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Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians 1: 1-4, 11-12 (NIV)
1 Paul, Silas and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Christian church which Paul founded in Thessalonica seems to have been comprised, initially, by some of the Jews whom Paul met in the synagogue there, together with “a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women” (Acts 17: 4). Despite the fact that other Jews hounded Paul and Silas so that they were forced to leave Thessalonica and move on to Berea, the church remained, growing in numbers and in faith. Paul’s letters to that church speak of his encouragement for the believers and of his delight in their love, their faith and their perseverance.
We should take notice of the reasons for Paul’s thanks to God. He wrote of:
- their faith which was growing more and more;
- their love which all of the members of that church had for one another, a love that was increasing; and
- his boasting to other churches about their perseverance, noting that this was in the face of persecutions and trials which seemed to be continuing.
How pleasing to God it would be if the same could be written about and said of each of our own worshipping communities!
Paul constantly prayed for this church. He wanted them to continue faithfully to the end, whenever that may come. He told them of the content of his prayers as a means of indicating what he considered their goals should be:
- relying on God to the extent that they would prove worthy of being called by him into his church;
- desiring goodness in all aspects of their lives as a result of God’s power at work in them;
- achieving the works of God which God led them to undertake because of their faith in him;
- bringing glory to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and, as a consequence, being brought into his glory; and
- relying in all of this on the grace of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, how pleasing to God it would be if the same could be written about and said of each of our own worshipping communities! Let us strive prayerfully to make it so.