Building A Church Of Thessalonica For The 21st Century | A Study Of 1 And 2 Thessalonians | Part 1 | Introduction | Dr. Madana Kumar Series

Building a Church of Thessalonica for the 21st Century: A study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians Part 1: Introduction | Dr. Madana Kumar, PhD

We are beginning a series of studies on the Epistles of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. In today’s study we will look into a bit of history, set the context and look into the question of why we should study these epistles.

Thessalonians is chronologically one of the earliest, if not the first epistle to be written by Paul, even though it appears towards the end of the Paulean epistles in the Bible. Some studies show that Galatians is the first epistle, and Thessalonians the second. Thessalonica is a city in modern Northern Greece, Capital of the region of Macedonia and the second largest city in Greece after Athens. It is a port city and an important trade route. This city was founded in 315 AD and named after the half-sister of Alexander the great Thessaloniki.

It is interesting to see the circumstances that led to the formation of the church in Thessalonica. All of you have heard about what is normally referred to as the Macedonian call. The church of Thessalonica was formed as result of the Macedonian call.

When we study the book of Acts, we come across three distinct missionary journeys of Paul. The first missionary journey can be seen in Acts Ch 13 and 14, in the years AD 46 to 48. This missionary journey was primarily to establish churches. Antioch, Cyprus, Iconium, Lystra etc are some of the churches founded during the first missionary journey.

The second missionary journey can be seen in Acts Ch 15 to 18, during the years of AD 49 to 52. The objective of this journey was a mix of founding new churches and strengthening the old churches that they founded earlier. Paul and his co-labourers Silas, Timothy and Luke, the author, were planning to go to Asia for preaching the gospel there, but the Holy Spirit prevented them from going to Asia (Acts 16:6). We don’t know the exact details of how the Holy spirit prevented them. Thinking in today’s context, It could have been the cancellation of all flights to Asia, or worse even, it could have been that their FCRA was withdrawn by the government, and hence the funding stopped. We don’t know the details, but we have the word to tell us that there were prevented from going to Asia. So they are left clueless as to what to do, wondering what is the Lord’s plans.

Has it happened to you? You make some grand plans, and then everything falls apart and you are left clueless on what is the next step. It has happened to me.

But the good news is that God never leaves you clueless for a long time. For Paul, his new direction comes in the form of a man from Macedonia appearing in his dreams and asking him to come and minister to them in Macedonia (Acts 16:9). Paul immediately obeys the divine command, and makes arrangements to travel to Macedonia. You will notice that this is one of Paul’s characteristics. Once he is convinced that the direction is divine, he does not procrastinate. He acts on it immediately. Paul himself affirms this when he speaks to King Agrippa (Acts 26:19). How about us? When we get a Godly vision, do we act on it on sleep on it? Especially when it comes to sharing the gospel with others.

Back to Paul’s journey. They reach Philippi first and stay there for some days (Acts 16:11-40). As in many cases of Paul, his stays are brief, but packed with dramatic events. We all know about Paul’s arrest in Philippi, the earthquake in the middle of the night, that resulted in the conversion of the jailer and the release of Paul.

It is after this that they reach Thessalonica. One thing to note is that, even though their trip to Philippi and Thessalonica was in response to a divine call, communicated through a dream, there is no welcome party waiting for them in either of the places. This is the hard truth about evangelism. There is certainly a divine call, but don’t expect a warm welcome when you step out in faith. This can be seen in the lives of modern missionaries like David Livingstone or William Carrey etc., also. They get a divine call, they set out based on that call, and end with hostile reception at the place where they were called to evangelise. A point for us to reflect on is this. How will we react, if we end up in such a situation? We obey God’s calling and find that we are not welcome at the place where God called us to. This could be a neighbour’s home, it could be different city, it could be a different organisation. On a lighter side, the only entity that welcomes you warmly when you go there the first time, is a new church you decide to go to. This is because all churches are looking for new members and anyone accidentally walking in gets mobbed with warm welcome, hoping that they will continue to come to the church. Probably that is one reason why there is so much church hopping. You start getting a feeling that you are being taken for granted in your church. You decide to go and check out another church, you get a warm welcome, you decide to stay with that church for some time. This is recycling of believers, not church growth.