the church of the Thessalonians in God, the father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. Another thing that this particular church was famous for was testing all things according to the scriptures.

There was one church that was, only one other church that was more famous for their testing than the Thessalonians, and that was the Bereans. We read about both in Acts chapter 17. The Thessalonians tested all the things that Paul preached to them according to the scriptures.

And then the Bereans were even more so testing the things that Paul proclaimed. And so Paul is even gonna commend them for that and encourage them in that further as we will read that in this letter. So he is very grateful for this group and the example that they set before the whole world.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers. And I imagine because Paul had to leave them so abruptly, that encouraged him to be all the more fervent in prayer for the Thessalonians.

God let this work that I started when I was there in Thessalonica, take hold that it would ignite like wildfire and there would be more Jews and Gentiles who would come to the faith because of this work that was started there.

And so sending Timothy back to Thessalonica to give a report and then coming with such great news of the faithfulness that was going on there. This was a cause for much rejoicing for Paul that his prayers had been answered, that the Lord would keep them.

Remembering before our God and Father, your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. There you have an interesting set of virtues that are mentioned and we've seen this come up in several of Paul's letters, faith, hope, and love.

Your work of faith, your labor of love and steadfastness of hope. Those are three essential virtues that all Christians must have. Probably the most famous part of scripture where we have Paul mentioned that is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where he says, these three things remain faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.

So here he mentions those three Christian virtues to the Thessalonians as well. For we know brothers who are loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. And so this is another way in shepherding this particular church. He means to encourage them in the faith that they have and give them assurance of their salvation.

Not saying, hey, you guys are asking a lot of questions. Sounds like there's some doubt in your hearts. We have reason to believe that maybe you're not actually saved. That's not the way Paul approaches this.

He approaches this by saying, we know brothers loved by God. You are our brothers because you are loved by God because you believe in this gospel. We know that he has chosen you. You almost kind of wonder if maybe one of the questions that had come from the Thessalonians was, how do I know if I'm elect?

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that he has saved you from your sins, that he is resurrected from the grave and you likewise are seated with him at the right hand of the throne of God. And when Christ who is your life appears, so you will appear with him in glory.

Do you believe that? Then you are elect. And that's how Paul is answering the question for them. We know brothers loved by God. He has chosen you because, here's the reason, our gospel came to you, not only in word, not just because we came and talked about it, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

You believe it and you follow it and you are growing in it. And so that's how we know that you are our brothers loved by God. And so that's where we're gonna leave off for now and continue next time as we embark on a study of the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Let us conclude with prayer. Our great God, I pray that it would be a conviction in our hearts to continue this labor of love and steadfastness in hope as we grow in our anointing in the Holy Spirit. Having been cleansed of our idolatry, as Paul says to the Thessalonians, you who formerly worship idols now worship the living and true God.

So that is the case in all of our hearts. We once worshiped idols and we followed our own sinful passions in our flesh, but in Christ, we have been transformed. The spirit has cleansed us, cleansed out the temple that was in our hearts where we had raised up false idols and is instead building us up into a house unto the Lord.

And so God, we ask that that work would continue to be done in us and that we would be encouraged in that work as we read about what Paul said to the Thessalonians. And furthermore, that we would continue to have hope for the day of the Lord, not being too comfortable with this world, but longing to be delivered from it into your eternal kingdom, which we know is going to come because you have said it will.

And you who has been faithful to keep your promises in the past will keep your promises for the future. So keep us steadfast in Christ and deliver us into your kingdom on that great day. In his name we pray, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.