Day 331 (1 Thessalonians 1-5, 2 Thessalonians 1-3) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. If you're doing our New Testament plan, today we finished our seventh and eighth books. And if you're doing the whole Bible, we finished our 46th and 47th books. These two books are Paul's letters to the church at Thessalonica. We met them yesterday in Acts 17. Paul, Silas, and Timothy spent a lot of time with them until the local Jews, who were jealous of their ministry, formed a mob and basically drove them out of town.

Paul really loves the people of this church, so he writes them this letter to speak words of encouragement and love. He starts out by telling them a few of the ways their lives demonstrate that God has chosen them to be a part of his family. First of all, they've received the gospel wholeheartedly and the Holy Spirit came to them as well.

Second, they started spreading the word to other people. They received and lived out and shared the gospel. Paul says he and the guys mentored them and then they started mentoring others. They took what they learned from Paul and made Macedonian mentees. Third, they've turned from their idolatry and worship the one true God. We also see here that there is wrath coming, but Jesus is the one who delivers us from it because God's kids will never experience his wrath.

Then Paul recounts the story of how they met. He'd just been beaten up and imprisoned in Philippi, but he didn't stop preaching. He came to Thessalonica to share the gospel with them even in the face of opposition. He didn't come there to be popular or powerful, and he didn't come there to get rich. Even though the apostles had a right to demand that the church take care of them, they didn't make use of that right. In fact, they worked overtime so that they could share the gospel and their lives with the Thessalonians.

2.12 says Paul exhorted and encouraged and charged them to live in a way that shows they believe the gospel and that glorifies God. They did, and as a result, they encountered persecution.

Paul really wants to see them again, but he says Satan hindered him. Some scholars think this is a reference to what happened the last time he was there, when Jason posted Baal. It seems like there may be some kind of restriction against Paul returning. Or it could be something totally different. We don't know. But he reassures them that it's not his choice. He loves them. He even calls them his crown of boasting before God.

So there are two things worth pointing out here. First, the idea of boasting to God sounds ridiculous, right? Of course. But Paul isn't boasting in what he has done. He didn't save the Thessalonians. The crown of boasting is boasting in what God has done. In fact, some scholars believe these are the crowns we will lay at his feet, the people we've led to him and built up in him.

In chapter 3, Paul talks about the struggles they've been enduring separately. Both he and the Thessalonians have suffered persecution. He tells them that we are promised struggles. They shouldn't come as a surprise. But because Paul wanted to check in on them in the midst of their trials, he sent Timothy to them, who comes back with word that they're doing awesome. It makes Paul all the more excited to see them again, so he prays that God will give them that opportunity. In the meantime, though, he continues doing what he does—exhort, encourage, and charge.

He tells them to keep living lives of honor and purity, even when it comes to things that are culturally dishonored, like sex, because that is God's will. In fact, this is one of the few places in Scripture where God's will is stated loud and clear. 4.3-5 says, This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

God's will is that we be sanctified. That word basically means made clean. You may remember that in Christ we've already been declared clean. The word for that is justified. But to be made clean is to be sanctified. Justification is a one-time event. Sanctification is a lifelong process. And 523 tells us that God himself is the one who sanctifies us. We can't and don't do that ourselves. It's his will and it's his work.

He provides all that he requires of us. God also says his will is that even our sexual impulses are controlled by the spirit, not by the flesh or the culture. So if you want to pray a prayer that God loves to say yes to, ask him to sanctify you because we already know that's his will. So we can pray according to his will.

We hit another loud and clear declaration of God's will in 5, 16-18, which says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. In chapter 4, it seems they may have been concerned about all those who lived before them, who died before they ever heard about Jesus. In 4.14, he reassures them that any of their ancestors who believe in the promise, even though they've never heard of Jesus, were still saved by him through faith in God's promise.

It says, Through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

People in the Old Testament were saved by faith, not by works, just like those of us who live after Christ died. After Paul sends his first letter, the church's circumstances grow worse. They're under more persecution externally. And internally, there are some false teachers spreading lies and sometimes even claiming those false messages are from Paul himself, probably by forging a letter from him, because he goes to great lengths at the end of this letter to make sure they know it's authentic.

They're scared and confused, so Paul writes his second letter to help set the record straight.

He starts out his encouragement by reminding them that God will give them relief in their persecution and that he can be trusted to bring judgment on their persecutors. In 1.9, he says they'll suffer eternal destruction. And this isn't in the text, but it's kind of obvious given that Paul saw as the one writing this letter. The other alternative besides destruction is that the persecutors repent like Paul did, in which case the persecutors don't receive justice. They receive mercy and their punishment is transferred to Christ.

Paul devotes a lot of chapter 2 to one of the lies the false teachers have been spreading in the church. They say that Jesus has already returned and that they've been forgotten and abandoned by him. Paul is like, no, no, no, he has not come back yet. If he had, you would know it. It would be obvious, not just some rumor. Paul says there will be a major rebellion against God, led by the man of lawlessness, who will try to take control of the temple of God. The

The way the phrase Temple of God is used in Greek gives it a lot of flexibility. It doesn't necessarily have to refer to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 70 AD shortly after this letter was written. It could refer to a pagan temple, or it could even be more symbolic than literal, referring to him trying to take over a position of leadership in the church. Regardless, Paul says they don't need to lose any sleep over it because Jesus will put a stop to it by the breath of his mouth. Wow.

And as for those who want nothing to do with God, he's finally and eternally giving them what they want. They refused the truth, and God gave them over to believe the lie. And as for God's kids, Paul encourages them in chapter 3 that God will protect them from Satan and his lies. He encourages them not to lose heart, to stay awake, to not grow weary.

My God shot is all of God's action in these books. Even though Paul's letters seem to speak primarily to the relationship he has with the church and what's happening in their lives, these pages are dense with theology.

We can barely make it four lines without Paul giving God the credit for something amazing that's happening. If you have time, go back and slow down and look for all the things God is doing here. Here are a few of my favorites. From 1 Thessalonians, 3.12 says, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all. God grows love. In 3.13, Paul asks God to establish your hearts in blameless and holiness.

From 2 Thessalonians 1.3 says, We ought always to give thanks to God for you, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Paul thanks God, not them, that their love and faith is growing. He credits God as the initiator of faith and love.

111 says,

Look at all the things he's doing and this isn't even the half of it. This sets my heart at rest. All the striving to be worthy, all the attempts to get my act together. I can lay it all down and be carried by the God who provides all he requires. He's where the rest is and he's where the joy is. We're about to wrap up a trip through the Bible. And if this is your first time completing that, may I suggest something for you to start thinking and praying through?

Lots of people end up here because they have a goal to read through the Bible. That was certainly my goal the first time I did this reading plan. But I'd like to encourage you to have a better goal than I had. If reading through the Bible is the goal, you might be inclined to just check the box and stop after your first trip through. So this is a good time to start adjusting your goal if that has been your aim. As Christ followers, our goal should be to pursue a deeper daily relationship with God through continual study of His Word, among other things.

We've built out some tools to help you with that. For instance, if you struggle with prayer like I do, we've got our second daily podcast to help you pray through the Bible in a year. It's called The Bible Kneecap, and you can access it through our Patreon. And you can hear a free sample at our website if you click on the kneecap link.

Now let's say you want some tools to help you dig into deeper study or to discuss what you're learning with a group of others who are doing TBR. If so, you can check out our daily study guide and our weekly discussion guide in our web store. Don't get me wrong, crossing this finish line is a big deal, but we're trying to put tools in your hands to help you stay engaged beyond just this finish line of this trip through scripture. We're glad you're here and we'd love for you to stick around with us for next year and invite your friends to join us.

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