We always thank God for all of you, making mention of you constantly in our prayers. (1 Thessalonians 1:2)
What are you thankful for? Is it a Christmas kind of love? MORE PRESENTS!!! Is it a peaceful kind of love? What a calm and beautiful day! Fluffy clouds, warm temperatures, a full belly!! Or is it a Jesus kind of love? Hardship, privation, rejection, dying to self daily, moment by moment!
First some background: 1 Thessalonians is probably the earliest letter we have from Paul. It was written around AD 49 – 51, about twenty years after the Crucifixion of Jesus and roughly 15 years before Paul’s own execution in Rome. Thessalonica was an ancient Greek speaking city of about 200,000 people devoted to the Roman Emperor and the worship of a multitude of Greek, Roman, Egyptian and sundry other gods but who were offended by the notion of a single, universal, HOLY God. In Acts 17, we see what happens to Paul and the Thessalonian Christians who believed the Gospel Paul preached. Paul had to get out of town to avoid a first century lynch mob and the believers he left behind experienced just what the Jewish believers in Jerusalem experienced in Acts 8 – loss of jobs, loss of social status, loss of family, persecution, imprisonment, attacks both physical and spiritual.
So why is Paul “ . . .giving thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,”? Verse 3 explains that it is because of their “ . . . work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is shocking to our pampered, 21st Century American sense of self fulfillment. We would expect Paul to be writing to console them on all the hardship that has befallen them since they met him and believed the Gospel. Thanks be to God that Paul is a first century Apostle of Christ and not a 21st century prosperity preacher.
The brother of Jesus, James writes in his epistle, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds . . .” The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:12 – 13, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice, insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, . . .:” Jesus Himself says in John 16:33, “ . . . In the world you will have tribulation, But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Pardon the shift from the sublime to the ridiculous, but even in an old comedy movie called “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, the Black Knight is slowly losing a sword fight one body part at a time and mocks his opponent and his wounds by saying, “Tis but a scratch.” Perspective is everything.
Through the incredibly hard experience of evangelizing the Roman world and a personal experience with the risen Lord, Paul understands what should be foundational for every Christian in every age, as it was for the first century Thessalonians – compared to the promise we have in Christ, everything this world has to offer is garbage. Paul, of course, says it better at the end of 1st Thessalonians 5:16 – 24: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. . . Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.”