Author: Ryan Hale

Paul begins to write his second letter to the church in Thessalonica, giving thanks to God for the faith that the Thessalonians have and their perseverance in the midst of trials and persecution. They have continued to stand fast in their faith, regardless of the fact that they have been persecuted for leaving their Jewish faith or pagan practices and instead go on to follow Christ in the way of suffering.

Paul reassures the church that there will be justice. God doesn’t allow people’s injustice to go unpunished, but instead, he will have his vengeance. God’s vengeance will come upon those who have done wrong, who have remained in their sins, and who continue on persecuting the believers. And Paul assures the Thessalonians that they will be rewarded for their faith.

The timing is important here, though. He says that this will happen upon Christ’s return:

God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-8

In this life, we shouldn’t expect that all will be set right just because we are a believer in Jesus. No, instead, we should expect the opposite. Suffering and persecution will come. Difficulty will come. But God will have his vengeance upon those who have perpetrated that suffering, persecution, and difficulty.

After saying all of this, Paul talks about how he prays for the Thesslonians and for their growth, for their sanctification. Paul says that he prays that God will make them worthy of the calling that he, God, gave to the Thesslonians. Paul is praying also that God will give his power to do everything that the Thessalonians desire to do in the name of goodness and in that which they desire to do, those things that are prompted by faith.

But there is a final, bottom line reason that Paul is saying all of these things. There is a reason that he gives them assurance of justice and the fact that God will set all things right. There is a reason that Paul prays God will fulfill their desires for what is right. That reason is that Jesus will be glorified.

We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1:12

Sometimes we say things like this too flippantly. Sometimes we are too nonchalant. “Yes, of course, I want Jesus to be glorifed,” we might think. But this should be the reason for why we do all things. Yet, is it? Is that truly the reason that we are doing what we are doing? Because Jesus would be glorified? Our desire, truly, is that he would be lifted up? Or is it so that we can gain? Or is it so that we can acquire? Or is it so that we can have a greater position or status in society?

Are we making the decisions that we are making because we want Jesus to be glorified? That we want him to be lifted up? That is the bottom line reason that Paul was praying for the growth of the Thessalonians. That is the bottom line reason that God will bring justice upon those who persecute the believers. It is all so that Jesus will be lifted up, that he will be magnified, that he will be glorified.

What decisions would we make differently if that was our true end game? How differently would we live our lives if glorifying Christ was the goal of our lives? What would we risk? What would we change?

May Christ be lifted up in our lives. May Jesus be glorified.

Jesus will return one day soon. No one knows when that day will be, but to many it will be a surprise, while to many others, it will be an expected event that they anticipated and planned to see.

As Paul was writing to the Thessalonians in chapter 4, he starts a contrast that carries over into chapter 5. First, in chapter 4, he says that when Jesus returns, he will come as the result of a loud command, with the voice of an arcangel, and with a trumpet call of God. That in no way, of course, seems subtle, nor hidden. There is nothing that will be hidden about Christ’s return. He will come with a shout and with the sounding of a trumpet. Everyone will know that he is coming and there will be no doubt as to what is happening.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Thessalonians 4:16

Paul was explaining this so that the Thesslonians wouldn’t be worried that people who had died between the time that they had believed and the time when Jesus will return would miss Christ’s return. No, in fact, Paul explained that they will go on to be raised first from the dead and then those who are still alive at Christ’s return would then be taken with Jesus.

On the other hand, looking forward into chapter 5, Paul says that Jesus’s day to return will come like a thief in the night. That day will, in fact, sneak up on people like a thief. It won’t come shouting. It won’t come blaring trumpets. It won’t come with a loud voice.

So, wait a minute… How can these two things be true? How can, on the one hand, Jesus come with the sound of the trumpet, and on the other hand, his day comes silently, like a thief in the night.

The difference comes in our preparedness. The difference is us. We can be prepared for Christ’s return, or not. We can find ourselves ready to be judged or not. As Paul says, we can choose to live in the light, or not.

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6

We must be prepared for Christ to return. Not only must we believe in him, place our faith for our salvation in him and call him Lord, but we must be living for him and doing what he has called us to do. Not distracted by the things of the world. Not looking to other things that are not of God. Not living in darkness, but walking completely in light of Christ. Only in this way can we be ready for Christ’s return.

Jesus talked about this same type of scenario in the parable of the ten virgins. He said that some of them kept oil in their lamps, and also carried extra oil along with them, even though they didn’t know when the bridegroom would return. In this way, they would be prepared.

And wouldn’t you know it, the bridegroom arrives in the night! Since the virgins don’t have extra oil to light their way to where the bridegroom is, they have to go buy extra oil, the oil that they should have been carrying with them along the way already, as the other ones did. In the end, they arrive late to the wedding banquet and aren’t allowed to enter. The bridegroom simply tells them that he doesn’t know them.

So if we understand what Paul is saying to the Thessalonians and we understand that aligned with Jesus’s parable, we can understand that there will be no mistake about Jesus’s return. The return itself will not be hidden. It will not be like a thief in the night. It will be loud and Jesus will come with power.

However, what will be hidden is the indication that he is coming. There won’t be more and more warning. There will not be additional flashing light nor sound to draw your attention to the fact that Jesus will be coming, or that his day will arrive within X amount of time. No, in fact, just at the time when people think that all is fine, that they are at peace, that all is well…then is the time that Christ will return. And it will be loud because the king will be coming in all of his glory. And there will be no more excuses.

Paul was afraid that they had fallen away. He had labored intensely to preach the Gospel there in Thessalonica, but the opposition was strong. The Jews in the synagogue had opposed Paul, and done so to the extent that they needed to escape. Paul left for Berea where, even there, the Jews from Thessalonica came to find him and stir up the crowds against him there.

So, it was one thing that Paul had left, but there was more to the story. Those that he left in his wake would have to continue on in the midst of persecution. They weren’t able to easily leave. Their lives, their homes, their families, their work, was all there in Thessalonica. And now it was all at risk because of the message that Paul had given them.

For the Thessalonians, like each of the believers and churches that Paul left in his wake, to believe and truly follow Christ meant that they were not only believing in Christ as the Messiah, but it meant that they were breaking with their local cultural beliefs. If you were a Jew, it meant that you believed differently than the other Jews which left you open to the possibility of being shunned, and you likely were. On the other hand, if you were a Gentile, and your local culture was to worship the Greek gods, and that likely was the culture, then you left yourself open to the possibility of being placed outside of the rest of the mainstream of society. No longer did you worship this Greek “god” at the temple. No longer did you offer sacrifices to that god or to its idol. No longer would you go to the temple prostitute.

The persecution, therefore, was not simply just a question of a difference of beliefs. It was a difference in society. It was a question of how you would carry on business. It was a question of how you were going to eat and live.

So it was little wonder that Paul was concerned about the persecution that was about to come upon the Thessalonians. But Paul was thrilled that they were standing strong and continuing in their faith:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 3:7-8

It is interesting that Paul says here that, despite the persecution, and despite all of the troubles that they are now having, that it is now that they really live. That is true, of course, in various senses of this statement. Being spiritually dead and having come to Christ, they do now really live. What is more, they give their lives to Christ and understand this larger purpose for their lives, to glorify him instead of living for themselves. They do begin to really live at this point, but to many, it may not feel this way, and this is why Paul wanted to confirm that they were standing firm in their faith. Thankfully, that is the report that Timothy gave back to Paul after visiting the Thessalonians and for this, Paul is encouraged because of their faith.

I want to make one additional note here as well that I see a direct connection between this situation here with the Thessalonians and the parable of the four soils that Jesus told in Matthew 13. On the one hand, we see that Jesus spoke of the second type of soil being the rocky soil where the roots do not go deep and when the sun comes out – read: when persecution comes – then the plant withers and dies.

Thankfully, that isn’t what happened in this case. Instead, even in the short time that Paul was with them in Thessalonica – only 3 weeks! – the Thessalonians had taken root well enough to stand up to the persecution that was now coming their way. As the “sun”, as Jesus said, came out in the form of persecution, the Thessalonian church was rooted well enough to stand in the face of the persecution so that they could continue on in their faith.

And even more than just continue in their faith. As we saw in chapter 1, Paul said that their faith had become known everywhere. The church had become renowned for their faith and it was ringing out and they had become an example. This is similar to the fourth soil of which Jesus spoke in the parable. He said that the seed on the good soil produced a crop. Not just one plant from one seed, but many, and that is what is happening in this case in Thessalonica. Paul had planted the seed, but it wasn’t just the one seed that was producing one plant. Instead, the seed that he had sown had fallen on good soil and was producing a crop throughout the entire area.

There is a reason to go on a mission. When you have a mission, you have something that you want to achieve. When you have a mission, you desire a specific result, a specific outcome, and Paul notes that this is the same for him as he went about his work:

You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results. We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition. For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.

1 Thessalonians 2:1-4

As Paul moved from one city to another, he shared the Gospel and taught the people to have faith in Christ. As he left, he left churches in his wake, small groups of people who carried on the ministry work in the local areas.

That is what had happened as Paul had come to Thessalonica. He had been treated badly in Philippi, even having been thrown into prison for doing nothing more than freeing a slave girl from her demon possession, making angry her owners because she could no longer predict the future. Now, as he arrives in Thessalonica, he was opposed by the Jews as he preached at the synagogue and elsewhere and is persecuted for the message that he brought of Jesus being the Messiah who was killed by the Jews and resurrected to life.

Despite all of the opposition, Paul began to win people to Christ. Some people began to believe, and this is the outcome that he had hoped for. These were the first steps toward achieving the outcome that he had desired for his mission.

We also must look toward achieving an outcome. I don’t believe Paul would have been satisfied to simply think or say, “Well, I guess they didn’t believe…time to move on.” No, he is doing this travel, he is enduring through the hardship, he is working night and day to see an outcome. He is doing these things so that there would be a result. He desires to see Jesus worshiped and glorified. He desires to see the people in Thessalonica know Christ and have others know him through these new believers.

Our work must lead toward these outcomes. It must lead toward these results. The results don’t come without God’s leading, and they also don’t come without our participation and work. We see this same thing in what Paul tells us as well. He said that their message came both through words as well as through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the same way, we must also work and continue to ask the Holy Spirit for his leading and confirmation of the message that we are speaking so that we will see the results that we are hoping to see as we complete the mission that Christ has sent us to accomplish.

I’ve been saved!

Saved from what?

I think this is a fair question. Sometimes we use Christian language that we have heard others use and attach it to our thoughts and emotions without fully understanding what it is that we’re talking about.

Paul is writing to the new church in Thessalonica and he is praising them for their faith, but also thanking God for choosing them, the Thessalonians, as his people. He comes to an important section that I have actually noted here on my site previously, but I want to spend some additional time talking about the rest of Paul’s message in this passage:

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, 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, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead —Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

1 Thessalonians 1:8-10

Paul says that the faith of the Thessalonians has been made known everywhere. They have left their old life of serving idols and have come into the new life to serve the one true and living God.

Paul says that the Thessalonians are waiting for the return of Jesus Christ who has been raised from the dead. He is saying that first, they believe that Jesus was sacrificed, was killed on the cross for their sins. They believe that Jesus was resurrected, having come back to life after three days in the grave, and they believe that he returned to be with God the Father in heaven. Wonderful!

Yet this last part of the last sentence is important: who rescues us from the coming wrath. What is Paul referring to here?

Paul is talking about judgment. God will judge the world and he will bring wrath upon everyone that is not found to have faith in Christ. Those that have not placed all of their hope in Jesus, but instead continue to hope in other “gods”, as the Thessalonians once did, or in other objects or ideas, will, on that day, be judged and receive the wrath of God.

And no one will be able to stand up to the wrath of God. With the swipe of his hand, or with the breath from his nostrils, the universe will be wiped away,. So if God brings his judgment upon a person, they will neither have an excuse, nor a way to escape God’s wrath. It will be terrible for that person!

And yet there is a way to escape that wrath. We can be saved from the wrath of God, and this is what we are talking about when we say that we have been saved. It isn’t all roses and rainbows. It isn’t just the shouting of Glory! and Hallelujah! without any further thought. Instead, there is death and destruction and in Christ we have been given passage to escape that wrath and instead be reconciled into right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Can you imagine being Simon? No, not Simon Peter. I mean Simon of Cyrene. Simon Peter had left Jesus. He denied him, betrayed Jesus.

Simon of Cyrene wasn’t even really involved. He was there in Jerusalem from north Africa. He wasn’t even from that area. Cyrene was a Greek colony in what is today the northeastern part of Libya.

Maybe Simon just wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. Why were the people shouting? Maybe he just wanted to see.

But then suddenly a Roman soldier grabs him and tells him that he has to carry this man’s cross. “Wait, what? What did I do?” I can imagine that he had a sense of fear, a terror that he was suddenly caught up in something that was beyond him. “Why did I stick around here?” he might have thought. Simon now had to carry Jesus’s cross up to Golgotha, also known as the Place of the Skull.

Mark takes special note to write that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus.

A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Mark 15:21

Right there, with his son’s name being Alexander, we begin to get a sense of connection to Cyrene, and Cyrene’s connection to the Greeks. But what struck me even more is that Mark evidently knew these two sons, Alexander and Rufus. Or maybe Mark’s audience, the early church, would recognize these names.

In fact, the names Alexander and Rufus do show up later in the New Testament. There was an Alexander who was a Jew and was in Ephesus at the same time as Paul and was pushed to the front by the Jews to give a defense for Paul and the Christians in the midst of the riot by the silversmiths who made Artemis idols.

And there is a Rufus who is mentioned by Paul in connection with his mother who are evidently now in Rome but who have been with Paul in other contexts as well.

It could be that these are the same Alexander and Rufus, or they could be completely different people. It is hard to say. What is clear, though, is that Mark knows them both and so would have, in all likelihood, his readers given that he makes direct reference to them as he speaks who Simon of Cyrene is that carried Jesus’s cross. Clearly Simon looked more into who this Jesus was and passed this information along also to his sons. Maybe even his sons saw their dad have to carry Jesus’s cross. Maybe they had a direct family connection with the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Maybe they had a story to tell together as a family of that time that they were in Jerusalem and they saw God in the flesh being crucified for their sins.

May the Lord help us also to teach our children. May our families truly know the faith of their mothers and fathers. May the children know Christ through their parents, and then one day also know him directly for themselves. Let us not abdicate our responsibility as parents to tell our children of our experience with Christ. Let us be close to the Lord, even taking up our cross and carrying it because of what Jesus has done for us so that he will receive all of the glory for what he has done.

As Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the people shouted for their coming king:

“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Mark 11:9-10

Jesus was entering and the people spoke of Jesus coming to conquer. They shouted for the new kingdom of Israel that would be realized through Jesus. They were proclaiming the return of their king, just as had been prophecied.

So you would expect that, if the king was coming to restore the kingdom of Israel, the first thing that he would need to do would be to throw off the oppressive Roman government. But this king… this king doesn’t go to conquer the Roman government. This one, instead, goes to the temple courts:

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts.

Mark 11:11

I wonder if the people wondered where he was going. Wrong way, Jesus!, I wonder if they shouted at him. This way to the governor’s palace!, I wonder if they said. But Jesus went precisely where he wanted to go. He went to the temple.

Jesus wasn’t interested in political kingdoms. Jesus was interested in righteousness and the throwing off of the tyrrany of sin. Jesus was on a mission to destroy everything that stood in the way of the advance of the kingdom of God, and the first thing that must happen is the purification of the temple, of the worship of God.

Jesus goes to the temple courts upon entry into Jerusalem. He returns again the next day to drive out the money changers. And then once more the following day to teach the people and explain further to the Pharisees who he is.

Jesus had a completely different agenda. His agenda wasn’t for poltical change. His agenda was for spiritual change. Jesus’s kingdom isn’t of this world. His kingdom is the world, and the heavens, and the earth. Jesus is king over all.

He was an old salt…

He uses some salty language…

Take it with a grain of salt…

There are several ways of using the word “salt” in various coloquial idioms of our day. Jesus, himself, added to these idioms, telling the disciples that they need to be salty:

Everyone will be salted with fire.

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Mark 9:49-50

Jesus had just finished telling his disciples that they need to get rid of anything that causes them to sin. For example, if an eye or a hand causes them to sin, they should pluck it out or cut it off. I don’t think Jesus is being literal as he says these things, although he does tell the disciples that it would be be better to go into heaven maimed rather than go into hell with their full body.

But then he goes on to tell them that they will be salted with fire.

The disciples will be tested. They will be refined. This is the salt that they must have within themselves individually and amongst them as disciples of Christ. They must have been tested and refined. They must have lost all of the dross, all of those things that have come from our flesh instead of from the Spirit of God such that they are now living completely and entirely for Christ. In this way, they will have salt amongst themselves.

On the other hand, Jesus says that if they lose their saltiness, they are of no good whatsoever to God. Within the kingdom of God, they will not be worth anything. They will have just become like the people of the world. They will not be demonstrating anything within the kingdom. They will instead simply be just like everyone else. No salt, no refinement. Just like the world.

So Jesus says that we need to be salty. We need to be creatures of the kingdom of God. We need to be people who are set apart from the world. We need to be salty.

As Jesus and his disciples were moving through the villages of Caesarea Phillipi, Jesus asked his disciples who the people say that he is.

This is the question.

This is the question that has continued to reverberate through the centuries and through millenia. Who is Jesus?

This is the same question that the disciples asked. Who is this that even the wind and waves obey him?

This is the same question that the Pharisees asked one another. Who is this that forgives sins?

And now we have Jesus asking the disciples, who do the people say that I am?

The disciples aren’t sure what to say. There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer. Here is their response:

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

Mark 8:28

Why is there so much confusion? Jesus has actually been answering this question himself by revealing himself to the people. But still there is confusion. Why? Because Jesus is God, and we can’t begin to imagine that God himself would be here with us. Surely that isn’t possible, is it? And yet it is, and that is what Jesus wants his disciples to understand and live by – to believe.

At the same time, though, as we see in the disciples’ answer to Jesus’s question, there is a lot of confusion about who Jesus is. It struck me today, as I was reading this passage, that the answers are all from the past:

John the Baptist – John was the one who was to come before Jesus, to proclaim repentance and make straight the path for the Lord.

Elijah – Elijah was a prophet who was swept up into heaven without ever actually dying. Prophecy said that Elijah would return, so the people would say that Jesus is Elijah.

One of the prophets – There were many prophets that spoke to the people on God’s behalf. Moses also spoke of a Prophet who was to come to whom the people must listen, and this was another guess that we saw by the Pharisees when they questioned John the Baptist about who he was.

My point here is that the people were looking to the past, to what they knew, what they had read, and what they understood. But God isn’t just a God of the past, he is a God of the present, and a God of the future. He routinely does what the people do not expect, and often things that people have a hard time understanding. And that is exactly what is happening in this case. God has come to earth to be with his people, showing himself in the form of a man, and that man is Jesus.

Despite the fact that “some say…” this, or “others say” that, we need to continue to look to Jesus and understand who he showed himself to be. Jesus made the winds and waves obey him. The evil spirits obeyed him. He healed people of their sicknesses with nothing more than words. He fulfilled the prophecies of the one that would come. He forgave sins. And Jesus spoke and taught the people with authority…because he was the one who had authority. Jesus is God who has come in the flesh to reestablish his kingdom here on earth, purchasing the people out of the kingdom darkness to come into his kingdom. May we believe and worship him!

Jesus now has 12 disciples and they are listening to him as Jesus continues to teach the crowds of people. Jesus starts teaching, though, in parables and we see him speak about, and explain, the kingdom of God. For example:

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Mark 4:26-29

Jesus is the king in the kingdom of God. He told his disciples that he has all authority in heaven and on earth. He is the king!

In a kingdom, what the king says is how it is. That is the way that it works. Jesus is the king in the kingdom of God, so when Jesus says that this is the what the kingdom is like, we should pay attention! He is explaining how this should work.

Jesus explained the parable of the four different soils, explaining that, those that receive the word of God should produce a crop. That is the good soil. I wrote more on this in another post here: Am I Good Soil?

Then Jesus continued on with another parable saying that the light that we receive shouldn’t be hidden. It should be placed on a stand. It should be used to light the whole room.

Then comes the parable of the growing seed that I mentioned above. We can see there a process for growth and a harvest that is taking place. Here is a video that helps explain further:

And finally, Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed that starts as the smallest of all seeds but grows into a large tree.

To me, it is clear what Jesus is teaching his disciples. He is explaining that the kingdom moves forward. The kingdom takes more territory. The kingdom doesn’t stop growing. And those who are truly disciples, those who are truly subjects in the kingdom, they are part of this work. They take part in seeing the kingdom grow.

Jesus is explaining to his disciples how his kingdom works and is about to start traveling with them to show them practical examples of what he has been explaining to them. Let us not miss the point and imagine that we can be still and believe. Jesus shows us that, in his kingdom, he and his disciples are on the move with the message, the good news of the kingdom of God. Let us do the same!