Henry: Welcome to immerse, the daily bible reading experience.
Day 19.
Intro 2: II Thess: immersed in First Thessalonians,
the new believers in Thessalonica.
A city in the northern part of Greece needed both encouragement and guidance.
Paul had brought them the good news about Jesus, and they had joyfully embraced it.
This is described in the Book of Acts, but there were critical
gaps in their understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus.
Some of the Thessalonians had stopped working for a living probably based on the
assumption that Jesus would return soon.
Others were despondent because they were afraid that loved ones who
had died before Jesus returned, had missed their share in the kingdom.
Still, others were anxious about all the details related to when
and how Jesus would come back.
The believers also hadn't made a complete transition to their
new way of living in Christ.
Some in the community still indulged in sexual immorality and even adultery,
and some were undermining Paul's authority by questioning his motives.
Along with this, the Thessalonian believers were facing renewed
persecution, tempting some to fall away from their faith.
The Thessalonian community still needed the teaching and leadership of someone
like Paul, but he was no longer with them.
As described in Acts, the Jewish leaders in Thessalonica reacted angrily.
When Paul brought the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles, they set
events in motion that jeopardized the safety of Paul and Silas, making it
impossible for them to stay in the city.
Paul later sent his coworker Timothy to find out how the believers were
doing and to report back to him.
It may have turned out for the best that Paul was forced to move on from
Thessalonica and from other cities too.
The kind of opposition he faced in those cities forced him to find a new way to
guide the communities he had started.
Since he couldn't remain with them in person, he developed a pattern of teaching
them through letters and messengers.
Even as he started new communities of Jesus followers elsewhere, these letters
were later gathered together and became a major portion of the New Testament.
They have given God's people through the centuries an essential window for
viewing and understanding the message and meaning of early Christianity.
Letters in Paul's day had a common form typically consisting of three parts,
an opening, a main body, and a closing.
An the opening writers would give their name, identify whom they were
writing to, and offer a good wish or prayer for the recipients expressing
gratitude for the relationship.
In the main body, they would introduce and deal with various items of business.
In the closing, they would often name and vouch for the person
delivering the letter who would likely read it aloud to the recipients.
Then the writers would extend personal greetings and pass
along greetings from others.
They might also say when they hoped to see the recipients next, and then
they end with a final good wish.
Paul makes masterful use of this ancient letter writing form.
He often uses the standard opening and closing elements.
To summarize the letter's main themes, this first letter to the Thessalonian
believers, the earliest letter we have from Paul provides the guidance and
support they will need to continue following Jesus with maturity and
courage with his opening words.
Paul rejoices in their eager reception of the good news and acknowledges
the suffering they're experiencing because of their faith in Jesus.
Then just before his final greetings, he efficiently summarizes his
responses to the challenges that Thessalonian believers are facing.
He tells them to work hard, live peacefully, and care well for others.
In the midst of this letter, Paul focuses on the great vision of Jesus'
glorious return as king and our great hope of the resurrection of the dead.
This vision and hope will sustain the Thessalonians as they seek to live
renewed lives that are pleasing to God.
The first letter to the Thessalonians.
This letter is from Paul Silas and Timothy.
We are writing to the church in Thessalonica to you who belong to God,
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
May God give you grace and peace.
We always thank God for all of you, and pray for you constantly as we
pray to our God and Father about you.
We think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you
have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We know dear brothers and sisters that God loves you and has
chosen you to be his own people.
For when we brought you the good news, it was not only with words, but also with
power for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true.
And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you.
So you received the message with Joy from the Holy Spirit.
In spite of the severe suffering it brought you.
In this way.
You imitated both us and the Lord as a result.
You have become an example to all the believers in Greece
throughout both Macedonia and Akaya.
And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere,
even beyond Macedonia and Ikea.
For wherever we go, we find people telling us about your faith in God.
We don't need to tell them about it, for they keep talking about the
wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve
the living and true God, and they speak of how you are looking forward
to the coming of God's son from heaven.
Jesus whom God raised from the dead.
He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.
You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters that our
visit to you was not a failure.
You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to
you and how much we suffered there.
Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his good news to you
boldly in spite of great opposition.
So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery
for we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the good news.
Our purpose is to please God, not people.
He alone examines the motives of our hearts.
Never once did we try to win you with flattery.
As you well know, and God is our witness, that we were not pretending to
be your friends just to get your money.
As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or
anyone else as apostles of Christ.
We certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead
we were like children among you or we were like a mother feeding
and caring for her own children.
We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God's
good news but our own lives too.
Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we
worked among you night and day?
We toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you
as we preached God's good news to you.
You yourselves are our witnesses and so is God, that we were devouted and
honest and faultless toward all of you believers and you know that we treated
each of you as a father, treats his own children, we pleaded with you, encouraged
you and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy for.
He called you to share in his kingdom and glory.
Therefore, We never stopped thanking God that when you received his
message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas.
You accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is.
And this word continues to work in you who believe.
And then dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution
from your own countrymen.
In this way, you imitated the believers in God's churches and Judea, who,
because of their belief in Christ, Jesus suffered from their own people.
The Jews, for some of the Jews killed the prophets and some
even killed the Lord Jesus.
Now they have persecuted us too.
They failed to please God and work against all humanity as they try
to keep us from preaching the good news of salvation to the Gentiles.
By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins, but the anger of God
has caught up with them at last.
Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while,
though our hearts never left you, we tried very hard to come back because of
our intense longing to see you again.
We want it very much to come to you and I, Paul.
Try it again and again, but Satan prevented us.
After all, what gives us hope and joy and what will be our proud reward
and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns, it is you.
Yes, you are our pride and joy.
Finally, when we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in
Athens and we sent Timothy to visit you.
He is our brother and God's coworker in proclaiming the good news of Christ.
We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith and to keep
you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through, but you know
that we are destined for such troubles.
Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles
would soon come and they did.
As you well know.
That is why when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out
whether your faith was still strong.
I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you and
that our work had been useless.
But now Timothy has just returned bringing us good news about your faith and love.
He reports that you always remember our visit with joy and that you want to
see us as much as we want to see you.
So we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering.
Dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith,
it gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord, how
We thank God for you because of you.
We have great joy as we enter God's presence.
Night and day, we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you
again, to fill the gaps in your faith.
May God, our Father and our Lord Jesus, bring us to you very soon, and may the
Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow
just as our love for you overflows.
May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and
holy as you stand before God, our Father, when our Lord Jesus comes
again with all his holy people.
Amen.
Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the
Lord Jesus, to live in a way that pleases God as we have taught you.
You live this way already and we encourage you to do so even more.
For you.
Remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
God's will is for you to be holy.
So stay away from all sexual sin.
Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness.
And honor not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God in his ways.
Never harm or cheat a fellow believer in this matter by
violating his wife for the Lord.
Avenges all such sins as we have solemnly warned you before, God has called us
to live holy lives, not in pure lives.
Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying
human teaching, but is rejecting God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
But we don't need to write to you about the importance of loving
each other for God himself has taught you to love one another.
Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers throughout Macedonia.
Even so dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more.
Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business
and working with your hands just as we instructed you before.
Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live and you
will not need to depend on others.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen
to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no
hope for, since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again.
We also believe that when Jesus returns.
God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
We tell you this directly from the Lord.
We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him
ahead of those who have died.
But the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, but
the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God first, the believers
who have died will rise from their graves.
Then together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the
earth, will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Then we will be with the Lord forever.
So encourage each other with these words.
Now, concerning how and when all this will happen, dear brothers and
sisters, we don't really need to write you for, you know quite well that the
day of the Lord's return will come unexpectedly like a thief in the night.
When people are saying everything is peaceful and secure, then disaster
will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman's labor pains
begin and there will be no escape.
But you aren't in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and
you won't be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief for you are
all children of the light and of the day.
We don't belong to darkness in night.
So be on your guard, not asleep like the others.
Stay alert and be clearheaded.
Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk, but let us who live in
the light be clearheaded protected by the armor of faith and love and wearing as our
helmet, the confidence of our salvation.
For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not
to pour out his anger on us.
Christ died for us so that whether we are dead or alive when he returns,
we can live with him forever.
So encourage each other and build each other up just as you are already doing.
Dear Brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord's work.
They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance.
Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work and
live peacefully with each other.
Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy and
encourage those who are timid.
Take tender care of those who are weak.
Be patient with everyone.
See that no one pays back.
Evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.
Always be joyful.
Never stop praying.
Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you
who belong to Christ Jesus.
Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.
Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said.
Hold on to what is good.
Stay away from every kind of evil.
Now, may the God of peace make you holy in every way and may your whole spirit
and soul and body be kept blameless Until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.
God will make this happen.
For He who calls you is faithful.
Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Greet all the brothers and sisters with a sacred kiss.
I command you in the name of the Lord to read this letter to
all the brothers and sisters.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
This concludes today's immerse reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.