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OPEN BOOK: I THESSALONIANS – TIME TO GET SERIOUS

Path

BRUCE C WEARNE continues his look at the book of I Thessalonians…

To go on [and sum up] my brothers [and sisters], in this [letter] we are asking and urging you in the Lord Jesus, that having received from us [teaching] about how you should walk to please God, as you have been doing, you do so more and more.
     For you know the considered advice we gave to you through the Lord Jesus. For God’s will for you is about your sanctification, and it involves resolute avoidance of all sexual license, conducting your affairs in holiness and honourably, not with unholy obsessions [about what is not yours], as is the way of peoples who do not know God, not indulging yourselves, nor benefiting from tricking your brother in any way for it is the Lord, as we have previously so solemnly warned you, who redresses wrong in all such matters. For God has not called us to [remain in] corruption but to wholehearted holy engagement.
     Therefore to reject these [admonitions from us] is not to reject man’s views, but to be dismissive of God for He has given His Spirit to [dwell with] us. – I Thessalonians 4: 1-8/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne.

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A NARROW PATH: Paul urges believers in Thessalonica to avoid anything which would lead them astray. PICTURE: Alexander Milo/Unsplash.

 

“Paul insists upon a scrupulous avoidance of all that would lead astray, of all self-indulgence, of all one-upmanship, of all tricks to gain an edge, of all smarmy sexual perversion. Don’t go down the path of any of that, Paul advises. Keep yourself pure.”

This is serious. Paul realises the urgency of the situation. The church of Thessalonians has not only received assurance of their place in God’s Kingdom, but are now setting out on a redeemed creational path as the New Humanity in Christ Jesus. This is the path of obedience and blessedness.

Just as Abram, at the time his name was changed to Abraham, when he received the encouragement and admonition, “Walk before me and be perfect”, so now the Thessalonians are to walk with this call of God resounding in their ears and hearts. Abraham initially received the promise that in his line “all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed”. Then, when the promise of an heir through his wife was confirmed, he knew that this son would indeed be blessed of God who would maintain His promise, generation-to-generation. So also now, the church of the Thessalonians is urged by Paul to walk in God’s ways and to do so more and more.

Their walk is to be holy, a flourishing holiness. Paul continues to explain what this way of holiness involves. It is a path prefigured by Abraham and Sarah. On this path “all the peoples of the earth will find blessing for themselves”. He sets it out in explicit terms. This is no halting between two opinions. God has not called these people to a complacent dithering as if their current social situation is all there is. It isn’t. Their purpose, and ours, in God’s sight is a fruit-bearing integrity, a wholesome maturity.

It is a life of thankfulness to which we have been called. To be guided by God’s Spirit is to be assured of His faithfulness.

And so Paul insists upon a scrupulous avoidance of all that would lead astray, of all self-indulgence, of all one-upmanship, of all tricks to gain an edge, of all smarmy sexual perversion. Don’t go down the path of any of that, Paul advises. Keep yourself pure.

There is a reiteration here that in these matters of holiness, this urgent advice is not merely about the sharing of godly opinions –in the matter of maintaining our created integrity we are dealing with our response to the commandments of God, the strict statements of what it is to walk in His way with Him as Our God and we the people of His pasture, the flock He feeds by hand. (Psalm 95)

To be dismissive of this call is to be dismissive not of men, not even of Paul, but of God Himself.

 

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