5/14/18
Tom Lowe
Lesson 4: Their Reputation in Every Place (1 Th 1:8-10)
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10 (NIV)
8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it,
9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Lesson 4
8 The Lord’s message (see note 8.4) rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia (see note 8.2)—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it,
In describing how the Thessalonians were a model Christian community and giving further proof of the effect of the Gospel on them, Paul gives another indication of their election (see note 8.3): their vigorous sharing of their faith. Their “works of faith and labor of love” (v. 1.4) expressed itself in their sharing of the Gospel with others. They were both “receivers” (the Word came to them, 1 Thessalonians 1:5) and “transmitters” (the Word went out from them, 1 Thessalonians 1:8). Each believer and each local church must receive and transmit God’s Word. Their progress was remarkable in that what Paul and his companions had preached (v. 5) and the Thessalonians had received (v. 6); they were now sharing on the widest scale possible. Paul affirms that these converts played a substantial part in this ever-widening scope of Christian witness. It is the responsibility and privilege of each local church to share the message of salvation with the lost world. In the New Testament churches, the entire congregation was involved in sharing the Good News (Acts 2:44-47; 5:42).
Thanks be to God! If salvation were the work of man, we would have every right to be discouraged and quit. But salvation is the work of God, and He uses people to call out His elect. “He called you by our Gospel” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). The same God who ordains the end (the salvation of the lost) also ordains the means to the end (“the preaching of the Gospel”). There is no conflict between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, even though we cannot reconcile the two. It was John Calvin who said, “Only the man who has learned to put himself wholly in subjection to God is truly converted to Him”
With Thessalonica as the starting point (“from you”), the message (OT?the word of the Lord) “rang out” (v. 8) like Brass instruments (trumpet, etc.) that keep on sounding. But the Thessalonians were not “tooting their own horns,” as the Pharisees did (Matthew 6:1-4). The Thessalonians were trumpeting forth the Good News of salvation, and their message had a clear and certain sound to it (1 Corinthians 14:8). “Rang out” implies the persistence of their testimony over an ever-increasing expanse—“not only in Macedonia and Achaia . . . everywhere” (or “in every place”). So impressed was Paul with how far the Gospel had progressed through the Thessalonians’ faithful witness that he obviously indulges in a type of overstatement. “Everywhere” is clearly not worldwide in scope; in writing to the Romans some five years later, Paul implied that Spain had not yet been evangelized (Romans 15:19, 20, 24 (see note 8.1); he probably meant the Roman Empire of Paul’s time. Part of the Thessalonians’ outreach stemmed from their location on the Egnatian Way and the Thermatic Gulf with access by sea to the whole Mediterranean world. But the largest factor was their diligence in communicating their faith to others. This was probably reported to Paul by Silas and Timothy upon returning from Macedonia (Acts 18:5; 1 Thessalonians 3:6) and by Aquila and Priscilla from as far as Rome (Acts 18:2).
Paul was so carried away with the Thessalonians’ witness that instead of ending his account with “everywhere,” he added, “your faith in God has become known.” News of this believing relationship constituted part of “the Lord’s message” that had originated with them. It had gone forth and remained,? the believers were already talking about the faith and works of the church in Thessalonica; so it wasn’t necessary for Paul to tell them anything about it; though Paul later referred to it (2 Corinthians 8:1, 2). This reveals something of the great reputation this church had in that day.
We have here a description of conversion and its evidence. Conversion is a turning about—a change from sin to holiness, from unbelief to faith, from darkness to light, from Satan to God. The one item that Paul picks out to show the change in the converts is their faith: “your faith in God has become known everywhere.” What distinguished the early Christians from their pagan contemporaries was just this, their faith. They had come to put their trust in God, and this trust affected all that they did.
When a sinner becomes a Christian, the first step is repentance toward God—and repentance is turning face-about (half way around; 180 degrees), not turning around, which would mean that the unbeliever would still be traveling in the same direction. When a sinner hears the Gospel, is convicted by the Gospel and is drawn by the Holy Spirit to turn face-about, he automatically turns from idols when he turns to God.
The church at Thessalonica was made up primarily of Gentiles who had been heathen (1 Thessalonians 2:14; Acts 17:4, 5); however, there were a few Jews among them. There was also a great multitude of proselytes who had seemingly already turned from idolatry, but had not yet turned to the living God. It is not enough to turn from idols, for turning from does not save anyone. We must turn to the living God—by faith in His beloved Son.
Perhaps a preferable rendering of this verse would be, “For the Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but everywhere your faith toward God has become known, so that we do not need to say anything about it.”
8.1 “Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company” (Romans 15:24).
His plan was to stop off at Rome in route to Spain. He would not be able to stay long enough to enjoy all the fellowship with them that he would like, but his desire to enjoy their company would at least be partially satisfied. Then he knew that they would give whatever helps was needed to complete his trip to Spain.
Ancient Spain included the modem kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, or the entire Spanish peninsula. It came under Roman rule in 133 B.C., and became a “province,” but the conquest of the whole country was not complete until 19 B.C. By the apostle’s time it contained large numbers of Jews, and this would probably strengthen his desire to preach Christ there.
Whether the apostle ever fulfilled his plan of going to Spain is unknown; but there is no evidence at all that he did, and the presumption is that he did not undertake this voyage. His whole plan was probably derailed by the occurrences at Jerusalem, which led to his long imprisonment at Caesarea, and his being sent in bonds to Rome. The distant past offers no proof that he fulfilled his intention.
8.2 Macedonia and Achaia were two Roman provinces that comprised the
Territory known as ancient Greece. Thessalonica, the metropolis of Macedonia, was the chief station on the great Roman road—the Via Egnatia? which connected Rome with the whole region north of the Aegean Sea, and was an important center both for commerce and the spreading of intelligence. Wherever the trade of the merchant city extended, there the fame of the newly founded Church penetrated. Great was the renown of their own Alexander, the Macedonian monarch, known for his brilliant victories; but the reputation of the Thessalonian Christians was of a higher order and their achievements more enduring.
8.3 Election in the Bible, always involves responsibility. God chose Israel and made them an elect nation so that they might witness to the Gentiles. In the same way, God has chosen the church that we might be witnesses today. The fact that we are God’s elect people does not excuse us from the task of evangelism. On the contrary, the doctrine of election is one of the greatest encouragements to evangelism. The fact that God had His elect in Corinth encouraged Paul to remain there for a year and a half.
8.4 “The Lord’s message” is an expression designating God’s Word and God’s will revealed to men. Paul is very careful to make it known that the Gospel was not his word or the word of man ?“not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13) ?and must be presented without apology or alteration.
9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
Instead of Paul’s telling others what had happened in Thessalonica, others were giving him a twofold report about this Macedonian city. First, they describe how Paul, Silas and Timothy had entered the city (v. 5). Second this church had turned to God from idols (see note 9.1); the one God whom Paul preached as “the God that made the world and all things therein”; the living God, having life in Himself, and “giving to Paul life and breath and all things”; the true God, having in Himself the truth and substance of essential deity, in extreme contrast with an “idol, which is nothing in the world.” So though the Thessalonians did turn to God, they were enabled to do so only because the gospel came to them in the power of the Holy Spirit (v.5).
Two purposes for the Thessalonians turning to God are given in verses 9 and 10: “to serve—the (One) living and true God” (v. 9) and “to wait for His Son from heaven” (v. 10). Such service to God speaks of utter devotion and recognition of His rightful lordship over mankind. He alone is worthy of this, for He is “living,” in contrast to lifeless idols, and “true,” in contrast to counterfeit representations of Himself. The meaning is not the true as opposed to the false; the contrast is between the true and the unreal. These two words “serving” and “waiting” are characteristic of the Christian life. The Thessalonians served God and waited on the coming of Christ. The Christian is called upon to serve in the world and to wait for glory. The loyal service and the patient waiting were the necessary preludes to the glory of heaven.
When they worshipped idols, the Thessalonians had no hope. (Read psalm 115 for a vivid description of what it is like to worship an idol.) But when they trusted “the living God,” they had a living hope (1 Peter 1:2-3). Those of us who have been brought up in the Christian doctrine cannot understand the bondage of pagan idolatry. Before Paul came to them with the Gospel these people were without hope and “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). In Romans 1:15-22 the apostle shows that when one becomes a Christian, that one exchanges the bondage of sin for bondage unto righteousness, the believer being in bondage to God under grace. When one becomes a true believer he is no longer his own; he belongs to Christ.
Now someone might ask, “How can I (little man) serve God?” My answer is?serve Him in faithful obedience to every command, serve Him in the face of opposition and violent persecution directed against them—with every faculty of soul, body, and worth —in life, in suffering, in death. But in spite of persecution, the enemy failed to shake their faith in the message delivered to them.
The idolater is enslaved by his own passions and the iron bands of custom. His worship is mechanical, without heart, and without intelligence. The service acceptable to God is the full, spontaneous, pure overflow of a loving and believing heart. It is an ennobling service. It is a free loving service. Man becomes like what he worships; and since the object of his worship is often the creation of his own depraved mind, he is debased to the level of his own gross, polluted ideas. Idolatry is the corrupt human heart feeding upon and propagating its own ever growing corruptions. The service of God lifts man to the loftiest moral pinnacle and transfigures him with the resplendent qualities of the Being he adores and serves. It is a remarkable service. It brings rest to the world-troubled spirit, fills with abiding happiness in the present life, and provides endless joy in the future—results idolatry can never produce.
But I think the best reason of all for turning from sin to God is this: Christ is coming to judge the earth, and for that reason we should be fervent in our service to Him because we have little time remaining to further the work of Christ’s Kingdom before He returns. We should be prepared for Jesus to return at any time because we don’t know when He will come.
This verse as well as verse 5 indicates that there were those who said that Paul was in this business of preaching the gospel for what he could get out of it. The trouble in the early Church was that there were people who did attempt to cash in on their Christianity.
9.1 Any creature, real or imaginary, that you have vested with divine properties is an idol. An angel, a saint, an animal, a man, an idea, an object or anything to which we’ve ascribed omnipotence can become an idol—a false deity. Idolatry is a sin against which the most stanch warnings have been uttered in all ages, and on account of which the most terrible judgments have been inflicted, yet it is the worship of idols to which a man is most prone.
10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
The second purpose, “to wait (see note 10.1) for His Son from heaven,” strikes a doctrinal note prominent throughout the remainder of the Epistle. Paul’s second missionary journey as gauged by his preaching at Thessalonica and as reflected in these two Epistles stressed eschatological events surrounding the return of Jesus Christ from the Father’s right hand in heaven (Acts 17:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:2, 23; 2 Thessalonians: 2:1, 8). Primitive Christianity universally held that the resurrected and ascended Christ would return and their expectancy of this event implied its nearness. For Paul to include himself and his readers among those to be rescued from wrath at this future moment (“us”) shows that they expected this to happen before death. Had Jesus never been raised from the dead, He could never return, but since He had been raised, His future reappearance is guaranteed by that very resurrection (just as is His divine sonship, Romans 1:4).
It is not some mystical spirit but the historical personage “Jesus” who will return as rescuer of living Christians from the period of divine wrath at the close of the world’s present age of grace. Used technically, as it so frequently is in the New Testament, “wrath” is the title for the period just before Messiah’s kingdom on earth, when God will inflict earth’s inhabitants with an unparalleled series of physical torments because of their rejection of His will (Matthew 3:7; 24:21). That the wrath is pictured as “coming” or “approaching” indicates that it is already on its way and hence quite near. Throughout the Epistle, the events of Jesus’ future coming are eminent (“we who are still alive, who are left,” 4:15, 17). So near was the world to being plunged into an unexpected time of trouble (1 Thess. 5:2, 3) that it was on the brink of disaster. Such was the outlook of early Christendom and such was always a proper Christian anticipation. For John this wrath was not an “any-moment” possibility, even though quite near. For Paul however, prophetic events to precede the wrath had now been fulfilled? “who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last” (1 Thess. 2:15, 16). This future wrath should be distinguished from the present wrath of God currently being poured out against rebellious humanity (Romans 1:18-32). However, when the Gentile bride is taken out of all peoples the Lord Jesus will return and build again the tabernacle of David. He will sit on the throne of David, and the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters now cover the sea. There will be peace on earth, goodwill toward men; but this can happen only when Jesus returns for His Church, and that is the event for which the believers at Thessalonica are waiting. [Study Acts 15:13-18, and you will find a clear blueprint of God’s program for this age and His program to immediately follow the day of grace.]
Rather than fearing this time, however, Christians find an incentive to persevere (“endurance inspired by hope,” 1:3), because for them it will mean rescue rather than doom. Not even the stepped-up persecution of Christ’s followers that will mark this future period will touch them, for their deliverer will remove them from the scene of these dreadful happenings. Day by day, through His grace and power, we are also kept and delivered from the power of sin (1 Corinthians 10:13; Hebrews 13:5, 6). Finally, when Jesus comes in the Rapture we will be delivered from the very presence of sin (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; John 3:1, 2). We are justified by His blood, reconciled to God through His death, and we shall be saved from God’s wrath when Jesus comes to take-up His jewels . . . when He catches the true Church up in the clouds in the air to meet Him, where we will sit down at the marriage supper.
10.1 The word “to wait” occurs only here in the New Testament; it “implies sustained expectation.” Jesus who died to become the Deliverer of His people is shown to be one and the same with the glorified Son whose advent they await in the confidence that God has not appointed them to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through Him (5:9).
I would like to look at these verses from a little different point of view. Paul arrived in Thessalonica, he preached Christ. When he preached Christ, they turned to God from idols. Notice that he doesn’t say they turned from idols to God. Someone will say, “You’re splitting hairs.” I surely am. These are hairs that need to be split. We need to do some straight thinking about this.
We hear today that repentance is essential to salvation. Repentance and believing are presented as two steps in a process. Actually, they are both wrapped up in the same package, and you have them both right here. When Paul preached Christ, they turned to God from idols. I want you to see something that is very important. When they turned to God that is the work of faith; that is what faith did. The Lord Jesus said, “This is God’s work: to believe in the one whom he has sent” (John 6:29). These people turned to God from idols; they turned from idols, too. That’s right—and that is repentance. The repentance followed the turning to God. It didn’t precede it. When they turned to God, they automatically turned from idols. You cannot turn to Christ Jesus without turning from something, my friend. That turning from something is repentance.
I am sure that when the Thessalonian believers turned from their idols, they wept over the time they had wasted in idol worship. After they had turned to God, there was a real repentance over the misspent years. The turning to God came first, then they realized that turning to God meant turning from idols.
Now I want to point out that Jesus Christ the Savior of the world is to be preached to the world of lost sinners, but the message of repentance is preached to the church. Read the messages to the seven churches of Asia as recorded in Revelation, chapters two and three. The message of the Lord Jesus to the churches is to repent. Today it seems that the church is telling everyone outside the church to repent. The Bible teaches that it is the people in the church who need to repent. We need to get down on our faces before God and repent. That is not the message for us to give to the unsaved man down the street. He needs to know that he has a Savior!
