Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (April 14, 2025)

April 14, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12

Good morning to all of you who are joining in this Bible Study this morning, later, today, or sometime in the future.  This can be a very stressful week across our nation as nearly every one of us has the responsibility to file our income tax in just a few days.  I hope that you have been able to accomplish that.  In prayers this Monday, please offer a prayer of thanksgiving that Tricia has been able to travel to see her son, his wife, and the new grandbaby.  Pray for Lynn and Frank as they travel in our state to Prescott.  They are from southern Minnesota.  Pray for Annette as she prepares to have some pretty major dental work done this week.  Pray for success in this dental care, and for a quick recovery.  Offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the success of Gail's knee surgery, and also prayers as she does her therapy that will help her get her full mobility back.  Prayers for Melissa and Roger as they make decisions about their housing situation, with the possibility of finding a new apartment. 

In our reading for today, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12, we find Paul continuing to talk about the ways in which he, and his companions, worked very hard to not become a burden to the people, all so that there would be no sense in the community that Paul was just another itinerant salesman who came to take advantage of them.  By living on his own resources, Paul was able to show them that the message of Jesus Christ that he brought to share with them, was a free gift, and not any kind of an item that could be purchased.  Paul presented himself as an ambassador for Christ, who was the world's true king.  Of course this endangered not only Paul, but also those who came to faith in Christ, especially considering that Roman Emperors had been proclaimed to be gods after their deaths, and now the Roman Emperors were claiming themselves to be gods to be worshiped!  Paul is able to present himself as a most unusable and unlikely choice for this ambassadorship, and yet Christ Himself had come to transform Paul's life exactly so that in his own brokenness, Christ's grace would fill Paul's life as he came to share the free grace of Christ's love for all people.  Paul was certainly the right life example for these new believers.  We believe that Paul was a tent maker, and it was through this endeavor that Paul was able to provide for himself and his companions.  So, long hours of making a living, enabled Paul to bring a free message of grace, though in other readings Paul makes it clear that expecting to be supported by the church and her members is not inappropriate, and in fact the world of the church, main stream churches and larger churches provide financially for their pastors, while there are certainly small congregations, both mainstream and tiny conservative ones, where their pastors must work to support and supplement their church's provision and assistance for the person who is called to serve the Gospel in their midst.  What Paul is working so hard to accomplish as he preaches and teaches the Gospel in the midst of the Thessalonian people, is to give these new Christians a concrete model of what it means to "walk worthy of God".  This phrase describes a model of "behavior" which is pleasing to God.  The reality of this is that Paul is living the Beatitudes in his everyday living and also when he is serving the Gospel.  I am confident that this style of living is the one for which you and I should also reach for in our lives.  At this point in the passage for today we must be willing to admit that this living style to which Paul ascribes does not in any away earn salvation, forgiveness, or the life with God that we all hold in our hopes.   No, instead of works, our justification comes only through the merit of Jesus Christ, who died to pay the price for our sin and brokenness.  For the Thessalonians this is a brand-new way of understanding the relationship that a person has with the One, True, God vs how people had been relating to the pantheon of Romans gods, which at the time of Paul, included the Roman Emperor.  Through all of this Paul truly became the friend and mentor in Christ for this community. 

I will be with you again tomorrow morning to share with the next passage in which Paul speaks to the issue of persecution of Christians.

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim