Bible Talks - Traditional Church (Sunday 8am)
Christian Ministry B
Sunday, 15 October 2006
Last week, as we looked at the first section of chapter 2 of the Apostle Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians we saw that his detractors were criticizing him not only for his motives and conduct during his visit to Thessalonica, but also for his precipitate departure and his irresponsible failure to return. They seem to have been saying either he had now abandoned and even forgotten the Thessalonians, or he was too chicken to go back. So in today’s passage the apostle defends himself against this accusation.
Addressing them affectionately as 'brothers', as he has done previously in verse 1, Paul gives a fivefold rebuttal of his critics' arguments, while at the same time giving evidence of his genuine love for the Thessalonians.
Firstly in v.17 He tells them that he had left them with great reluctance. It had given him no pleasure to leave Thessalonica. He had not gone voluntarily. On the contrary, “we were torn away from you”, he writes. He uses a verb derived from the Greek word that gives us orphan, a parentless child. Having called himself their father, mother, and brother, he now also pictures himself as a parent deprived of his children. The emphasis is on an unnatural separation, both forcible and painful, At the same time, Paul felt sure that it was only temporary (for a short time), and he assured them that it was only a physical separation because he was still with them in his thoughts and prayers.
Secondly, he had made repeated efforts to return to them. Paul writes of his intense longing to see them, which lay behind his efforts to return. For, he goes on, we wanted to come to you - certainly I, Paul, did, again and Again - but Satan stopped us. The apostle blames the devil for the failure of his attempts to return.
A number of conjectures have been made as to precisely how Satan hindered the apostle's return to Thessalonica. Some think it was continuing Jewish opposition, even a plot. being formed against him by the Jews. Others guess that it was his 'thorn in the flesh' some physical ailment that he mentions several times in his letters. One commentator suggests that the satanic hindrance was the legal ban which the rulers of Thessalonica had put on Jason; requiring him to post some sort of bond that would be forfeit if Paul returned. Another possibility is that Paul was referring to some sin or scandal that detained him in Corinth.
Paul's purpose is to affirm that his inability to return to the Thessalonians was not due to any indifference on his part, but rather to the malign influence of the devil.
In verses 19 and 20, Paul asks rhetorical, unanswerable questions which express his great love for the Thessalonian Christians. “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.”
Thirdly, unable to return himself Paul had sent Timothy to them. Paul's repeated efforts to revisit Thessalonica were made more frustrating by the lack of news about the church there. So the suspense grew until he could stand it no longer. He had to do something to relieve the tension. So, since he couldn’t go himself, he sent Timothy in his place. It seemed 'the best plan' although it was a costly sacrifice on Paul's part because it meant that he would have 'to stay on alone at Athens'. He had been alone there once before and a very painful experience it had proved. His whole being had felt oppressed and provoked by the city's prevailing idolatry. You can read about this in Acts 17 thereabouts. Now he sends Timothy away again and is left a second time isolated from Christian fellowship in the idolatrous city of Athens? His sensitive spirit shrank from this further ordeal. But he could bear another bout of loneliness better than a further period of suspense over the Thessalonians.
In this letter, which was written after Timothy had returned to Paul in Athens, Paul calls Timothy, our brother and God's fellow-worker in spreading the gospel of Christ. Paul gave Timothy this exalted description because he wanted to show the Thessalonians that in sending Timothy he had sent a gifted and qualified representative.
Paul had three reasons for sending Timothy on this mission to Thessalonica:
· The first was to strengthen and encourage them in their faith
· the second concern was that no-one would be unsettled by these trials as Paul was worried that the Thessalonians' sufferings might lead them astray from Christ. To protect them from being upset by tribulation he reminded them that it is a necessary part of our Christian vocation. A regular topic of Paul's instruction to converts was the inevitability of suffering. Jesus had plainly taught it and Paul taught it too.
· Then Paul had a third objective in sending Timothy: For this reason, when I could stand it no longer I sent to find out about your faith, I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.
The apostle refers again to the devil. He is not ignorant of his devices, whether in hindering the apostle's ministry or in tempting his converts to renounce their faith. So Timothy had been sent on both a nurturing and a fact-finding mission. His brief had been to stabilize the Thessalonians in their faith, to remind them that suffering for Christ was unavoidable, and to come back with news of how they were doing.
Fourthly, in verses 6-10 of Ch 3 we read of the Apostle Paul’s joy at Timothy's good news. Paul actually uses the word euangelion, the only time it is used in the New Testament that it doesn’t mean the Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ.
Timothy has just returned only a short time before Paul sat down to write this letter. Timothy told Paul that the Thessalonians always have pleasant memories of Paul and his companions and that they too long to see Paul and co again. This information almost overwhelmed the apostle. He couldn’t contain himself. He breaks out: Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith (7). Why should your faith encourage us, do you ask? Because our life is bound up in yours. For now we really live, 'now we can breathe again', now we have been given 'a new lease of life', since you are standing firm in the Lord.
It is always encouraging to any minister to hear how people he has ministered to, either in introducing them to Jesus or in building up their faith or perhaps both, are now going on in their faith. For example it was a particular thrill;l for me when Margaret and I first came here to find Jeremy Tonks as the student minister. Jeremy had been Rector’s warden at Ambarvale before we went west.
The good news he receives also leads Paul to thanksgiving: How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?. And next the apostle is prompted to pray: Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
What he says he prayed for was that now, in defiance of Satan's hindrances, he might be able to visit them in order to make up their spiritual deficiencies. The deficiencies Paul detected in their faith would have been gaps in their doctrinal and ethical understanding because Paul had been with them such a short time. He longed to see them complete, whole, mature Christians. Hence his intended visit. Prayer for the increase of their faith was vital. Letters too can encourage and establish people in their faith. But there is no substitute for the stimulus of face-to-face fellowship, when we are 'mutually encouraged by each other's faith'.
And fifthly Paul had been praying for the Thessalonians all the time Having mentioned in verse 10 his earnest and continuous prayers, he immediately breaks into prayer in his letter. He expresses three precise and particular petitions:
· No 1. that God will bring him to see the Thessalonians again. and that he will increase both their love and their holiness. Paul's prayer was answered, but not until about five years later when he visited Macedonia twice towards the end of his third missionary journey.
· No 2. Paul prays: May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other, in the Christian community, and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. It is impressive to note this prayer's double progress, expanding from each other to everybody and from increasing to overflowing. There is nothing mean spirited or narrow minded in paul’s concern for not only the Thessalonians but for the whole of mankind.
· No 3. Paul prays: May he strengthen (sterizai again, as in 3:2) your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. There is no greater stimulus to holiness than the vision of the Parousia, when Jesus comes in glory with his holy ones. In order that we may be 'blameless and holy' then, Paul prays that we may be inwardly strengthened now. Sanctification is the present, continuing process; perfection awaits the the return of Jesus.
We have seen how Paul responds to his critics. He both defends his visit and explains his non-return. In the course of his double apology he has illustrated his pastoral ministry by four metaphors - the steward, the mother, the father and the herald. Like a steward he was faithful in guarding the gospel; like a mother he was gentle in caring for his converts; like a father he was diligent in educating them; and like a herald he was bold in proclaiming God's word. From these four metaphors we may discern the two major responsibilities of pastoral ministry for today. The first is to the Word of God (as both a steward to guard it and a herald to proclaim it), and the second to the people of God (as their mother and father, to love, nurture and teach them).
First comes our commitment to the Word of God. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul refers to his message three times as 'the gospel of God' and twice as 'the word of God'. It was Paul's firm assurance that his message came from God, and that 'his' gospel was in reality 'God's' gospel. He hadn’t invented it. He was only a steward entrusted with it and a herald commissioned to proclaim it. Above all else he must be faithful to the ministry of the word.
Every authentic Christian ministry begins here, with the conviction that we have been called to handle God's Word as its guardians and heralds. John Stott said, “We must not be satisfied with 'rumours of God' as a substitute for 'good news from God'.” The Reformer John Calvin wrote, 'the gospel... is as far removed from conjecture as heaven is from the earth'. Of course ministers today are not apostles of Christ like Paul. But we believe that in the New Testament the teaching of the apostles has been preserved and is now bequeathed to us in its definitive form. We are therefore trustees of this apostolic faith, which is the Word of God and which works powerfully in those who believe. Our task is to keep it, study it, expound it, apply it and obey it.
Secondly, there is the pastor’s commitment to the people of God. We have seen that Paul expressed his deep love and care for the Thessalonians by likening himself to their mother and father. He felt and acted towards them as if they were his own children, which indeed they were, since he had introduced them to Christ. So he fed and taught them; he earned his own living so as not to be a burden to them; he was concerned to see them grow into maturity; and he was gentle and sacrificial in all his dealings with them.
Then in today’s passage it seems quite unselfconsciously, Paul gives a moving illustration of what he has been writing about. He lays bare his heart of love for them. He had left them only with the greatest reluctance, and had in fact been torn away from them against his will. He had then tried hard to visit them, but all his attempts had been thwarted. Waiting for news of them, he had found the suspense unbearable and so, though at great personal cost, he had sent Timothy to encourage them and find out how they were. When Timothy came back with good news, he was over the moon with joy and thanksgiving. And all the time he had been pouring out his heart for them in prayer. The fact is that his life was inextricably bound up with theirs. 'For now we really live', he wrote, 'since you are standing firm in the Lord' (3:8).
In one sense this is quite extravagant language. Loving and longing; intolerable suspense when there was no news and overwhelming joy when the news was good; affectionate care and fervent prayer; a sense of intimate solidarity with the Thessalonians , so that Paul’s life was wrapped up in their life and theirs in his? This is the language of parents, who are separated from their children, who miss them dreadfully, and are profoundly anxious when they have had no recent news of them. Pastoral love is parental love; that is its quality.
St. Chrysostom writing about 400AD understood this, when commenting on Paul's statement that the Thessalonians were his hope, joy and crown: 'Of what fiery warmth is this! Never could either mother, or father, yea ir they even met together, and commingled their love, have shown their own affection to be equivalent to that of Paul. And in another homily Chrysostom spoke of his own pastoral devotion to his congregation:
“There is nothing I Love more than you, no, not even light itself. I would gladly have my eyes put out ten thousand times over, if it were possible by this means to convert your souls; so much is your salvation dearer to me than light itself. . .. This one thing is the burden of my prayers, that I long for your advancement. But that in which I strive with all is this, that I love you, that I am wrapped up in you, that you are my all, father, mother, brethren, children.”
This is the double commitment of Christian pastoral leaders, first to the Word of God (as stewards and heralds) and secondly to the people of God (as mothers and fathers). We are ministers of the Word and ministers of the church. Another way of expressing the same thing is that the two chief characteristics of pastoral ministry are truth and love. It is these which build up the church, especially in association with each other. It is by 'speaking or maintaining the truth in love' that we 'grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ'. Yet all too often this combination is rare in the contemporary church. Some leaders are great champions of the truth and anxious to fight for it, but display little love. Others are great advocates of love, but have no equal commitment to truth, as Jesus and his apostles had. Truth is hard if it is not softened by love, and love is soft if it is not strengthened by the truth.
It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that ordinary people, like me and Neil and Tim and Laura and Chris and anyone else involved in ministry can fulfill this double role. The Holy Spirit is both. the Spirit of truth and the Spirit is love'. Pastoral leaders, from the Apostle Paul onwards have have no greater need than the fullness of the Spirit, who alone can lead us in the single path of truth and love.
It is important that we pray for our leaders that they may always be filled with the Holy Spirit’s gifts of truth and love.
Let us pray.