Read with Me
1 Thessalonians 5:25-28 (HCSB)
Brothers, pray for us also. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Listen with Me
Paul finishes his first letter to the Thessalonian Christians with three exhortations and a blessing.
The first exhortation is a request for prayer for Paul and his companions in the work of the kingdom. Paul understood that prayer was vital for two reasons. First was that it brought God’s power to bear on the challenges faced by the team as they took the word into unreached and frequently hostile places. But the second reason is just as important. When we pray for specific people, it forms a unique bond between us. In a very real sense, it brings us into a partnership with each other as we essentially climb into their yoke with them and assist them in their work.
The second exhortation was to greet all the brothers with a holy kiss from Paul. Paul was forced to leave Thessalonica suddenly, so he felt a loss of the leave-taking that was customary among the brothers and sisters in those days. Paul wanted to make sure that all the brothers and sisters understood that his heart was with them all the way.
The final exhortation was to make sure that his letter was read before the whole congregation. Paul did not put any kind of secret teaching or things “for the leaders only” in his letters. What he shared was always for everyone, for the edification of the whole body of Christ in a city. So, every letter was to be read to every person. This important enough that he bound them to do it before God Himself.
Finally, Paul blesses the Thessalonian believers with the grace of Jesus. Such grace was seen as more than “unmerited favor”. It encompassed the whole range of graces available through faith in Jesus that would enable the believers to stand firm in their relationship with God, and to accomplish everything he had called them to do.
Pray with Me
Father, I wonder how many of us are tempted to kind of “skim over” the closing lines of the letters in our Bibles, less interested in the greetings and final instructions than in the “meat” in the rest of the letter. But these closing lines really do contain some pretty amazing things. Lord, helped me to never quit listening while You are still talking, convinced that I’ve heard enough for now. Help me instead to listen and receive from You, all the way to the end. Amen.