Their Reputation In Every Place Series

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.