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OPEN BOOK: I THESSALONIANS – HOW THE GOSPEL CAME WITH “GENTLENESS”

Gospel

BRUCE C WEARNE continues his look at I Thesslonians…

 For you are well aware, brothers [and sisters], that our initiative toward you has not been in vain, even though it was just after we had suffered cruel treatment at Philippi. With God as our help we were emboldened in that great conflict to tell you God’s Good News.
     For our proclaimed message is neither deceitful, profane nor tricky, but having God’s approval we will speak as those placed in stewardship of this Good News, neither pleasing people, but [seeking to please] God, who tests [the genuineness of] our hearts.
     Consequently, as you know, and as God is our witness, we [certainly] didn’t use flattering speech as a cloak to gain advantage at your expense. And neither did we seek the recognition of anyone, either from yourselves or from others, even if, as Christ’s commissioned messengers, we might have leant upon you. But we were gentle [with and] among you, like a nurse caring tenderly for her children.
     It was with such a strong, loving bond that we not only passed on the Good News of God to you but were delighted to put ourselves at your disposal because you had become so very much belovèd by us. – I Thessalonians 2: 1-8/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne

Gospel

PICTURE: Ben White/Unsplash

 

“The deeply spiritual challenge that Paul seems to be presupposing here is to understand just how it is that a public, open and transparent proclamation of the truth, that has to be inspired by a comprehensive love of neighbour, is a test by God of the genuineness of faith.”

At the moment the Thessalonian church came into existence, a deep and undeniable blessedness came upon all those who believed. As we have noted, God’s Spirit does not alight on God’s people without there being personal, social and political consequences. In this case a church was born in the midst of great contention.

Such conflict, such agony, was also manifest repeatedly in the life of Jesus Himself and, as we have said, arose after His reading from the Prophets (Isaiah 61) at His hometown synagogue. It even came when He hung on the cross. Belief in God’s grace is confronted by unbelief. The challenge of that decisive confrontation is not so much to tempt believers to privatise their beliefs, or even to go to the other extreme and take up the zealot option – although both paths seem to have been taken, again and again, over the centuries when Christians have had to choose just how to respond to opposition. The deeply spiritual challenge that Paul seems to be presupposing here is to understand just how it is that a public, open and transparent proclamation of the truth, that has to be inspired by a comprehensive love of neighbour, is a test by God of the genuineness of faith.

Is it not significant that Paul reminds the Thessalonian church of his role as a caring, sensitive, mid-wife at the moment of their birth? The preaching of the Good News, the delight in the reception of God’s Kingly Rule in people’s lives, is not an initiative that goes looking for trouble. It is a birthing and nurturing activity that simply has to embody the fruit of the Spirit – gentleness along with love, joy and peace. It is a life of active caring enveloped within the Spirit’s oversight.

The public proclamation, in this case, it should be remembered, had begun in the examination of the Law and the Prophets in the Jewish synagogue. All were welcome to participate and clearly some influential Greek women of means did so and believed. But it was then dragged into the public square by some scurrilous ratbaggery, requiring the political authorities to become involved. It was the emergence of the same old jealously within the Jewish community – the violation of the 10th commandment – that had demanded Jesus’ death. This bitterness, as we noted already, had been at the root of Saul’s rage against the Christians, His persecution of Jesus Himself, as His Lord had intervened in his life to tell him. The difficulty as much for those of us who believe as for those who don’t, is with reckoning with Saul’s conversion and the work the Holy Spirit then directed in Paul the apostle. This involved his ongoing provocative efforts to see his countrymen embrace their Messiah.

The Christian church, in the midst of this contention, finds itself digging deep to discover that it has been sent on its way by the prayer of Jesus Himself, the prayer He made for those bent on His crucifixion at the moment of His execution: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do!”

It is a project set in train at Pentecost, with the coming of the Spirit upon the company of believers, in the declaration of divine amnesty for all who repent and believe the Good News. The message has ever been – if we – Peter and John and the rest of us, and Paul, who had hitherto opposed Israel’s Messiah by deserting Him, by our cowardice, by our persecution – can receive God’s grace then, truly, there are no grounds for withholding the Good News from anyone else.

It is that Good News which, ever and again, forges solidarity of the closest kind, full of grace and peace, full of love and gentleness, a compassion that remains firm even when dark clouds of struggle, conflict, pain and contention threaten to envelope us. 

 

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