Read with Me
1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 (HCSB)
This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the message about God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the message of God, which also works effectively in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, since you have also suffered the same things from people of your own country, just as they did from the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us; they displease God and are hostile to everyone, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. As a result, they are always completing the number of their sins, and wrath has overtaken them at last.
Listen with Me
Paulsaw two things in the Thessalonian believers that confirmed to him that they had truly come into God’s kingdom. The first is that when they heard the gospel, they didn’t hold back, but instantly responded to what they heard. That indicated to Paul that God had already been at work in their hearts, preparing the soil to receive the seeds of the good news.
The second indicator, oddly to some, was that these new believers had almost immediately begun to experience persecution from the Jews in their city. In this sense, they had become like the Churches in Judea which were still experiencing persecution even as Paul was writing.
For Paul, that kind of persecution, and the Thessalonian Christians’ refusal to buckle under it, was one of the marks of a true believer. Even before the coming of Jesus, many of God’s prophets had been persecuted, even killed, simply because of their faithful adherence to God’s mission. And in a very real sense, Paul saw the Christians as the legitimate heirs of those prophets, both in the mission that they had been given to bring God’s soul-saving word to His people, and in the suffering that they had to endure because of their faithful obedience.
At the same time, Paul clearly saw that the sin of persecuting God’s people was heaping against those who were fighting against the Church to the point that God would have to take concrete action against them soon. That would ultimately happen in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the cessation of sacrifices, and the scattering of the small remnant of the Jewish people that God would leave behind.
Keep in mind, though, that Paul wasn’t hopeless about the Jewish people who were currently persecuting the Church. Not that many years ago, he himself had been one of them. Thus, he continued to speak boldly to them in the hope that they would experience their own epiphany, turn to God, and be saved.
Pray with Me
Father, this reinforces the truth that the Christian life properly lived was never promised to be a life of ease and freedom from difficulty. Any time we stand against the powers of darkness, we can expect pushback from them. Any time we tell people that they are wrong or lost, no matter how lovingly we do it, we can expect hostility. But Jesus’ instructions to His people was never to lay low and just be nice. He commissioned us to continue His work of lighting the darkness, confronting the forces of evil, and taking back territory, and yes, even helping people, even those in power, even those deemed religious, to see themselves as you see them, wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). But at the same time, He promised to be with us as we do that work, empowering and enabling us, all the way to the end of the world. Lord, help me to faithfully work in this mission just as those early believers did, in Your power and strength. Amen.