WWUTT 491 In the Midst of Much Conflict?

The Apostle Paul’s Humble Ministry in Thessalonica

In an age when philosophers would come with their big speeches to big cities to try to get fame and fortune, the Apostle Paul came with humility, not seeking anyone's money, but to make much of God when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul’s Affection for the Thessalonians and His Refusal to Exploit Them

Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of 1 Thessalonians, today getting into chapter 2, and I will read through verse 8. The Apostle Paul writes,. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed God is witness.

Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. We continue this very affectionate language that the Apostle Paul uses with the Thessalonians, to whom he is writing.

And coming back to verse 1,. For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. So, Paul pointing out to them again that they did not arrive in Thessalonica to try to make a name for themselves.

And as we talked about in our introduction to the Thessalonians last week, this was an epic center of much trade and philosophy. The city of Thessalonica was over 100 ,000 people. It was a port town, so you had many ships coming in and out of there.

A lot of philosophers would have come in, and philosophers didn't speak for free. They came into the public square and shared their philosophy and did their teaching. Some of them even opening up schools, whether that would be a school in the open, in the square, or maybe they had somebody's house or a building of some kind, and people would gather there.

And they would be there for a season, or for a year, or months, I mean, however long it might be. And they would have students come to them, learning the philosophies of those philosophers, and they would pay for it.

But the Apostle Paul is saying that we did not come to you in vain. Reminding them that this was not our ambition to make a name for ourselves like the philosophers do. We didn't set up a school. We didn't even take anyone's money, though we could have made demands of you as apostles.

We could have said, because we are travelers in the name of Christ, without house and home, it is your duty and your obligation to take care of us while we're here. They could have made those demands.

It would have been within their right to say such a thing. But rather, the Apostle Paul and the brothers who were with him made their own living. They did not take any bread from the Thessalonians, nothing from them, without paying for it themselves, so that they could set an example for the Thessalonians on how to live.

And this is going to come up later on, not only in this letter, but also the next one. Because we learn that there were some among a lazy sort there in Thessalonica who were mooching off of the charity of the rich, rather than doing their own work and making their own wages.

But Paul and his brothers decided to make their living while they were there, so that they could set an example for everybody else, and also show to them proof that we're not here to take your money. We're not here to open up a school or become the next big philosopher, like some of these other guys that are coming into Thessalonica, sharing the things that they believe and teach.

We did not come to you in vain. We didn't come to you to serve ourselves. In fact, the Thessalonians would have recognized, as Paul is talking about this, that they served the Thessalonians while they were there.

Suffering and Boldness in the Midst of Persecution

Verse 2,. But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. Remember last week I mentioned that prior to this letter, the Thessalonians may have thought that because of the Apostles' negative experience that they had there in Thessalonica, perhaps Paul just forgot about us.

Maybe he won't ever come back again because of the Jews that were trying to kill him. And yet, to receive this letter from Paul and be so praising and so grateful and thankful for the Thessalonians, having heard the gospel in the short amount of time that he was there, and continued to believe it and persevere in it, though they themselves were being persecuted, yet they were holding steadfast to this message of the gospel all the more.

And so Paul is thankful for them, and that would have been so relieving and touching for the Thessalonians to hear that of Paul, that he thought so fondly of them, even though he had such a negative experience while he was there in Thessalonica.

And so he kind of comes back to that concept again here in verse 2,. Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi. So it's almost like Paul is saying, why would we forget about you?

I mean, it's like everywhere we go, this is how we get treated. We're not just welcome in hugs and love with a ticker tape parade. Of course, they wouldn't have ticker tape there. Nobody does a ticker tape parade anymore.

Where did I even get that from? Now I have to explain this term that I've just used. In case you're unaware, here's some random trivia for you today. So whenever a parade would be done in an urban area, like along office buildings on a main street, those who were up in the office buildings watching the parade go by, they would have shredded ticker tape, and they would dump it out the windows like confetti.

In fact, I think this is where the whole concept of confetti came from. Ticker tape used to be the long strips of paper that would be used to receive messages from a teletype or over telegraph lines. Anyway, so we don't even do that anymore.

Nobody even uses paper anymore. It's all digital. So there's no paper to shred and dump out office building windows. But you get the point. The Apostle Paul is saying here that we're not welcomed whenever we come to these cities with the gospel.

In fact, the only commotion that we ever seem to incite are the mobs and the riots that are trying to push us out of the city rather than throwing these parades to welcome us with the gospel. These are the kinds of things you're going to face for the gospel of Christ.

As the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, those who desire to live a life of godliness in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So Paul is showing this to the Thessalonians as evidence of the genuineness of their affections for them.

We were willing to be persecuted for you. So you can know that what it is that we had to share was not for ourselves. It was not to make money or make a name for ourselves. It was in service to you. It's because we care about you and we love you that we go through these things for the gospel of Christ to come to this people here in Thessalonica who received it and loved it and are continuing to hold steadfast in it.

So Paul reminding them all the more the example that he set before them to suffer on their behalf for the glory of God. Verse 2, once again, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi.

So do you understand this reference to Philippi? This would have been right before the Apostle Paul came to the Thessalonians. We read about it in Acts chapter 16. Very famous story of Paul and Silas being arrested, thrown in prison, and they continued to sing hymns all night, even though they had been beaten and put in the stocks.

And while they were there in prison singing hymns to God and all the other prisoners listening to this, there was an earthquake and all the jail doors flew open. Paul and Silas are free. They're released from their stocks.

Their jail door is open. And then they can just walk right out. And when the jailer came in and saw that this had happened, he drew his sword to kill himself because it would have been a horrible, shameful thing for a Roman soldier for any prisoner to have escaped on his watch, even during something as uncontrollable as an earthquake.

Yet Paul and his companion and the other prisoners called out to the guard and said, Do not harm yourself. We are all here. And the guard came in to Paul and Silas and fell before them and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. A very popular passage in Acts chapter 16, verse 31. So the jailer dressed the wounds of Paul and Silas, took them to his home, and they had a banquet for him.

And he shared the gospel, and his household was baptized and became believers. And so then the magistrates were truly embarrassed by what happened to Paul and Silas because Paul turned out to be a Roman citizen.

And this is not the way that Roman citizens are supposed to be treated, the way that he was treated in Philippi. There was a mob, a riot that was incited, of course, because that's what happened whenever Paul went anywhere sharing the gospel of Christ.

And because of this uproar, he was beaten and thrown in prison for it. But he deserved a trial. Because he was a Roman citizen, he should have gone to trial instead of being treated so unjustly. So he made an embarrassment of the magistrates so that everybody in Philippi heard about it, they knew about it.

They knew that these men who had been in Philippi preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and people knew about it. I mean, you read about that in the story when they first arrived in Philippi, as they're going around sharing the gospel, that they even had this person who was possessed by an evil spirit following them, making fun of the fact that they were preaching the gospel, warning people not to listen to what it is that they had to say.

So clearly drawing a lot of attention to themselves. And once it had gone around Philippi that these two men were treated so unjustly like this, and yet they were not preaching the gospel for selfish gain, and continued to preach the gospel even after they were beaten for it, how much more the testimony of Christ would have gone throughout Philippi having heard this story of Paul and Silas.

And so Paul is sharing this with the Thessalonians as well. Before we came to you, so Philippi is in Acts chapter 16, and then they go to Thessalonica in Acts chapter 17. So right before we came to you, we were unjustly treated at Philippi.

Then they come to Thessalonica and it's the same story. But we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. In Philippi and Thessalonica, wherever we go, we are being persecuted for our faith.

And yet we come to you out of love for you. And because first and foremost, we are doing this in service to our God, which is the point that Paul makes as we go on here. Verse three, for our appeal does not spring from error or from impurity or any attempt to deceive.

Testing Paul’s Message Against Scripture

So Paul is not just feeding lines to people to try to get them to listen to what it is that he has to say. This isn't by cunning or human craftiness or deceitful schemes. There is no error in the message that he has to share.

And the Thessalonians especially understood that because there were two groups of people in particular that whenever Paul went and shared the gospel, they were the ones who were known for testing everything.

And that's the Thessalonians and the Bereans. And Paul gets back to this again in 1 Thessalonians 5 where he tells them, encourages them, according to the reputation that they have, to test everything according to the word of God.

So as Paul came to Thessalonica preaching the gospel, there were men there in the synagogue, which was where he went first. And then to the Gentiles, there were men there testing the words that Paul said, testing them against the scriptures, the historical records, the things that had been written down by the prophets, maybe even confirming with whatever eyewitnesses they would have been able to get a hold of that truly this Jesus Christ rose again from the grave and was witnessed by over 500 people and then ascended into heaven where there was like 100 people on the mountain that saw that happen, and then went into Jerusalem.

The apostles went into Jerusalem, sharing the gospel, speaking in tongues. Many great miracles were performed. All of these things that were proclaimed, that were testified about concerning the authenticity of the gospel.

The Thessalonians had such hearts and were so diligent to test Paul according to those claims. So when the Bible tells us to test everything, we test even the words of scripture against the things that are being proclaimed to us.

And you know what? I guarantee you that when you test the Bible according to its own claims, it will come out to be true and rock solid every single time. There is nothing that you can do to assert the word of God or reveal it to be an error.

Although there are some translations out there that as you put them to the test, you'll find out those translations really are not all that great. They are not that solid. Of course, the easiest example to pull out and make a target of is the message.

When you test the message against the sound words of the faith, you see that that Bible, which it should not even be called that, does not stand up to the test. It is not the genuine words of God. They are the words of Eugene Peterson who translated it.

Let me just give you an example of this. I'll use one of my favorite passages out of Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. Here's what it is in the English Standard Version, which is the translation that I read to you daily on this podcast.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

That's the English Standard Version. Here it is in the message. Saving is all his idea and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish. We don't play the major role.

If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing. No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does.

The good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. You notice how much is added there, like the caveats that are thrown in in Peterson's translation as opposed to what we read in Ephesians 2, which is the ESV and the NASB are as close as we're going to get to the actual Greek in an English translation.

These are the two best translations of the Bible. And so look at what Peterson has added in his translation of the Bible called the message. So we read in Ephesians 2, 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.

Here it is in the message. Saving is all his idea and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish. We don't play the major role. That's a lot of assumption that has been added to the message that is not present in the actual scripture and what it is the apostle truly meant to communicate.

Not only do we not play the major role, we don't play any role. And we don't trust him enough to let him do it. We don't let God do anything. God does what he pleases, as it says in the Psalms. So very simply, just using three verses here, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10, the message just does not hold up to the test.

It doesn't work. So when you even test translations of the Bible, they should be able to hold up to the test that is imposed upon them. So the Thessalonians themselves, this is as though they were testing a translation of the Bible.

When the apostle Paul came to them, with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they tested his claims and what he said about Christ, against the scriptures, the Old Testament, which had been written about Jesus.

They found out, according to these scriptures, that Paul's message stood the test. And what this man came and preached was not somebody coming seeking vanity, or seeking profit, or trying to build a school.

This was a guy who loved people, and served God, and wanted the gospel of Christ to be proclaimed throughout the world. When the apostle Paul, the apostle, an apostle was being tested, and he was totally fine with that, because he knew that he would come out on the right end of that testing, and encourage the Thessalonians to test all the more.

So we likewise need to test all things by the word of God, to know what is genuine, what is of God, and what is not, what is of the world. So we also need to be prepared to understand that those who desire to live a life of godliness in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

This is not going to be a comfortable faith. But when we actually step out and desire to share that gospel with somebody else, people will ridicule us for it. Most immediately it will probably be your family, people whom you know, whom you are close to.

I just had a man share with me yesterday after church that he was telling me about how he came to know the Lord. He did not grow up in a Christian home, actually grew up to abuse drugs and alcohol, but then he got cleaned up and found the Lord.

Or the way that he shared it with me is, I wasn't even looking, Jesus found me. And I repented of my sin, and I worshiped the Lord Christ, and when I came back to my family to tell them about it, they thought I was back on drugs again.

So, kind of an example of how your family might react to this gospel that you believe. I have siblings that call me names because I desire to live a life of godliness. But even among strangers, they will hate you as well because you tell them that they are sinners headed for hell unless they repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

The natural man, the fleshly person is not going to be receptive to that idea, but if the spirit of God has so changed the heart, they will be convicted and listen to the gospel and turn from sin and believe.

God has included us in this work of sharing his gospel and bringing the elect to himself. So let us be faithful to do the work of God as we live and breathe on this earth. Let us pray. Our Lord God, as we continue to study here in this book of Thessalonians that the apostle Paul wrote to this church whom he loved so dearly, I pray that we likewise would have an affection for our fellow saints to see them mature in an understanding of the word, but we also have a desire and a boldness in service to God to want to take the gospel to everyone.

Everyone who needs to hear it, and that's every person who is living and breathing. Knowing that there are going to be those who are going to persecute us, but our treasure and our benefit is not what we will experience in this world, it is in the kingdom to come.

So help us to fix our eyes heavenward on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. And so likewise, we would be willing to endure persecution for the cause of Christ.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.