| Teacher: Rusty Kennedy Series: 1 Thessalonians (Acts) |
Rusty's Notes | |
- We left off 2 weeks ago with Paul encouraging the Church to live in holiness (learning to live out of their new heart).
LOVING AND WORKING
1 Thessalonians 4
9 About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.
- Paul makes the jump from holiness to love pretty quick.
- The only way to live in holiness is being empowered by the Holy Spirit in us. Allowing Him to do it.
- If the Holy Spirit is working in and through us, then love is not a difficult jump from holiness.
- In the Greek language we have 4 common usages of the word “love”
- Eros (erotic) – Can be sinful or sensual. Not used in the New Testament. Eros the word was reduced in quality
- Storge (pronounced STOR-jay), refers to family love, the love of parents for their children. This word is also absent from our New Testament.[1]
- Philia – Brotherly love; deep affection such as in friendship or even a marriage.
- Christians share this love because we have the same Father. Our Father teaches us to “love another”
- Agape - the love God shows toward us. It is not simply a love based on feeling; it is expressed in our wills.
- It is a self-sacrificing love
- Agape love treats others as God would treat them, regardless of feelings or personal preferences.[2]
- When one is given a “new heart”, it is natural for them to love. It is a believer’s distinctive character to love. Just as a fish swims and a bird flies.
- How does God cause our love to “increase more and more”? By living… our circumstances force us to practice Christian love.
- Love is the “circulatory system” of the body of Christ, but if our spiritual muscles are not exercised, the circulation is impaired.
- The difficulties that we believers have with one another are opportunities for us to grow in our love.
- This explains why Christians who have had the most problems with each other often end up loving one another deeply, much to the amazement of the world.[3]
- Unfortunately, some of the new believers in the church misunderstood the doctrine of Christ’s return and gave up their jobs in order to wait for His coming.
- This meant that they were supported by other Christians, some of whom may not have had sufficient funds for their own families.
- It also meant that these fanatical people could not pay their bills, and therefore they lost their testimony with the unsaved merchants.[4]
- Jesus is coming back so I am going to run up all my credit cards!
- I’m gonna win the lottery can I borrow some $$$
- I’m filing bankruptcy, I might as well spend as much as I can.
- The church was to live in this manner in order to “win the respect of outsiders” and “not be dependent on anybody” (v. 12).
- Thus a series of commands that begins with a concern for growing, mutual Christian love concludes with a concern for the church’s relationship to the non-Christian community.
- R. F. Hock presents another alternative to an eschatological understanding of these verses.
- He argues that the commands “to lead a quiet life” and to “mind your own business” were encouragements to political quietism.
- By avoiding political activism and working at respectable occupations, the church would gain the approval of their non-Christian neighbors.
- Some of the terms Paul used in these verses were indeed used by various Greco-Roman philosophers to encourage withdrawal from public life.
- Such encouragements would make sense in light of the apostle’s past experience in Thessalonica.
- After all, Paul was charged with causing social and political unrest in the city (Acts 17:6–7) and might have responded by advising the church to avoid political entanglements.[5]
- It should be clear from Paul’s own history, however, that living quietly did not mean the church should tone down its proclamation of the gospel.
- On the contrary, Paul consistently encouraged boldness in this regard.
- The church was not to live so quietly that they failed to function as witnesses of Christ both in word and deed. [6]
13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
- the verb koimaō literally means “to sleep,”
- this is a euphemism for death. (an agreeable or inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that might offend or suggest unpleasantness[7])
- So when Paul uses the word “sleep,” he’s using it in this figurative sense and referring to Christians who have already died.[8]
- Paul’s focus on what Timothy has reported is that they are grieving over the return of Christ.
- Self-focused – “What happens to us?”
- The ancient Greek writer Theocritus, lived about three hundred years before Paul, but he wrote a saying which is very helpful for our question here.
- He said simply this: He said, “Hopes are for the living; without hope are the dead.”
- This is a great quote because he uses the word “hope,” and he talks about it in the context of death.
- And Theocritus is clear that living people are the only people who can have hope, and [for] anybody who’s dead, well, hope is nowhere on the scene.
- That seems to echo, exactly, Paul’s claim in his opening assertion.[9]
- Paul is presenting his readers with something that he assumes—and they assume—is true.
- It’s going to be a foundation for an argument that Paul makes, and that’s why some translations render this verse not as “if we believe” but “since we believe”; or sometimes they just make it into a statement: We believe that such and such is the case.[10]
- This is a specific text that theologians associate with the “rapture”.
- I can break that down for you but we will miss the pastoral intent of Paul’s letter.
- So let me stay with the intent and I will briefly revisit this passage next week in light of the “rapture”.
- The Thessalonians are grieving over fellow Christians who have fallen asleep, who have died.
- And this is an easy trouble for us to understand because all of us, young or old, have experienced, also, the grief that comes from the death of a loved one.
- We have funerals and now they are called “Celebration of Life”.
- We can grieve and have hope at the same time.
- For instance, in Philippians 2:27 Paul refers to this helper that was sent to him from Philippi; his name was Epaphroditus. And Paul says that if Epaphroditus had died from his illness, Paul would have had “sorrow upon sorrow.” So Paul wouldn’t have felt guilty, and he expected to grieve if, indeed, Epaphroditus would die.
- In Romans 12:15 Paul has an important command; it’s simple but important. He says, “Weep with those who weep.” So Paul recognizes that some of the Christians in Rome are going to be suffering a number of trials, and that will lead to weeping.
- Would these family members and friends miss out on the return of Jesus?
- Paul is truly taking their focus back to the teaching of Jesus.
- The Gospels weren’t yet written but remember that Paul had the download of Jesus’ teachings back at his conversion.
- Matthew records some of Jesus teachings on His return in Matthew 24.
- Ask – “How many of you believe Jesus raised from the dead?”
- Paul is saying, “Well, as real as you believe Jesus rose from the dead, that’s how real you can believe your deceased loved ones will rise from the dead.”[11]
- Paul is reminding them to get their focus off yourself and back on Jesus.
- You will still experience grief because of death but grieve with hope. (unlike the others)
- Paul ends the passage by commanding the Christians to parakaleite;
- that is to, well, literally, to be called alongside of one another.
- And this word is the same word that the Gospel writer John uses in his Gospel to describe the Holy Spirit.
- Some older translations actually just take the noun form of the verb and they just render it “the Paraclete,” but the word and the verb refer to someone who is called to your side.
- And, what’s more, when we take seriously the notion of comfort in this closing verb, it’s yet a reminder of the point, and we’ll have to keep making it because it’s a temptation that many who fall into—and that is, to turn this into an end-time, prophecy-type discussion.
- I say to you, the primary purpose of Paul in this passage is not to predict but to pastor.
- In fact, [it’s] not just in this passage of the end times, [and] not just in the next passage, 5:1–11, but even in 2 Thessalonians.
- All three of these extended end-time discussions end with the same concern of Paul, [to comfort] his readers.
- So I know that these words of hope can be words of hope for you.
- And so as you perhaps have already been thinking, in the midst of our study of this passage, about someone you love who has already died, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will work together with His Word in such a way that, through your tears, you’re not grieving like the rest of men, but you’re a person who grieves with hope.
[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 177). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[2] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 177). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[3] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 177). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[4] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 177). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[5] Martin, D. M. (1995). 1, 2 Thessalonians (Vol. 33, pp. 136–137). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[6] Martin, D. M. (1995). 1, 2 Thessalonians (Vol. 33, p. 137). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[7] Merriam-Webster, I. (1996). Merriam-Webster’s collegiate thesaurus. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
[8] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[9] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[10] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[11] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[12] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (1 Th 4:9–18). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[13] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
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