Participants: Jon Paulien & Jon Ciccarelli
Series Code: TBOTB
Program Code: TBOTB000005A
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00:21 Welcome to Books of the Book, we are studying the letters
00:25 of Paul to the Thessalonians. 00:27 I'm Jon Pauline, dean of the school of religion at Loma 00:32 Linda University and with me is my Pastor, Jon Ciccarelli 00:36 Pastor of the Calimesa Seventh-day Adventist church. 00:38 What will we be looking at today Jon? 00:40 Well Jon we are going to start picking it up in 00:44 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12 and here Paul is talking about his 00:48 time with them, and his intent behind the things when he 00:53 was with them. Why don't you take us there? 00:56 Well in Chapter 1 he is focusing on the church. 00:59 So in all that he was talking about them, he's praying for 01:04 them, he is thankful for them, and reciting all the 01:06 things that they are doing. 01:07 But in this passage, he switches from the church to the 01:11 apostles and what is really special I think about this 01:16 passage, is it gives us a window into Paul's inner 01:20 emotions and motivations and so forth. 01:23 This is pretty rare actually in the New Testament, 01:28 or even in the Scriptures as a whole. 01:30 Psalms would be an example I think in the Old Testament 01:33 where you have a lot of introspection, a look inside 01:37 of an inspired writer. 01:39 But this is one of the clearest places for Paul and 01:43 it is pretty exciting. 01:44 Paul is talking about motivation for ministry. 01:48 Why would one want to go into ministry? 01:50 Why would one want to be a missionary? 01:53 Why would one want to be an evangelist? 01:55 What are the things that lie behind this? 01:58 He goes through a whole list of the kinds of motivations 02:01 that people had in the ancient world for doing similar types 02:05 of work, rules them all out and says really there is only two. 02:09 He says I'm motivated by what God thinks, 02:12 and I am motivated by my love for you guys. 02:14 So we will get into that in a little more detail here. 02:19 Why don't you read the first couple verses of the chapter? 02:23 Sure, 1 Thessalonians 2:1, 2 Paul says, 02:50 Now this brings us back to that time when he was in 02:53 Philippi before he came to Thessalonica and they were 02:56 beaten, they were beaten and thrown into prison. 02:59 They really had it tough, and they came to Thessalonica 03:02 beat up and bruised. 03:03 What was it like in the prison, how did they confine them? 03:07 They wanted them in the deepest part. 03:09 The inter part of the prison, and would put their feet 03:12 in stocks and locked them up. 03:14 So they were in confinement, chained up and could hardly 03:18 even move. - Right, and thank God at midnight there 03:21 singing hymns and praying prayers and God sends 03:24 an earthquake to let them out. 03:26 Of course the jailer gets saved as 03:28 we read later in the story. - Umhumm! 03:30 So here in the first couple verses of 1 Thessalonians 2 03:34 they are referring back to that experience when they 03:39 entered Thessalonica, they had visible signs of those 03:43 beatings, there were bruises, there were probably cuts, 03:48 they were really pretty beat up. 03:51 I think the important thing, the reason he brings it up 03:55 here is to say, a lot of people coming to town here. 03:59 A lot of people say stuff, a lot of people teach stuff. 04:03 For a lot of people it's not real, it's a way to earn 04:07 an easy living, but he says for us it's real. 04:11 If it wasn't real we wouldn't have brought the Gospel to 04:14 you, you see, because they were all beat up. 04:18 Any human kind of condition they should have quit 04:23 preaching, if this was phony we wouldn't even have come. 04:28 So it was very clear that the message was genuine, 04:32 and they truly honestly believed it deep inside. 04:35 And Paul also wants to make the point that God was with 04:39 us, we became bold. 04:44 You know there is a sense that God took over in spite 04:48 of all these things, God took over. 04:49 And this word, inner struggle, that's a translational 04:52 little bit different than what you will see 04:54 in most Bible translations. 04:56 In the Greek is the word Agonie, it is where we get agony 05:01 from in the English, it's actually a Greek based word. 05:05 And even in the English agonies could be physical but it 05:10 can also be emotional. - Sure! 05:12 Now in the Greek that term was particularly used for 05:16 athletics, the Olympians striving to reach the marker 05:20 and win the race, it's the agony, the agony of defeat. 05:25 The agony and ecstasy and stuff. 05:27 But in the New Testament that word is consistently used 05:32 for more inner struggle. 05:34 There are words for persecution, there are words for 05:37 getting beat up and mistreated, and you see some of those 05:40 in this verse, but this particular word is about inner 05:44 struggle, Paul is opening up the inside and saying, 05:47 we are apostles, we struggle too. 05:49 We have our challenges, we are not always sure what 05:52 God is doing in this situation, or how we should 05:56 relate to other people. 05:57 So another thing they mention in this text is access. 06:02 The Thessalonians had something to do with this too. 06:06 They were open, they were accessible, they were free, 06:11 they were hungry for this thing. 06:13 So Paul experiences the Thessalonians desire for the 06:17 message as he experiences God's power and working. 06:20 They pick up emotionally from these wounds and 06:24 get after it again. 06:26 Jon one of the things I like about what you said is how 06:29 they became bold, sometimes I think we accept Christ, 06:32 go be bold, and if we are not bold all the time we 06:35 sometimes feel guilty, or were not doing what we should. 06:38 I like how you brought out, he became bold and the 06:41 boldness came as he experienced God, Christ in his life, 06:45 through the sufferings and the Spirit continued 06:48 to make him bold. 06:49 I think about suffering and how much, probably almost 06:52 all our prayers from the day we are children, protect 06:55 us from suffering, and yet sufferings seems to be such 06:59 a means, if you will, of us letting go and letting 07:03 God do more in our life. 07:05 Again, I mentioned once before from Hebrews 5, where it 07:09 talks about Jesus, even though He was a Son He learned 07:14 obedience through suffering. 07:15 I think in my own life and those that I've counseled with, 07:19 suffering seems to be, if we look at our life like 07:21 a vessel, suffering seems to be one of those things 07:25 that begins to break the vessels so they can expand and 07:28 they can grow, and in a sense, a little bit in the sense 07:31 there is more room for God's grace in our life. 07:34 We can grow and the vessel can expand, and yet those 07:38 wounds that God brings healing to, also act as a way for 07:42 God's grace to kind of ooze through the cracks, 07:44 if you will, you're with people you have experienced 07:47 and I have when you are with people who are suffering. 07:50 If you have suffered you understand it a little bit more. 07:53 You're more gracious, your more gentle, you're not there 07:56 to stand and rebuke, be trusting God more, but to be 07:59 with them in the suffering and let God ministers them through 08:03 you, so suffering is a huge thing for us to grow as 08:07 Christians to continue to let loose of the reins of our 08:10 lives and trust God in the things of our lives. 08:14 So like I said he became more bold. 08:17 Those suffering I think were key and a part of that. 08:20 Even the apostles were in this process of growing and 08:22 becoming more like Jesus. 08:25 Let's go on to verse 3, and I should mention to our 08:28 viewing audience that the translations of 1 Thessalonians 08:32 are my own, and the reason is not any disrespect for other 08:37 Bibles translations but sometimes the grammar of the 08:41 original language, sometimes there are keywords that are 08:44 repeated and the translation in some of that is lost. 08:48 So by using these translations we have the opportunity 08:51 to catch some of the flavor of the original language 08:55 and bring that out to you. 08:57 Verse 3, we want to particularly focus on three 09:00 words there, it says, 09:12 Now it is very interesting, in the ancient world there was 09:15 a philosopher named Aristotle. 09:18 Most people have heard of Aristotle, and Aristotle was 09:22 a pagan but the encouraging thing perhaps it's from his 09:25 teacher he did learn monotheism, he did have one God. 09:28 For the pagans that was a major advance. 09:32 But Aristotle was a keen observer of people. 09:36 He suggested, he wrote a book called the Art Of Persuasion 09:39 Like in ancient Greek this is like 2300 years old. 09:42 The Art of Persuasion are preaching books are still based 09:46 on that, he was so observant of how people are persuaded 09:49 of things you see. 09:50 He said there is three ways, three things that persuade 09:53 people. Number 1. Is the character of the speaker, 09:57 the incredibility of the speaker. 10:00 He called that the ethos in Greek, 10:02 we get ethical from that. 10:04 Number 2. The logic of the argument, the Greek word is 10:07 logos, we get logic from that. 10:09 It has got to be a logical argument, it has to make sense. 10:14 Number 3. Is emotion, passion, they have to connect with 10:19 the emotions of the hearer. 10:22 In this particular passage, Paul is talking about the 10:25 first of those three, the character of the apostles. 10:29 The apostles character was one of the things that drove 10:33 the whole message and so it was very, very important. 10:38 Paul is saying here, look it is not out of a delusion, 10:44 delusion is translated different ways in different 10:48 versions, but the Greek word here implies that someone 10:53 genuinely believes something but they are just nuts. 10:57 They just don't know, they are really excited about this 11:01 but it is totally off the wall. 11:02 Their folk like us and Paul says no, no we're not 11:05 delusional here, we are dealing with real stuff. 11:09 Second, he says we are not out of uncleanness. 11:13 That is a Greek word that really talks about sexual 11:17 uncleanness, so Paul is saying I was not motivated 11:22 sexually by this, that's something we may want to explore 11:26 a little later. - Right. 11:27 Would anybody find ministry a path to sexual uncleanness. 11:32 Is there something going on there, we have known sometimes 11:36 a famous Pastors who have struggled in that area. 11:39 A third thing he says, its not to deceive. 11:43 A deceiver is somebody who knows what he is saying is 11:47 false and is deliberately trying to twist you 11:51 and so on, so Paul is saying I did not come out of 11:54 intellectual mistake, I did not come for sexual 11:57 opportunity, I did not come to be deceptive. 12:00 If I had been motivated by these things, we would have quit 12:03 a long time ago. - Yeah, yeah! 12:04 So I like how you brought out the character that Paul is 12:08 really bringing out here in his message, that is just so 12:11 essential when we are sharing the Gospel, living the 12:15 Gospel really and as a Pastor I know in my own experience 12:19 I can get up and talk and give a great sermon or a bad 12:23 sermon, somewhere on the scale but living with people and 12:27 they get to know who you are, 80% of that sermon is spoken 12:32 before you even get up there. 12:33 It depends on who you are with them. 12:35 And if you are living what you are talking about the 12:38 impacts is so much more. 12:39 If you are not living with the people and you give these 12:43 wonderful sermons that rank high on the scale, but you are 12:46 not living it with them, that sermon has no power. 12:49 So people don't care how much you know until they know how 12:53 much you care, that is an old saying that I think has 12:56 a lot of weight. 12:58 I think the way we can actually live that life, is that 13:02 simple message Jesus gave John 15, about abiding in 13:05 Him, you know He says, apart from Me you can do nothing. 13:09 So we just abide in Him, we trust in Him and love one 13:12 another and then He, people will know because you will 13:15 bear witness of Me as you have been with Me. 13:18 So being with Jesus will lead us to be authentic in our 13:21 message when we share the Gospel. 13:23 Sounds awesome, let me just read the next few verses 13:27 because I think that picks up where we are from. 13:47 So Paul says I don't go to people for my guidelines. 13:51 I don't go to people for my character, I go to God. 13:57 I think God test my heart and so he was working from 14:02 this perspective, the popular philosopher said, 14:07 know thyself, examine thyself, but Paul is saying, 14:11 no, I let God examine me. 14:14 After the break, perhaps we want to reflect briefly on 14:17 how you do that. |
Revised 2023-01-25