Instruction and Prayers

Here we are at the end of 1 Thessalonians in our series “Follow Christ. He Comes!”  But before we start, let’s ask God’s blessing on our time in the word and then we’ll jump in together.

Father, I do praise You that we need no more than Christ. The work is finished, we can do nothing else.  Thank You for Your word that equips us for every good work and is profitable for righteousness, instruction, correction, and reproof.  Father, I just pray that You will bless our time in Your word, that You would teach us, and that we would have open ears and receptive hearts.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Belonging to the Day

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

We are continuing our series in 1 & 2 Thessalonians titled “Follow Christ. He Comes!” Last week, John Farmer shared with you some of the details that the apostle Paul revealed to the Thessalonian believers concerning Jesus’ second coming—specifically that those who had died in Christ will not proceed those who are still alive in Christ but instead the dead will be caught up together with those who are still living at the time to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will all be with the Lord for all eternity. Our passage today will deal with living for Christ until He comes back for us or until we die and await His return for us like those who have died in Christ for the past 2000 years or more.

Let’s pray and ask the Lord to make this message both meaningful and applicable to each one of us.

Encourage with these Words

I Thessalonians 4:13-18

Good morning!  We’re continuing today in our series on the two letters which Paul and his fellow missionaries wrote to the church at Thessalonica.  The name of our series is “Follow Christ.  He Comes!”  Up till now, I’d say our focus has primarily been about following Christ, but today we’re going to get a big dose of “He Comes!”

More and More

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Welcome to week 4 of our study on the first and second letters to the church in Thessalonica.  Today starts a transition in the first letter, but we will get to that in just a few minutes.  Let’s pray and ask God to speak to us and teach us during this time.

Longing

1 Thessalonians 3:1-13

“So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. 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.” –1 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Glory and Joy

1 Thessalonians 2:1-20

This is the second in our new series of messages on the short books of 1 & 2 Thessalonians. John set the stage for us last Sunday with the first chapter of the first letter. The Apostle Paul had visited Thessalonica for the first time during his second missionary journey, planted a church there, and now a short time later was writing back to the believers there to encourage them in their faith. Paul stayed on the move, with a calling and passion to reach out to areas that had never heard the gospel. He did also try to revisit areas to build up and support established churches, as he had done earlier on this journey at several places in what is now Turkey. But he worked as part of a large, organic team where others would have the responsibility for teaching and pastoring these churches in the long term. Paul planted, others watered, and God gave the growth. Paul wanted to keep planting in new areas. His heart was on what can be called the frontiers of mission: the people who had never had the opportunity to hear about what Jesus had done for them.

Serve and Wait

I Thessalonians 1:1-10

Good morning!  We are starting a new series of messages today that will carry us until the beginning of November.  We are going to study through two letters that the apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, conveniently named 1^st and 2^nd Thessalonians.  These two letters are chock-full of powerful truths and practical teaching both for the here and now and for looking toward things yet to come.  Today, we’ll take a look at the background briefly and then go through the first chapter of the first letter.

Before we do that, let’s take a moment and ask God to speak to us from His Word:

Honor, Shame, and the Gospel

Welcome! Today is our final message in our Shame/Honor series. To whet your appetite on today’s topic, the Gospel, I want to give you a quote and a scripture. The quote is by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Ethics:

“Shame can be overcome only when the original unity is restored, when man is once again clothed by God.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Honoring the Shamed

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Honor and Shame. Last week’s message was entitled Shaming the Honored, and we looked at, among other things, the honor-shame cultural practice, especially common in the Middle East, of challenge and riposte, in which people of relatively similar honor status challenge one another in a game of words and rhetoric to jockey for “position” and status. Honor was often seen as a limited quantity, so that increasing one’s personal honor was seen to necessitate the reducing publicly the honor status of a rival. The Pharisees, scribes, and teachers of the law repeatedly entered this “honor shame game” with Jesus, seeking to discredit Him, but invariably He would emerge from the confrontations as even wiser, more good, and more honorable in the eyes of the crowds that watched. This of course meant that the honor status of the leaders continually became lower and lower. Because the “game” could only be played among those of similar honor status, eventually the leaders sought to kill Jesus, because He was beginning to threaten their very way of life, and they knew they could not beat Him any other way.

Shaming the Honored

Welcome! Today is our fifth of seven messages on shame and honor, both as they exist in many cultures around the world and in the cultures of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. The previous messages in this series have discussed such topics as the concept of face, community, family and kinship, and patronage.

Before we really get into today’s topic, I want to address a question I frequently see when others talk about the shame-honor perspective of the Bible. The question is, “Who is right – the innocence-guilt people or the shame-honor people?” The answer is that both are in the Bible, so both are right. I would argue, however, that the shame-honor perspective is much more prevalent in the Bible than the innocence-guilt perspective. For example, let’s take the Book of Romans – after all, if any book is going to go solidly innocence-guilt it is this one, right? Well, let’s look at Romans 1:23, 2:23, and 3:23, along with surrounding verses.