Pre-quals
Every story has a back story. We may not always gain insight into the back story, but there are things impact characters and cultures.
When George Lucas wrote the original Star Wars series, he had in his mind some of the events leading up to the movie that many of us were first introduced to as episode three. It was only when the prequels were finally released 2 decades later that we got insight into the back story.
Shows like This is Us beautifully and artfully weave the past and present together in their story telling.
This is just as true in real life as it is in fiction. Our history together may have officially started on April 1, 2019, but the events in our lives leading up to that point shaped us into being the people we were the first time we met and even continues to impact how we live today.
When we come to the Epistles, we get a peek into the correspondence between the human author and Christians in a specific context. We don’t always get insight into their story. Often we are left with clues and bread crumbs that lead us to tidbits of information about the context. With the letters to the Thessalonians, we actually do get a bit of a back story. That back story reveals that this church had a rough beginning and grew up in the midst of a tumultuous environment.
Today, we begin a new series in the books of 1 & 2 Thessalonians entitled Pressed & Persecuted. In some ways, we could begin this series by reflecting on the Team Effort, True identity and the Tranquility in the midst of Turmoil found in the first verse of the letter...
1 Thessalonians 1:1 ESV
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.
But, I’d like for us to take a look into the prequal - into the history of the church in order to understand how it began. This will help us to understand the church but I think it will also help us as we live in the midst of an increasingly antagonistic society, but also as we seek to be faithful to share the good news of the gospel in the world in which we live.
If you have your bibles, open them to Acts 17. We’ll spend the remainder of our time reflecting on:
1. The Audience - and how that impacted...
2. The Apologetic
3. The Answer from the people in Thessalonica, and
4. The Adjustment that Paul, Silas, and Timothy had to make.
So, let’s begin by considering...
The Audience (Acts 17:1)
Paul is on his second missionary journey. He began this adventure with Silas/Silvanus and picked up Timothy along the way.
Initially, Paul wanted to go North East into Asia (after getting Timothy), but in a dream he was called to go to Macedonia - yet where - Macedonia was a huge province.
I do think this is important for us to consider briefly. There are plans that you and I may have - ideas, intentions, people that we’d like to minister to or share the gospel with, but God may have other plans. Paul’s diversion from Asia to Macedonia allowed him to have a profound ministry in several different places. Many of his letters come as a result of this diversion - Philippians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Corinthians. The book of James gives us a helpful reminder here:
James 4:13–15 ESV
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
So, the Lord didn’t will for Paul to go to Asia this time.
So, the trio first went to Philippi, where they had both a fruitful ministry and spent some time in prison.
Then, Acts 17:1 notes that they guys passed over Amphipolis and Apollonia - likely because there were no Jews or at least monotheistic, God-fearing greeks there.
So they end up in the town of Thessalonica - a “free town” which essentially meant that they didn’t have to pay taxes to Rome, and could mint their own coins. There was a loyalty to the Emperor, but they had a great deal of liberty.
Thessalonica was a largely wealthy and influential city because of it’s port and it’s position on the Via Egnatia - an ancient highway that connected Byzantium (modern Istanbul) and the Adriatic Sea. It was also a pagan city. They worshiped the pantheon of Greek/Roman Deities and engaged in all of the sexual and indulgent activities that accompanied worshiping these deities. But there was also a large enough Jewish population to support a synagogue.
It’s in this synagogue that Paul begins his conversations with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks. It is here, that Paul began to lay out...?
The Apologetic (Acts 17:2-3)
Paul began with where he had common ground - with the Jews and what is later referred to as God-fearing Greeks.
Acts 17:2–3 ESV
And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Paul had a pattern of going to the synagogues in the towns were he visited. This is both for a theological reason:
Romans 1:16 ESV
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Even Jesus affirmed this in his conversation with the woman at the well when he said that salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22).
Paul seemed to begin in synagogues and among Jewish people in order to explain what is often misunderstood.
But he also began in the synagogue for a relational reason
- common heritage
- some common religious beliefs - monotheistic, scripture, view of sin, creation, world
For us, I do think it’s important for us to look for places of commonality with the people with whom we share the gospel. We don’t have to be exactly alike - but finding common ground will help us to build bridges to the gospel…
- life-stage
- career
- educational background
- interests/hobbies
- children (xc meet)
When it comes to the content of what Paul shared, John Stott notes: (p. 18) that Paul used a very clear formula:
“First, he argued from the Old Testament Scriptures that the expected Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.” - Paul took what these people already believed - the Hebrew Scriptures - and explained the role that the Christ would have to suffer. As I look at passages like this or even Jesus’ conversation with the travelers on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24) - I’d love to know the details of what they covered. I do think the book of Hebrews is a beautiful connection between the OT and Jesus. Stott continues:
“Next, he proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth to them, doubtless telling the story of his life, death and resurrection.” - These are the truths, the stories that we love to tell. When we get to share the good news of who Jesus is, we help people to see and experience the love of God, the living Word of God. We get to tell of Jesus’ goodness, his compassion, his miracles, and so much more. There are clearly facts and stories that we can tell about Jesus, but I think we can also begin to note how Jesus has impacted us.
“And thirdly, he put his first and second points together, and declared that this Jesus was the Christ.” - It’s one thing to talk about prophecies that point to the Messiah, it’s another thing to take those prophecies and help people to understand the fulfillment of those prophecies. Several years ago, I watched a video of a guy doing “man on the street” interviews with people in Israel. He took the Jewish Bible, specifically Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and asked them who this was talking about. It was not difficult for people to make the connection between the prophecy of the suffering servant and the life of Jesus.
Maybe our point of commonality is not the religious background, but our humanity. There are things that we can use to connect people to God’s holiness, our fallenness, God’s solution in Jesus and our response.
There is a free app you can download called “Life on Mission” that has tools like:
- The Best News - bad news, worse news, good news, best news
- Three Circles - God’s design, our sin resulting in brokenness, the gospel and our opportunity to respond and believe, resulting in an opportunity to recover and pursue God’s design
You could also consider hosting an
- Alpha Course - a multi-week video based series of discussions designed to give people an opportunity to discuss and explore God.
But the best solution, is to simply share your story - your life before Christ, what God had done for you, and how things have been different since you met Christ.
Just as Paul did not do this alone, we don’t have to do this alone either. I recently heard about a man from Capitol Hill Baptist who intentionally went and shared the gospel with an individual. That initial conversation resulted in the man coming to church. He got involved in a smaller group and some exploratory studies. He was invited to share a meal with some church members. When the man finally came to faith, he gave testimony that it was the whole church that led him to Christ. There are things that we can do alone, but we are also in this together.
So Paul, Silas, and Timothy, began by understanding their audience and then laid out their apologetic over the course of three weeks. Next, Acts notes...
The Answer (Acts 17:4-9)
…that the people in Thessalonica gave. In many ways, this was a twofold response. For some, the answer was:
Acceptance
Acts 17:4 ESV
And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.
These are the responses that we want to hear. It seems that the “some of them” refer to Jewish people. In fact it seems like the synagogue leader Jason may have been among those who believed. He was sort of like an administrator. There were also some “devout Greeks” - people who had likely given up their pagan-polytheistic ways - but had not converted to Judaism. And then there were leading women - possibly both Jewish and Greek - women of influence in the community.
On that note, one of the interesting things that we can notice throughout the history of the church is that women have had a major role to play and have made up a majority of the members in the church. Ladies, thank you for your influence, your leadership, your example. You certainly seem to know how to do relationships better than men do. For those of you who are married to men who either do not believe in Christ or who do not actively put their faith into practice, thank you for being a faithful witness. Paul encouraged the Ephesians - Eph. 6:10 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” I would guess that some of these leading women in Thessalonica came to faith without their husbands.
This little back story also help us to see that from the outset, the church was an ethnically varied group - jews, gentiles of differing heritages, men and women. How are we doing in getting the gospel to people who are ethnically different from us? Are we being as welcoming, engaging, and inviting as we can be??
While there were some who answered with acceptance, others answered with...
Attack
The message of the gospel was offensive to some of these people and so they went to great lengths here in the early days of this new church to make life difficult for believers and for Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
Acts 17:5–9 ESV
But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
It is interesting how people will do unethical things when they feel like they or their belief system is threatened. We saw this when Jesus was tried before his crucifixion. The religious leaders brought in people who would give false testimonies in order to try to get a conviction.
One of the things that is interesting here is the fact that these people teamed up to create a mob. In the book of Acts, there are several times when Luke points out the presence of mobs. Protests like these were unlawful and were often squashed with violence. In Philippi it was the business leaders who started a riot. Here, Luke notes that it was the Jewish leaders who started it, but they invited non-Jews to participate. Here, the people who would at one point in time be reluctant to follow a pagan King, now join with people who were friends of convenience. I guess the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was true even back then.
This attack it was so disruptive that guys like Jason became imprisoned as collateral damage. Eventually, the new believers were so threatened by the violence that they urged Paul and his companions to leave. Unfortunately, as we will see in our study of these letters, the persecution persisted - even after Paul, Silas, and Timothy left.
How have you responded to the good news of the gospel? have you accepted God’s offer of salvation? Have you repented of your sin? Or have you rejected it?
Beyond this, there are times When it’s easy to think that adversity is a sign that we should not step into a certain place or ministry. Was Paul wrong to go to Thessalonica? What role does adversity play in the kingdom of God and in our lives? Adversity may come in different forms - sickness, conflict, resistance, financial collapse, social strife, and more.
So, after addressing their audience with a gospel apologetic and then receiving answers from believers and non-believers alike, Paul and his crew came to a place of adjustment.
The Adjustment (Acts 4:10a)
Acts 17:10 ESV
The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.
It is interesting that Paul didn’t appeal to the Roman leaders of the town as he had at other times - appealing to his status as a citizen. He simply followed the advice of the new brothers in Christ and left - heading for Berea.
I think it’s important for us to recognize that we are called to be faithful to live out and proclaim the gospel, but we are not called to save anyone. Ultimately, what someone believes and how they respond to the gospel is up to God.
In the OT, when the prophet Ezekiel was being called into ministry (Ezek. 2-3), God gave Ezekiel the words to say, but he also gave him a stern warning...
Ezekiel 3:18–21 NLT
If I warn the wicked, saying, ‘You are under the penalty of death,’ but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths. If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me.
“If righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. And if you do not warn them, they will die in their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn righteous people not to sin and they listen to you and do not sin, they will live, and you will have saved yourself, too.”
This was God’s specific call to Ezekiel, and yet as ambassadors and representatives of God in our communities, we do have been given a commission - a call to go and proclaim the good news.
We get to go and proclaim and then leave the responding to others.
While Paul, Silas, and Timothy went on from there to Berea, Athens and beyond, they didn’t give up on these new believers though. They wrote the letters we are considering. They also did not compromise. They continued to faithfully pursue and proclaim Christ everywhere they went.
Closing thoughts:
The church in Thessalonica may have had a rough beginning, but one thing that we got to see is that Paul, Silas and Timothy were faithful to communicate to these people the hope of the gospel. As we’ll see over the next several weeks, they were also faithful to encourage and instruct this new church in the hope of eternity.
May we be fully aware of the audience that God has placed before us that we might proclaim an appropriate apologetic, granting them the opportunity to answer the call of the gospel, making necessary Spirit-led adjustments along the way.
Let’s pray.
Benediction:
(for the congregation to read aloud together).
Matthew 28:19–20 ESV
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Discussion Questions:
- How did the Holy Spirit speak to you through this text/message?
- What audience has God given or led you to share the gospel with? (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, classmates) Is there anyone that God seems to be laying on your heart?
- What is the gospel? How would you explain the gospel to a child, friend, or family member?
- How did you become a follower of Christ?
Sources:
Bowes, William B. “Uprisings and Mob Violence in Acts and in the First Century.” Themelios 48, no. 2 (2023): 317–331.
Gordley, Matthew E. “Synagogue.” Edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
Green, Gene L. The Letters to the Thessalonians. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2002.
Holmes, Michael. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998.
Stott, John R.W. The Message of 1 & 2 Thessalonians. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove, IL; Intervarsity Press, 1991.
