I. Intro (1:1-2)
For those of us who have some familiarity with the New Testament, we recognize:
A. “Paul and Silvanus and Timothy” –Paul and Timothy. And Silvanus is just another name for Silas.
B. “To the church of the Thessalonians” – Paul met the Thessalonians during his second missionary journey with Timothy and Silas.
During his stay, which only lasted a few weeks, people started coming to faith in Christ. When some Jewish leaders found out about this, they tried to stir up a mob.
When these new believers heard about this, they helped Paul escape the city. They went to a nearby city, but when the Jewish people of Thessalonica heard that Paul and his companions began spreading the word of God there, they traveled to that city and stirred up the crowds.
Again, Paul and his companions fled the city. But Paul couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing what was happened with the believers in Thessalonica, so he sent Timothy and Silas back. When they returned and reported to Paul how the Thessalonians were doing, he drafted 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
C. Three things that prompted this letter.
a. The Thessalonian believers faced increased persecution (chapter 1). Paul warned them in advance that they would experience persecution and suffering. And they did. But things went from bad to worse. The Thessalonians were despairing over the persecution they endured. Paul wanted to answer the question on their minds: Why do we have to suffer so much?
b. False teachers were circulating forged letters under Paul’s name (chapter 2). It’s clear the believers in this city had a lot of questions regarding Jesus’ return. Maybe these false teachers took advantage of this and claimed Jesus had returned.
A friend of mine who grew up in a pretty strict Christian home decided to play a prank on his mom. He got his friends to lay out their clothes in the middle of his mom’s kitchen floor. They carefully laid their pants on top of their shoes with belts still in the loops. Their underwear and t-shirt on top of their pants. And then they waited. When his mom came home, she screamed, “Oh Lord Jesus.” She was terrified that the Lord returned, and she was left behind.
The false teachers in Thessalonica were trying to spawn a new religion. A modern example of this would be the Jehovah’s Witness. One of the foundational teachings of this religion is that Jesus has already returned in 1914. Therefore Christ will not return.
c. A growing problem of laziness (chapter 3). Paul lays down some sharp, authoritative teaching on how to deal with this problem.
II. Encouragement (1:3)
A. “enlarged…grows even greater” – Paul chooses his words with care. The terms he used were associated with agriculture.
a. Spiritual growth describes a change of character (Gal. 5:22). When some people hear a term like spiritual growth, they think of a solitary figure meditating in on a snowcapped mountain in India, seeking wisdom.
The Christian idea of spiritual growth is more down to earth. According to the Bible, one way to measure spiritual growth is to look at how you treat people. Do you show humility and love; or arrogance and indifference?
b. Implies that spiritual growth is dynamic. We tend to speak of faith as something you either have or you don’t have.
You will hear people say things like, “I wish I had your faith” just like they would say, “I wish I was as tan like you,” as though it were a genetic trait.
Or you hear people say things like, “I’ve lost my faith” like they lost their keys or phone.
Faith is a relationship of trust in God and as in all relationships it is dynamic, it is something you can develop over time.
a. Implies that we are either growing or losing spiritual ground. I’ve heard who’ve said, “I just need to take a break from God.” The implication is, “Well when I decide to get back into spiritual things, or when I decide that I’m going to take these issues in my life seriously, I’ll just pick up where I left off.”
But Scripture teaches that you’re either moving toward God or away from him. It is one or the other. What you don’t use, you lose.
Now, this may not require physically leaving the church. It’s possible to remain in community and still lose spiritual ground by checking out. We’ve taken our foot off the accelerator pedal. This has caused God to feel more distant, and maybe we notice our values are gradually conforming to the world and its values.
III. Persecution
A. 1:4: Within just a few months of writing 1 Thessalonians, the persecution the believers in this city were enduring, intensified. So Paul tells them. Now, Paul gives us four reasons why Christians endure persecution for their faith in Jesus.
B. 1:5:
a. “This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment” – “This” refers to the persecution they were enduring. This was a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment. How is persecution an indication of God’s righteous judgment?
The New Living Translation puts it this way, “God will use this persecution to show his justice.” (NLT) Paul tells the Thessalonians that when their persecutors stand before God, what they have done will be presented as evidence in favor of God’s just judgment. This is leads us to the first reason why God allows his followers to face persecution.
Reason #1: God allowed them to endure this kind of suffering for future evidence of his justice.
Secondly, he says it’s,
b. “so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering” – Paul does not mean that people are considered worthy because they are persecuted. Instead, they are counted worthy or deemed worthy to suffer for God’s kingdom. This is the second reason.
Reason #2: God uses it to further his kingdom. Everyone suffers to some extent or another. That’s just a part of the human experience. However, to suffer for something that is greater than yourself, to suffer for something that will have eternal impact is worth it.
Josef Tson, a Romanian pastor who was persecuted under communist rule and imprisoned several times for his faith, tells a story of how one interrogator put a gun to his head. Tson recounts: “I told the interrogator, ‘You should know your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying,’”
“‘You know that my sermons are recorded and circulated all over the country. When you shoot me…you only sprinkle my sermons with my blood. Everybody who has the recording of one of my sermons will pick it up and say, ‘I had better listen again. This man died for what he preached.’ My sermons will speak 10 times louder after you kill me.’ God can use the most horrific tragedies even death for good.
This was true back in Paul’s day, and it is still true today.
More people are being persecuted and dying for their faith than at any other time in history. Contrary to our experience, the growth of Christianity is accelerating in the world and mostly in parts of the world that are inhospitable to faith in Jesus.
C. 1:6-7: God cannot overlook wrongdoing. He promises to repay persecutors for what they have done in order:
a. “to give relief to you” – This is our third reason why God allows us to face persecution.
Reason #3: God’s future justice will give believers relief. God’s justice serves as the basis for the Bible’s command not to repay evil for evil.
Paul tells the Roman believers: ‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil…Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord’ (Romans 12:17-19). Part of our motivation to overlook evil and the solace we have that evil will not go on unpunished, is that God is just and will ultimately avenge evil. Now all of this may seem harsh.
Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who saw the violence in the Balkans speaks to this vividly: If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence—that God would not be worthy of worship…The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that [it] is legitimate only when it comes from God…My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many in the West…But it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that non-violence [comes from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. Volf reasons that if we don’t believe in a God of judgment, we will secretly nourish thoughts of violence. The human impulse to make people pay for their crimes is overwhelming. And it cannot be overcome with platitudes like: “Don’t you realize that violence doesn’t solve anything?”
In our culture, “persecution” means someone mocking you for your faith. Keep in mind, these believers were being physically threatened for their faith. Imagine a family member being beaten for their faith and having to resist the urge to retaliate because God told you to “love your enemies.” You might feel bitter and wonder, “Why doesn’t God do something?”
One of the reasons we can love our enemies is that God will repay those who have harmed us and those we love. In the meantime, we have to trust that God will use our suffering to further his kingdom and change our character.
IV. Punishment
A 1:8-9: Paul tells us that those who do not know God—presumably those who are persecuting the Thessalonian believers— will receive God’s retribution. This retribution is twofold. They will suffer by being:
a. “away from the presence of the Lord” – To some, this may not seem that bad. But we can’t even envision a world devoid of God’s goodness and common grace.
Even though people in the world rebel against God, there are still marks of his goodness. After all, we still see love, altruism and human conscience. However, marred these things are they are nevertheless God’s influence on earth.
But the biblical concept of hell is at times depicted as the “outer darkness,” a place completely devoid of God’s presence and influence where we are given over completely to our own appetites and selfishness and emptiness.
Tim Keller describes it this way, “The people in hell are miserable…We see raging like unchecked flames their pride, their paranoia, their self-pity, their certainty that everyone else is wrong…All their humanity is gone, and thus so is their sanity. They are utterly, finally locked in a prison of their own self-centeredness, and their pride progressively expands into a bigger and bigger mushroom cloud.
They continue to go…blaming everyone but themselves.” That’s why it’s a travesty to picture God casting people into hell, who are crying out, “I’m sorry! Let me out!”
Jesus’s parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus supports this view of hell. Lazarus is a poor man who begs at the gate of a cruel rich man. They both die and Lazarus goes to heaven while the rich man goes to hell. There he looks up and sees Lazarus in heaven. The Rich Man then has this interaction with the Old Testament figure Abraham,
“The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’
“But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us.’
“Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’
“But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’
“The rich man replied, ‘But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’
“But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded. Even though their statuses have been reversed, the rich man seems to be blind to what just happened.
He still expects Lazarus to be his servant and treats him as his water boy. He does not ask to get out of hell. He strongly implies that God never gave him and his family enough information about the afterlife. Scholars of the Bible note that this man shows an astonishing amount of denial, blame-shifting and spiritual blindness.
Second this retribution will be:
b. “eternal destruction” – The biblical picture of Hell is not just a passive giving of someone over to his or her own self-centeredness, there is a active aspect to God’s judgment.
The descriptions used for hell in the New Testament include a place of eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. One term that is used for Hell the word “Gehenna,” not to be confused with Gahanna, which is a suburb of Columbus. Though some might consider sprawling suburbs hell.
The word Gehenna refers to the Valley of Hinnom, which was right outside the Old City of Jerusalem. This is where they would burn trash. And the biblical authors used this imagery as a picture of what God’s retributive judgment looks like. It is an eternal torment.
B The concept of “eternal punishment” is difficult for people to accept. Most people don’t have a problem with God being a loving God, but they cannot accept that God will punish people for the things they do.
I have to admit that this concept even makes me feel uncomfortable. The judgment of God is not a pleasant idea. But however I feel about the subject doesn’t change its reality.
Now, I want to lay-out a few points that I found to be helpful when considering this uncomfortable topic of hell. And I will be quoting from some of the best thinkers that have written on this subject.
a. Eliminating Hell eliminates human responsibility. John Wenham says this: What makes a man human is the fact that he is a responsible being…He knows that he ought to do right, and that he deserves punishment if he does not do so. What is most de¬moralizing, even dehumanizing, is to treat him as wholly non-responsible, simply an innocent victim of heredity and en¬vironment. Mental or physical illness may of course reduce powers of moral choice to vanishing point… Think of someone who has severe schizophrenia or damage from a traumatic brain injury. What is important is that whatever element of moral choice still exists should be respected. This is what decisively differentiates man from the beasts. If this is not respected the prisoner or patient is degraded to the status of an animal. If you take away the consequences of our actions, it robs our free choice of its power and therefore diminishes our human dignity.
b. God’s love demands a hell. Most tend to see God’s love and his retribution as mutually exclusive.
Yet, God’s love is not possible without divine justice.
The Bible asserts that “God is love” (1 John 4:16). But love cannot coerce, it can only persuade. Forced loved is not love.
Love requires consent. If heaven is eternity spent with God, then with that’s why Norman Geisler says, “Those who do not choose to love God must be allowed not to love him. Those who do not wish to be with him must be allowed to be separated from him. Hell allows separation from God. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, hell is a monument to human freedom.
2. Anger isn’t the opposite of love; hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference. Think of the anger you feel when you see news reports of children being shot in mass shootings, powerful men exploiting women, or people being beaten because of the color of their skin. When you stop to analyze that anger, its root is love.
No one who regards other races as subhuman cares about racial injustice. No one who believes that women are property cares about sexual abuse. The more we love, the more easily our anger is kindled.
c. God’s sovereignty demands a hell. Again, John Wenham says, “Unless there is a hell there is no final victory over evil…As in society, punishment for evil is necessary that good might prevail. Even so, in eternity good must triumph over evil. If it does not, then God is not in ultimate control.
d. If we are not held responsible for what we do, then who is ultimately responsible? Here is a picture from World War II. It’s of a man in an open field with a rifle drawn ready to shoot a woman holding her child. When you look at a picture like this. What is God supposed to say about this? Is he to look at this and say, “I know that you got caught up in the environment of National Socialism you were born into, after all what were you to do? You are just a product of your environment.” Or will he say, “I know that you were just following orders. You had not choice, but to do what you were told.” Or will he say, “You were deeply insecure because your parents’ didn’t love you enough, so there is no wonder that you turned out the way you did. This isn’t your fault.” You think he is going to say that? I don’t think so. I know what he is going to say, “They are going to pay for that!”
If these people are not responsible, if we are not responsible, then who is ultimately responsible for all the evil in the world? The one who made us! If there is nothing to differentiate the evil in this world from God, then that is not the kind of God I am willing worship. Without a Hell, God cannot be trusted, and he cannot be good. But Paul alludes to an alternative, which is the central message of the Bible.
g. “those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” – This fate, which is expressed by Paul, is only for those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. This word “Gospel” is sort of a churchy word that is used to describe the Good News. What we have been talking about so far is the bad news, our eminent destination apart from God.
But God has provided an alternative. In his love, in his mercy, God paid the ultimate personal price to rescue us from this fate. He sent his son Jesus to come and die and experience the judgment of hell in our place. And he did this so that we don’t have to go there. Jesus came to die and forgive us for all that we have done wrong. And the Bible teaches that to “obey the Gospel” means that we believe. We place our personal trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross.
Jesus made it this simple when he said in John 11:25-26: “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”
D. 1:11-12
a. “fulfill every desires for goodness and work of faith with power” Through their persecution, Paul says that God will “fulfill every desire for goodness and work of faith with power.”
Reason 4#: God allowed them to endure persecution to produce spiritual growth. God not only teaches that he can use persecution, suffering, and bad circumstances, to transform others, he can use it for personal transformation as well.
My oldest son is going into Middle School next year. Since preschool, he has gone to a Christian school. One of his classmates and closest friends was talking about leaving their school and going to a nearby Columbus Public middle school. His parents weren’t sure if they wanted him to go to a new school without any of his friends. So he talked to my son and implanted the thought of going to public school next year. When my son talked to me about it, I said, “Most parents would never let their kids do this, but I’ll let you make this choice. As I’ve always told you, the more trust you build, the more freedom you have. I want you to think carefully about your decision and make a pros and cons list.” So a couple of weeks go by, and I asked him, “Have you decided where you want to go for middle school?” He said, “Yeah, I want to go to Dominion Middle School.” I was like, “Okay, let’s talk about the pros.” He said, “I’ve been with the same kids for seven years and I want to meet new people. And I want some opportunities to talk to people about my faith in Jesus.” I said, “That’s really good.” I asked him what are some of the cons? He listed off a few. One of them was “People are going to make fun of me for being a Christian.” I said, “that could be a con, but it also might be a pro. God says he can use stuff like this to grow in our faith.”
In one of my after-service discussions a woman told me that the very idea of a judging God was offensive. I said, “Why aren’t you offended by the idea of a forgiving God?” She looked puzzled. I continued, “I respectfully urge you to consider your cultural location when you find the Christian teaching about hell offensive.” I went on to point out that secular Westerners get upset by the Christian doctrines of hell, but they find Biblical teaching about turning the other cheek and forgiving enemies appealing. I then asked her to consider how someone from a very different culture sees Christianity. In traditional societies the teaching about “turning the other cheek” makes absolutely no sense. It offends people’s deepest instincts about what is right. For them the doctrine of a God of judgment, however, is no problem at all. That society is repulsed by aspects of Christianity that Western people enjoy, and are attracted by the aspects that secular Westerners can’t stand.