I Thessalonians 3- Affection and Affliction

This happened to be a joint talk with my good friend and someone I've learned a ton from, Stanford Gibson.

blue = my words

black = his words

Intro:

On October 15^th, 2001 the Oakland A’s lost to the New York Yankees in the playoffs. The problem was not so much the loss - it was that the A’s had no money to keep their best players. In fact their payroll was 1/3 of the Yankees’ and it was only getting worse.

The film Money Ball depicts this time of the Oakland A’s brilliantly.

Brad Pitt, who plays a very good looking A’s General manager Billy Beane, does something really controversial…

First he describes the team’s situation in a striking way say “there are rich teams, poor teams, 50 ft of crap – and then there’s us.”

Second, he hires a statistician as his personal assistant and starts finding undervalued low cost players to join the team. No one had ever tried anything like this before. Most baseball people thought he was crazy.  And early on, it looked like he was.

Because when these players got to camp they were old, slow, and could not play.

The A’s started 20-26 that next year. And this is when ‘money ball’ was put to the test because at this point everyone except Billy Beane doubted that ‘money ball’ could work.

At a pivotal point in the story, Billy Beane’s statistician begins to get worried 

and tells Brad Pitt’s character “This is the kind of decision that could get us fired.”

I love how Beane responds ”In which case I'm a 44 year old guy with a high-school diploma 

and a daughter who I'd like to be able to put through college one day. 

You're 25 years old with a degree from Yale and a pretty impressive apprenticeship.

But, I don't think we're asking the right question. 

I think the question we're supposed to be asking is, 

do you believe in what we're doing or not?

It's a problem that you think we need to explain ourselves. 

Don't... to anyone. 

I'm going to see this through, for better or for worse.”

The A’s eventually went on to win a record 20 games in a row as they made an improbable playoff run with a roster that cost ¼ the price of the evil Yankees.

…But in that moment, they were trying something totally new…something that no one had done before…something that no one believed would work. And it wasn’t going well.  It was gut check time. 

And the question became: Do you believe in what we’re doing or not?

Well this same thing happened to Paul with his calling to plant churches.  He had a moment just like this. He had to formulate an answer to that question – and he did. Paul was going to see this through for better or for worse. And eventually, it was the Thessalonians who turned it around for him and made this whole thing worth it.  And that is what you have to understand in order to make sense of tonight’s passage.

Stanford: You see, we are used to thinking of Paul as this great, successful, church planter.  But you have to remember.  Thessalonians is probably his first writing.  His resume is not very impressive yet.  After his conversion, he disappears from the story for years…and then is sent out from Antioch and starts a couple churches in Turkey.  But then he gets back and decides he’s going to plant churches in Greece, which was a crazy crazy idea.  You have to understand that planting churches in Greece was such a phenomenally ‘out of the box’ idea that  just two chapters before Paul walks into Thesselonica in Acts, the church had gathered in Jerusalem and has its first counsil ever to decide whether or not it was ok?  Paul and Timmothy were trying something totally new…something that no one had done before…something that no one believed would work. And it wasn’t going well.  It is easy for us to find the emotion in today’s passage puzzeling if we pass over the drama of the story.

You see, Thessalonica was their second stop in Greece.  In Philippi, they got beaten and jailed and had 2 converts.  In Thessalonica, things were going much better until some opponents rose up, attacked the leaders of the church and chased Paul and co out of town.  Then in Barea, the initial response is promising until his Thessalonian opponents find him and chase him out of that town to.  So goes to Athens, where he is mostly met with academic skepticism and a handful of people believe.  So in Athens he leaves behind a church about the size of a small family.  And now he is in Corinth…Corinth.  That would be like going to Oakland, Berkely, Merced, Fresno and then ending up in Vegas.  He has essentially gone 0 for Greece.  To his knowledge, he has no substantial churches to show for his efforts.  And now he’s in Corinth, which is populated mainly with sailors and hookers…and he’s asking himself ‘Really?’  ‘I’m going to plant a church in Corinth.  And he had to ask himself “do you believe in this thing?’  It was a legitimate question.  He’d been at it for a while and has no churches in Greece to show for it…unless…UNLESS, the fledgling church in Thessalonica had improbably survived the public violence and pressure the local, economic and political leaders brought against it.  So he sends Timothy to Thessalonica, to see if, by God’s grace, there was still a tenuous, improbable church there.  To provide you some of the drama surrounding this passage, we thought we’d try to reenact that conversation between Paul and Timothy…with puppets.  I didn’t have people puppets (besides a Kierkegaard puppet that was just too small and too ironic), so for this reenactment T will be a duck and P will be a dinosaur.

Video of the Puppet Show

Timothy: So… this sucks…is this the way church planting goes?

Paul: Gotta be honest, it was easier in Turkey than it has been in Greece.

T: No kidding, Paul. This…uhh.. sucks.  Philippi- bombed-, Barea –bombed-, Athens-bombed, bombed, bombed… So what’s the plan? 

P: Corinth. We’re going to Corinth (dramatic puppet body language)

T: (…Long pause and confused puppetness…including conspicuous head scratch) Corinth?

P: That’s right, to Corinth.  (repeat dramatic puppet body language)

T: Cause a town full of sailors and prostitutes is going to turn things around…How is that a good idea?

P: I think you’re asking the wrong question Timothy.  The question you ought to be asking, is ‘do you believe in this thing or not?’ 

T: I’d feel a lot better tackling Corinth if we had just one successful church in Greece.  What about Thessalonica?  Do you think the church survived there?

P: I’m dying to know. I think you need to go check it out. 

T: PAUSE: So you want ME to go back to a place that we snuck out of in the middle of the night…ME…your young friend Timothy…Should I take Silas (Paul shakes his head, Timothy drops the rodent)

P: Tell each one I say good game and give them a butt-slap.

T: OK, I’ll see you in Corinth. Fist bump, Butt slap

Stanford: You see, commentators agree, that the most remarkable thing about Thess 3 the text you are going to look at today is how emotional Paul is.  And it only makes sense if you see it in context of the story.  Paul was alone staring down the pit of debauchery that was Corinth. But then Timothy returns with the report that they are ‘standing firm’ and Paul recognizes that the gospel is going global.  God was going to establish his church in Greece.  This encourages him to plant the second big Greek urban church, in Corinth, where he is when he writes this letter.  You can see Paul thinking ‘If God will establish a gospel community in Thess, where they are just getting thrashed, then he can do it in Corinth, where they are over indulged.”  And so Paul writes this letter.  And then he turns around and plants the improbable church in Corinth that will cause him pain and disappointment the rest of his life, but will also be one of the great churches of the ancient world.  This story will help make a lot more sense of Paul’s effusive language as you tackle today’s passage. 

Discussion Groups:

Context:

Read the section of Acts 17 before reading I Thess 2:17-3:13

Acts 17:¹Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, ³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” ⁴And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. ⁵But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. ⁶And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, ⁷and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” ⁸And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. ⁹And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

¹⁰The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. ¹²Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. ¹³But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. ¹⁴Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. ¹⁵Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed….³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead (in Athens), some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” ³³So Paul went out from their midst. ³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. 18:1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

When did Paul write this letter?

Try to put together a rough timeline of events that led up to Paul writing this letter.

How does Paul describe the emotional impact of these events in 2:17?  What do you think was going through his head while he sat alone in Athens after being chased out of multiple towns by the Thessalonian opponents?

1.    The Soil of Christian Growth

What two words (including synonyms) are repeated most often in 1 Thess 3:1-10?   (Note: I’m talking about ‘big’ words…’the’ doesn’t count.) ____________      ____________

What is the nature of their affliction?

What is Paul’s hope for the Thessalonian church?  V3a, 8

How is this similar to how Paul defines maturity in Eph 4:13-14? How is this similar or different from your picture of Christian maturity?

On the whole, this is a very encouraging letter.  But we get clues in this passage that Paul has a concern and does want to instruct them.  What does Paul commend them on in the first half of verse 6?  What is conspicuously absent?  Why do you think this might be?

What theme does Paul take up in the last 2 verses of chapter 2 and in the final verse of chapter 3?  Why might he tackle this theme in the context of the ‘affliction’ and ‘distress’ that the new church is experiencing?  How is this related to what you just noticed about ‘the absent word’ in v 6?

2.    Paul’s Effusive Affection

Read through the passage together and mark every instance where Paul expresses some sort of affection for the Thessalonians. How does understanding where this letter fits into the New Testament story make sense of this?

What sorts of things do Paul and the Thessalonians to do maintain affection in their partnership?  (v. 6-10)

In verse 6 Paul says they ‘remember us kindly?’  Does memory have a moral component?  Can our memories be kind?  If so, what might that look like?  (See also 1:3)

So if the two big themes of this passage could be summarized as ‘affliction’ and ‘affection’, how are these things connected?

Think about your closest friendships.  Can you think of examples of how shared affliction has grown these relationships?

Bonus Questions:

In v 12 who does Paul pray that the Thessalonians will grow to love more?  What are the implications of this for our community?

The phrase that Paul uses in 3:2 to describe Timothy ‘God’s coworker’ has been controversial in Church history?  Why might that be?  What does it mean that we can be ‘coworkers’ of God?

____________________________

Wrap Up: One Truth From Each Group to start Wrap Up

The question for us is: How can we stand firm within our destined affliction?

1.      Find Hope in Affliction

Look with me to v. 6 “Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love…”

It’s clear that something is lacking in the Thessalonian faith. Look at v. 10 where Paul continues on the topic saying “We pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith”

Then, in v.13 we finally see exactly what  the Thessalonians lacked: Hope. V. 13 says “so that Jesus may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

The Thessalonians have trust in Jesus and they let their love abound in him and with each other. But they don’t have hope.

Hope is the primary resource Paul offers the Thess church. And not just hope in abstract.  But cosmic, eschatological hope of a world made right…remade just.  Where wicked dictators and confused democratic attempts at self rule are replaced by a wise and benevolent king.

Suffering without a proper understanding of hope can break us. This is why Paul was so afraid for the Thessalonians. He wanted them to understand this future hope because it’s foundational to how we stand in our affliction. And in the future, things will be how they always should have been.

The point is that hope is what gives us the energy to push through all the difficult or even seemingly impossible situations we are destined to encounter in this life.

So, How can we stand firm within our destined affliction?

1. Find hope in affliction… Scripture, community, a fuller understanding of Jesus…and our second big idea…

2.      Cultivate Affection in Affliction (or two types of hard)

Now we’ll read the entirety of v. 6 “But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you.”

What’s this saying?

In addition to offering ‘hope in affliction’ Paul also demonstrates a positive side effect of affliction.  He tells us that affliction is fertile soil for affection…it can be the soil of true, substantial, trustworthy relationships.

Affliction is an amplifier of relationship: both with God and other people.

Generally we dodge affliction whenever we can, but if we know it is coming, which it is – Paul was being practical in v. 3-4, and if we are prepared for it, it can unlock more depth in our faith and friendships than we could have imagined.

Do you see what Paul is saying? This passage tells us that there is in fact a way to make the most of affliction so that out of it comes something worthwhile and lasting…even here and even now.

Stanford: We should be a people who don’t run from something hard.  A lot of the very best things are hard.  But there are two types of hard: there is a sweet kind of hard and kind of hard that is just hard.  And here’s the difference.  If you believe in the value of what you are working at and if you trust and not only love, but have cultivated affection for the people you are doing it with, that is a sweet and sustainable kind of hard.  But if the task lacks one or both of those, its hard hard.   It may still need to be done, but it is probably not a sustainable long term thing.

So the more I got into the story that surrounded this letter the more it reminded me of a story…so let me wrap up with that story.  I graduated undergrad a semester early and had to decide what to do until I went to Engineering Grad School in the Fall.  So I got on a plane to an orphanage in Nepal.  The woman who ran the orphanage had gone over to Calcutta the same year as M Teresa they used to ‘swap kids’ depending on who had space.  But she was 80, and needed help running the place.  So that’s what I did.  While I was there I heard one of the missionaries describe another one as  2/3 wild adventure 2/3 sold out for Christ.  And that turned out to be a pretty good description of most missionaries in the Himalayan kingdom…including me.  So when I had a free weekend…a couple buddies and I went trekking in the Annapurna range for fun.  But as it happened, while we were hiking in the mountains, we found a small church of a couple dozen people.  They had been Christians for a few months, and their pastor had been a Christian for 2 weeks longer.  He had gotten a hold of a Bible, become a Christian, and led half of the village and a few people from neighboring villages to faith…and they met secretly in a basement and all shared one Bible.  And their new faith was not popular.   They had an impromptu worship service that night in order to worship with us and while they were singing someone banged on the door and cursed them for abandoning the local gods.  They kept singing but you could see the concern in their eyes as they gave each other knowing looks.

After we’d been back for a while we started to be concerned for them.  The church struck us as really precarious.  They had no churches or organizations supporting them.  They were under pressure to abandon this Jesus experiment.  What would happen to them?  So a couple months later, we scraped together some money and a bunch of Nepali Bibles, and we hoofed it all the way back up to the village.  I have a memory at one point of puking off a mountain at 8000 ft with 60 lbs of Bibles on my back.  Good times. 

But when we got there, they were doing great.  They had grown, they were building a public building for their meetings, and they had invited every village within walking distance to come see the Jesus video when their building was done.  Their faith flourished in affliction.  But their allfliction wasn’t just fertile ground for their faith to grow and for them to find hope…it was also a source of affection and hope for me.

You see, I’d been in Asia for a while.  I was lonely and discouraged and re-evaluating all of my life goals.  And when we saw how their faith was flourishing without human intervention…I feel like I experienced something like Paul expresses in this passage.  You see, faith and hope in the midst of affliction…its contagious.  I remembered, this thing we’re doing, it’s not just an ideology we are trying to spread around.  It’s a kingdom with a King that will advance it and is happy to involve us but doesn’t need it.  Reminded of that, I had new energy to take on my own small part.  And I think that this is what the passage is fundamentally teaching.  Hold on to the hope you have in Jesus.  If you do, affliction is a fertile ground for your faith, and the faith of others to grow.  And it will knit you together in a unique way with those you experience it with.

I Thess 2:1-8 -Don’t let it be in vain: Making the most of our presentation of the gospel

July 17, 2012

The world commercializes just about everything: from fast food to clothes, jewelry to fragrances, cars to phones, and even pork! These presentations are usually uninformative, unoriginal, and unhelpful to the state of our lives.

Just listen to these REAL company slogans. I’ve even categorized them. And for funsies, I’m gonna try and say some of them them how they do… or how I think they do.

1. Products promising happiness comes from the physical realm

a diamond is forever –DeBeers

every kiss begins with Kay- Kay

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline

2. Products promising instant gratification is more important than hard work
Have it your way-BK

So easy a caveman can do it-Geico

One call could save you 15% or more on car insurance- Geico

Warning it works every time – Colt 45

3. McDonald’s – which conveniently offers you the voice of your dream spouse

We do it all for you 1975- McD

We love to see you smile- McD

You deserve a break today-McD

And then the fourth category, which is my favorite.

4. Products involving plain nonsense and flat out lies

Between love and madness lies Obsession – CK Fragrance  …because we want our love to constantly pour out a healthy dose of madness and obsession…terrible.

With a name like smuckers…it has to be good   - that’s historically bad.

And then there’s the slogan for Camel cigarettes: I’d walk a mile for a Camel …There’s something almost hyperbolic about exercising in order to do something that can kill you. It’s like running a marathon that ends in a free fall cliff dive. I don’t know understand how that sells…

So what’s the point?

These commercials are intentionally deceptive. They are filled with false realities, false promises, and false information. The message, motive, and method behind these commercials is plagued. They have no credibility in their presentation.

So what do you think?

Is it possible to communicate a message without ‘marketing’ or ‘manipulating’?

What would that look like? Is it possible to communicate the gospel in a qualitatively different way than the world sells stuff?

And what makes a message credible when it is competing with so much dishonest selling?

In tonight’s passage, Paul has a few thoughts on the topic, and this is what our DG’s are going to focus on.

Discussion Groups

1. What is one really catchy commercial you have seen recently? 

2. What are the motivations behind the commercial?  What tactics are they using?

3. What do you notice are common characteristics of commercialism in our present day? Fill in some examples of commercial practices that you find deceitful, honorable, or neutral in the table below.

Common Characteristics of Commercialism

	Deceitful	Honorable	Neutral
Examples

4. Read I Thessalonians 2:1-8.

5. What motivations does Paul accept as legitimate and what motivations does he believe are illegitimate for Christian service? In the table below, write your findings along with the verse.

What Paul claimed he did	What Paul claimed he did not do

6. If Paul had tried to summarize this passage in a catchy slogan, what might it be?

7. Look at v. 1, 2, and 5. What short phrase is in each passage? (It’s also in 1:5, too) What do you think Paul’s aim is with this phrase?

8. In v. 1 Paul says “our coming to you was not in vain”: What, generally, do you think Paul did in his presentation of Jesus build credibility with his listeners? (for help: see v. 8 and 2b,4)

9. In what ways can we share our lives to those we want to share Jesus with? (v. 8)

10. In what ways can we speak the truth to those we want to share Jesus with? (v. 2b,4)

11. Paul is convinced that we are to ‘share’ (v.8) and ‘speak’ (v.4) Are you more of a gospel speaker or a life sharer?   Which does the passage suggest is more important?

12. In v. 4 and v. 5 Paul notes that God tests hearts and is witness to the ministry effort of Paul and his team. What are the implications of the phrase ‘who tests our hearts’ for our sharing of the gospel?

Optional Questions:

1. Which of Paul’s positive motivations for Christian service are you most prone to? (from #3)

2. Which of Paul’s illicit motivations for Christian service are you most prone to? (from #3)

3. What do you think of Paul using both fathering and mothering metaphors for his care for his friends in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, 11? 

4. What is the difference between encouragement and flattery?

  Wrap Up:

So what were some Pauline slogans you guys came up with tonight?

Mine is probably not accurate, but something like “Come to bro” but really…“Come at me, thessabronians”  ..yeah mine’s terrible.

Okay, as you were in your discussion groups, I hope you discovered the burning issue within this passage.

How do you become a credible source of God’s good news?

I’ve got two big ideas from the passage on this, and here’s my first one.

1. Share your life             (commitment to people) 

Look with me to verse 7-8 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become so dear to us.

For Paul, sharing our lives is often foundational to how we go about sharing the gospel.

Messages are generally accepted based on authenticity and motivation of its presenter.

These elements can only be made known to the audience through shared relationship. When we truly love someone, our motivations become more positive, because our love for them demands it. It demands that we do right by them.

Our path to credibility is simple and yet not at all easy: we need to share our lives to impact other’s lives.

Being in a Western culture make this difficult because we see so much irrational behavior and we tend to believe that words alone can make sense of the strange decisions people make. That words alone can change their mind.

But the truth is that what you’re saying makes no sense for them until they see Jesus through you.

What you’re saying makes no sense until they see Jesus through you.

This is why v. 8 is our theme verse for next! Sharing our lives is crucial to our presentation of the gospel!

Chances are many of us became Christians because somebody walking in the Way of Jesus shared their Jesus-centric life with us.

So how are we going to do it?

How are we going to become credible sources of God’s good news by sharing our lives? What did your groups talk about?

Here’s my take; we must embrace servanthood in all relationships. This is done through valuing others above ourselves. And this involves us being willing to learn from those we share our lives with. It has to be a mutual relationship.

We have to be open to being changed by those who we share Jesus to.

The key word is relationship. It’s gotta be something real- a friendship- built on time spent together, common interests, and genuine conversation.

Well that’s my take.

Ok, so how else do you become a credible source of God’s good news?

Here is my second big idea.

2. Speak the truth!  (commitment to Word)

Look with me to v. 2 “As you know we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.”

And then in v. 4 “we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts”

Sharing our lives is what makes the Jesus-centric life compelling...But at some point you actually have to open your mouth and speak. 

Within the relationships we have with our friends, family, co-workers, or classmates, we will have the opportunity to speak and declare Jesus.

There is a strong interdependence between ‘sharing’ and ‘speaking’. Paul was convinced that neither is sufficient without the other. And I think we have enough data in our own lives to agree with him.

The point here is that we should be bold when we do speak. This is not to impose, rather it’s to be clear and make the most of every opportunity.

We are taught to avoid conflict at all costs.  But we need to learn to speak about Jesus in a kind and credible way -to people we are sharing our lives with- even if it is going to invite conflict.

We can’t just be silent and let our world of pluralism play itself out.

The demand of our culture is to keep your ideas to yourself. But, to be a spokesman of Christ we have to advocate real tolerance when we speak truth.

Real tolerance is, as Nic Gibson says, the openness of mind that allows for disagreement and nonconformity. It’s an act of humility that does not claim to be right or change anyone’s mind.

Our role is speaking the truth while avoiding being bullied emotionally and intellectually. We must do this while kindly being tolerant of those who do not hold the Way of the gospel within our pluralistic society.

So what do you think?

How can we properly speak the truth and allow ourselves to be credible sources of God’s good news?

If we are to speak the truth, we need to make sure it’s consistent with how we share our lives.

Boldly and gently. We share our lives boldly and gently. And we speak the truth boldly and gently.

If we’re missing out on these, then I would offer that there is something fundamentally wrong with our motivation to declare the gospel, and we would need to reassess.

Remember, in v. 4 Paul says it is God who tests our hearts. God tests the inner self (the heart, the center of our being). He is making sure our message is true, our motives are pure, and our methods are open.

Each of these criteria strongly relies on boldness and gentleness within the construction of the message.

What does this mean for us?

It means we need to do this in community. We need to share our lives and speak the truth with our believing community aware of our efforts. We have to not only do what’s right, but we have to do it for the right reasons.

That way God can speak into our message, motive, and method. As Paul said again and again … ‘you yourselves know’.

We should make our efforts known through prayer and community and then we will be approved by God and entrusted with his gospel – to speak boldly and gently.

So that is how we become credible sources of God’s good news:

1. Share your life…

2. Speak the truth…

If we do this, we can say like Paul in verse 1 “For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain” ….

So let’s do this. Let’s be a community who puts the right effort forward to faithfully make the most out of every opportunity to share God’s good news.

Introduction to I Thessalonians

July 3, 2012

As you may have heard, we are studying 1 Thessalonians this summer.

And each Summer Style Tuesday is going to look something like this:

We will enjoy a dinner together… oh it’s gonna be tasty. By the way, let’s thank the Heringer family for providing tonight’s meal!

After supper, we’ll have our mixer which promises to be deeply competitive and potentially violent – Just kidding-

Then, after some announcements we’ll gather for a 5-10 minute introduction on the passage of the night.

Following the introduction we will break into single gender discussion groups for the braiding of hair and eating of steel…

But really, these discussion groups are the focus of each Tuesday night. Our hope is that friendships would be made in these groups, that the Scriptures would bear light on our lives, and that we would discover God together in community throughout this summer.

After our Discussion Groups finish, we will gather for a recap of the night’s text and wrap up the night with our Summer worship leaders Jason Moon and Taylor Snow leading us through a few songs of praise and prayer.

So that’s our usual Tuesday night.

However, tonight is different. Tonight, I’m going to give an introduction to I Thessalonians, that will be around 15 minutes, and then we’ll break into Discussion Groups for some group bonding.

So first… why I Thessalonians? Why is I Thessalonians our choice of study of all the possibilities for this 9 week summer?

Let me explain it this way…

At age 16… Lebron James was the most widely anticipated high school basketball player ever. You may remember this.

He was viewed so highly that people began calling him King James…before even being a professional player, let alone a champion!

King James was drafted as the first player overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers and played there for 7 years. In six of those years he faced bitter defeat in the playoffs,  and one of these losses took place in the NBA Finals. And as you know… Great Kings are generally known for losing when it matters…ha.

So… King James took his talents to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat with All-Stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh…and a bunch of scrubs.

The Heat instantly became the favorite to win the NBA Championship. Ironically, though, they started 9-8… which is unideal if you’re the pre-season favorite to win the title. (If you ask me…it’s unideal to be a King who can’t really win.)

But eventually, they got hot and they never looked back en route to crushing the 76ers, the rival Celtics and the Bulls in the playoffs.

In the finals, the Heat kept going as they went up 2-1 in the best of 7 series against the Dallas Mavericks.

But then… King James decided not to play basketball anymore. No one really knows what he was playing as he chucked threes and 20 foot jump shots on a regular basis. It was kind of odd.

If you have heard just one thing about Lebron James, you’ve probably heard that he “can’t finish”. You’ve probably heard that Lebron James doesn’t close out games. He doesn’t have the killer instinct that great players have.

You know…. if you give Lebron James a dollar, he will give you 3 quarters back   (throw quarters)

If you cut up his steak into tiny pieces, he’ll choke on the last one. (cough)

… He regularly goes to sleep just a quarter after 3 each night.

Whatever you’ve heard, it pertains to Lebron James not finishing a game.

It’s about a King without a crown because he could not finish the battle.

But why am I talking about Lebron James? Especially after he DID win a championship just a few weeks ago!

Because when I read I Thessalonians I started to think of Lebron James.

Here’s why.

Lebron James was dealing with a very similar problem to the church Paul ministered to in Thessalonica.

They didn’t know how to finish. They didn’t know how to carry on in the face of persecution. In the church’s case, they didn’t know how to live a full life of right faith, right hope and right love in Jesus.

One thing I have experienced as a Christian is that there are days that I want to take off. There are days that I conclude, either at the beginning of the day, or the end of the day, that I don’t know how to carry on.

Do you ever feel this way?

Look around. In this community, in your greater church community. There are people who have lived this faith out for 20, 30, 60 years.

I’m always wondering: HOW do they do it?

I don’t know if you’ve realized…but our existence on this planet is often quite difficult! How can somebody carry on in the way of Jesus for decades? In the face of persecution, suffering, loss, and eventual physical death. That’s right, we are allllll gonna die!

In I Thessalonians 3:2 Paul says they sent ministers to the church and he writes “to establish and exhort you in your faith, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. 4 For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know.

Paul is saying that we are destined for affliction. Destined. so Paul writes this letter to encourage this community how to stay afloat. To live a life of love, faith and hope especially in times of trouble.

So that is why we want to study I Thessalonians this summer.

I Thessalonians articulates for us in a very clear way, how we should finish this race marked out for us. How we can continue striving to be loving servants, a faithful, holy and pleasing church, and how we can rightly perceive the future hope we have in resurrection with Christ.

So what does this come down to? Real quickly.

1) We should study I Thessalonians because it encourages us to live out of LOVE.

Paul writes in 1 Thess 2:8, which is in your hand out…

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God abut also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

In other words, Paul had the right idea of how to love this church. He didn’t just want to share the gospel. He wanted to join them in relationship. Paul wanted them to impact him----just as much as he wanted to impact the church body

2) We should study I Thessalonians because it encourages us to live out of FAITH.

1 Thess 4:1 Finally, then, brothers,1 we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

What’s he saying? Paul exhorts us to live a life that is pleasing to God. We should trust that God’s way is the Way. And that when we live to please God we are also living a fully human existence. We have to believe that.

3) We should study I Thessalonians because it encourages us to live out of HOPE.

1 Thess 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

What’s this mean?

Paul assures us that when Jesus returns believers who have passed and who are still alive will raise up with him. For more on what that means, you’ll have to wait for Nathan Ely to cover this in a few more weeks!

But, I’ll give you this: being raised up, as Paul says, probably does not mean meeting Jesus in the sky literally­.

So why should we study I Thessalonians?

Because we need what this church needed.

The church in Thessalonica struggled with how to finish the race marked out for them. They looked at their current circumstances and became burdened with confusion and loss over what was happening.

Paul wrote this letter to tend to their needs. They needed to be encouraged to have a right love – a love that is self sacrificial and a love that shares oneself.

They needed a right faith – a faith that aims to please God and trust in his Way over our own.

And they needed a right hope- an eternal hope that rests on a future with Jesus when he comes back.

So this is our purpose for I Thessalonians, and I certainly hope that you will join us in studying these topics throughout this summer!

Now, let me offer a few more introductory ideas about the text, and then we’ll break into our Discussion Groups (Can I call them DG’s? It sounds way cooler.)

­1. Genre

What kind of writing is I Thessalonians? Look with me to 5:27 in the hand out.

1 Thess 5:27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

So, it’s a letter. Paul is writing a letter to his friends in Thessalonica, whom he loves deeply, to encourage their faith and trust in Jesus.

2. Author and Date

Scholars are unified in believing that Paul wrote this letter around AD 50 or 51.

It’s our oldest preserved Christian writing, and it was written after Paul’s second visit to Thessalonica.

At this time, Paul was a missionary on his second big journey alongside his team of trustees Timothy and Silas.

3. Occasion

What caused Paul to write this document as it is? This is hugely important to our understanding of the text.

Scholars agree that at this time, Thessalonica was a city of diverse population, with many Gentiles openly worshiping idols and false gods.

Paul came to preach “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” and during his time in Thessalonica he attracted God-fearing Jews and Gentiles, Gentiles being non-Jews.

Paul’s success led to persecution as he was forced to flee the city and settle in Corinth. Eventually Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to gather a report of how things were going. Paul wrote I Thessalonians based on this report. He wrote this letter seeking to encourage the church in Thessalonica to take up the challenge of spreading faith in Jesus, while staying the course in its “destined affliction.”

In other words, this church was struggling with how to live a life of right love, faith and hope in the midst of suffering and even the death of loved ones.

So Paul wrote a letter to offer counsel during this tough time.

4. Organization

How is I Thessalonians organized?

Simply put, the letter has three sections, and each one concludes with prayer.

1. Greeting and Thanksgiving –Paul thanks God for the work already done with this church body.

2. Paul’s Ministry Defense– Paul defends the conduct of his team- reiterating that they came to serve and not deceive.

3. Ethical Instruction- Paul exhorts the church to live a life pleasing to God until the return of Jesus.

So, that’s the structure of the letter.

Finally, how can we as a community get the most out of I Thessalonians this summer?

Here are three ideas:

1. Read the entire book each week.

          It’s short. It’s relatively straight forward. And it will take 15 minutes.

2. Study I Thessalonians against the backdrop of Paul’s other letters

Mainly Philippians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, and Romans. These are the letters most closely connected to the timeframe of when Paul wrote I Thessalonians. Since they all follow I Thessalonians, you’ll notice that they offer insight into some of Paul’s firstborn ideas on Christian living.

3. Come to Summer Style having read through and thought through the section of I Thessalonians for that night.

You can keep track by noting the schedule on your handout.

Lastly, if you are seeking growth and challenge this summer, as well as a fulfilling time in your DG’s, then I suggest taking the time to consider the text before hand. I am confident that it will multiply your study experience in your DG.

End with Discussion Groups