Finally! (1Thes. 4)

I was casting about for something to read/study today. For whatever OCD reason I was looking for something with a 1 in the book title: 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, 1 John, etc. I tried reading 1 John first and couldn't get into it. That is a heavy book best enjoyed in the company of others. I thought I'd find some comforting words of love, but I ended up with a double dose of conviction I wasn't ready for at 7 AM. Remembering 1 Thessalonians as a hopeful and encouraging epistle I turned to it (turned meaning clicked the rights links on the browser...)

I found exactly what I expected in the first parts of the letter. Paul identifies himself and his compatriots and formally greets those to whom he is writing. Unlike James, Paul always spends some time buttering up the audience for the message he's delivering. With James it's "Greetings! Beatings!" Not so with Paul. Perhaps part of Paul's habit comes from always having to assert his authority. He was, as he described, the least of the apostles and one born unnaturally. All that to say this: I expected the blessings and exhortations I'm accustomed to from Paul and which I normally breeze through in order to get into the weightier part of the book.

1 Thessalonians presents a unique challenge to my study style. Rather than a few words, a few sentences, or even a whole chapter of thanksgivings and prayers, Paul goes on and on about the church at Thessalonica and his relationship with it. I'm sure there's plenty of meaning in that part of the epistle, but it's just not what I am searching for. The result is that when I finally get to "the message" Paul had for the believers there, I feel like I've missed something important. I probably have. At some point I should go back and re-read those chapters.

What struck me in today's study, however, started with a single word. In chapter 4 Paul starts off with "Finally." "You're telling me," I think to myself. Three chapters of what I've always considered the small talk of the epistle before you actually write what you sat down to write? Isn't that a bit excessive? Well, no. It's in there for a reason. Paul spends so much time "buttering them up" because they were a suffering church. Way back in chapter 2 Paul told them "For you suffered the same thing from your own countrymen that we suffered from the Jews." (2:14) Paul should know something about the suffering of Christians under the Jews since he was the initiator of much of that suffering before Jesus took hold of him. The other reason Paul spent so much time on the intro is because he's about to put to the Thessalonians a very difficult doctrine.

With the first couple of words in chapter 4 Paul explains why he wrote so much up that point. A rough translation of what Paul wrote in the first couple of verses is "All these awesome things I just said about how awesome you are, and really you are awesome, well I must demand more awesomeness from you." And here's what Paul demands of them:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. (4:3-5)

How's that for a kick in the teeth? Three chapters of stroking followed by "stop being a bunch of filthy sluts." "Get a hold of yourself...not that way smarty pants!" Didn't Paul just spill a barrel of ink telling the Thessalonians what wonderful Christians they are? If they're so great, why does Timothy's report about their condition lead Paul to command them to abstain from sexual immorality? Isn't that a hallmark of great Christians like the Thessalonians? Aren't people worthy of three chapters of praise already sanctified in their sexual behavior? Apparently not.

I had to do a little more digging and read some commentaries to get a better picture of what the Thessalonians were actually dealing with. They lived in a time and place where sexual license was practiced with, well, license. They lived in a sex saturated culture. Even their pre-Christian religious experience centered on sex. What was "holy" to them before Christ is the antithesis of what God commands. Rather than abstinence, their old religion demanded indulgence in sexual immorality. What they found in Christ was a life completely opposite of everything they knew up to that point. Come to think of it, their culture wasn't all that different from our own. Although our culture shuns formal religion, it still demands we worship at the alter of perversion and immorality. And we did. Apart from Christ, we were just as debauched as the Thessalonians. Something tells me we (I) have just as much trouble making a clean break with the culture as did those amazing Christians long ago. Maybe Paul spent so much time extolling the virtues of the Thessalonian salvation so his commands about their sanctification would be received with a measure of hope rather than a feeling of despair. Maybe I'm in the same boat, paddling against the same cultural current that threatens to drag me backward out of the will of God. Maybe, just maybe, I should go back and read those first three chapters a little more closely.

On a side note, some of you may know of my recent spiritual struggles (not surprisingly in the same area the Thessalonians struggled), and here's my current favorite song that really speaks to the problem and its solution.