One of the things you have to do is understand the context. Not just the context of the book…

All of that stuff matters. God’s word is inspired and it’s application is universal… in its intending meaning to its original recipients. “What do I think it means?” is not the right place to start. You start with, “What did Paul intend it to mean to these new believers in Thessalonica?”

We have the rest of the NT to pull from, so we can look at similar words and topics to gain more complete understanding, but that’s secondary to simply trying to understand it on its own.

This is a letter—it’s without the complex literary nuances that you get in places like the Prophets. This is a bit of communication between real people, real places, real stories, real joy/pain.

The Context of Thessalonica

Founded around 315 BC by Cassander, named after his wife Thessalonica, half-sister of Alexander the Great.

Good spot, on the side of the mountain sloping down to Aegean Sea, right at the point where mountains, rivers and sea all meet. Which is important for a lot of reasons.

Romans built the Via Egnatia, road just over a thousand miles long. May not look like much to us, but that was a heck of a lot better than anything that had ever existed before. At least 6 feet wide in the mountains, and 20+ feet wide near cities, it changed the world.

When the time came to completion, God sent his Son

Galatians 4:4

Part of that “right time” was that for the first time in human history, the gospel could actually spread to the known world within a few generations.

We spent most of our time last week in Acts 17, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on what happened when they came to Thessalonica, but we do need to talk about what happened afterward.

So Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke (who joined up with Paul right before this, in Troas) go from from Philippi to Thessaloniki, on the Via Egnatia.

Spend three Saturdays reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue, but if you pay close attention in Acts 17, it doesn’t say that they were there three weeks, just that he spent three Sabbaths in the synagogue. If he were to follow his pattern from other cities, he would then turn his attention to evangelism among the Gentiles. Most New Testament scholars believe that they were in Thessalonica for around three months, maybe less, but more than three weeks.

So we read last week what happened when the Jews got jealous of Paul’s rising influence—they stir up a riot and they once again have to leave in the middle of the night. And they head to Berea, a town about 50 miles or so away.

The team ends up splitting up for a bit. Paul heads off to Athens, but he can’t stand not knowing how this fledgling church is doing back in Thessalonica, so he sends Timothy back to see how they’re doing. We’ll see some of the results of the report here in his response to them.

Paul is like a proud parent—in fact, in the first part of chapter 2, he compares himself to being both their mother and father—and he’s just beaming as he hears how well his children did while he was away. So proud.

You know how siblings that are close can have an entire conversation just with their eyes? I have sisters that are 5.5 and 19.5 years younger than me. A lot of siblings can do this, but all those years in church, at conferences, weddings, funerals, we honed that skill, to the point where we can have entire conversations with our eyes. My brother KJ was generally too going to hard to be looking at anybody’s eyes, and because of the age difference I haven’t had the same time with Sadee, but I remember texting Andrea excitedly a couple years ago and saying, “We’ve got it.” We did the same thing today!

Whenever you talk about parents being proud, all four of us could share a glance and know exactly what the other one is thinking. Because this was a topic of conversation in our household.

Scripture is abundantly clear, pride is a serious problem. It’s what got Lucifer kicked out of heaven, it’s what causes about 90% of the conflict in our lives, it’s what keeps us from repenting quicker to God and others.

Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the Lord;
be assured, he will not go unpunished.

Proverbs 16:5

For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up,
and it shall be brought low;

Isaiah 2:12, ESV

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 14:11

My mom, who had been reading the Bible, was reading these verses, and thought, “Okay, so if the Bible is clear that God hates pride, why do we ever use that word in a positive light? If something is detestable to the Lord, let’s stay as far away from it as possible!” And so I think I may have been 11–12 or so at the time, the phrase, “I’m proud of you” was banned from our family vocabulary!

Now before you start feeling sorry for me, giving me gift certificates to see a therapist, the sentiment people are expressing when they use the phrase “I’m proud of you” was absolutely expressed. In fact, I think it was actually more overtly expressed after that, because she was going out of her way to use other words, it would catch your attention more.

For instance, I was invited to preach at a church that ran around 500-600 people when I was 19 or 20. When I got done preaching, she said, “Wow, I can’t believe your my son!” That meant a lot to me, still means a lot to me; in fact, as I remembered that moment this week, I think it meant more than “I’m so proud of you” would have.

Obviously there are multiple uses of the word pride in our language, and I don’t know if ignoring those nuances is really worth the effort; but I can hear her argument in the back of my mind, too. She would say, “There are lots of words in the English language that you can use, and almost none of them are universally negative in Scripture. Pick one of those!”

Whether or not you personally come to that place, as a pastor, I appreciate the attitude that says, “I’m not going to call good what God says He despises and will ultimately destroy.” That’s a wise attitude to have, as a general rule.

Here’s the reason I bring all that up: In this letter to these new believers in the faith, the spiritual parent Paul does pretty much the same thing my mom did!

Before we read the text, we need to be honest with ourselves and admit some things: as a society, we’re not very good at expressing our affection for other people.

Guys, let’s be real—we’re worse at this! As a whole, there are exception on both sides, but the ladies tend to be better at this. If that’s you, you can just listen in, give a spirit-led elbow if need be!)

We tend to xe bad at expressing in words how we feel about other people, even the ones that we’re closest to.

“I just show them.” I know you do, but they still need to know with words. Do they know why you do all those things? Do you tell them why?

Funerals, worst thing is regret. Children to parents, worse is parents to children.

And however bad we may be at telling people how we feel about them, how proud/thankful we are for them, I think we’re even worse at receiving affection from other people.

In fact, I think our awkwardness in receiving genuine affection from others is a big part of why it’s so hard to speak it. I avoid awkwardness whenever possible, so why would I purposely create it?

The lack of genuine male friendship is a huge problem in our society. The most overlooked miracle of Jesus was having 12 friends in his 30s!

In Romania, in Africa, it’d be easy to think “Man, there are way more gay people than I thought there were.” No, dummy, it’s not that they’re gay, it’s that even in the church, we’ve allowed a false definition of macho masculinity to rob us of our birthright as As soon as you do something, have to say “no homo”. We’ve allowed culture to pervert what Scripture calls us to over and over again.

Love one another with brotherly affection.

Romans 12:10, ESV

Paul wrote that. A man’s man, tough as nails. Just been “beaten severely with rods”, hikes the mountain trail over to Thessalonica.

Gives us a blueprint we can use to build each other up, to build a culture that can actually practice brotherly affection and not be awkward about it, giving or receiving.

Let’s look at it together. Let’s read starting in verse 2.

We always thank God for all of you, making mention of you constantly in our prayers. We recall, in the presence of our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance.

1 Thessalonians 1:2–5

Turns out Paul’s approach is not that different from my moms—thanks Mom! Do you think these new believers had any questions about how Paul felt about them? Not in the least. They understand how he feels about them, but the focus is not on them anymore. The focus, the praise, is where it belongs—to God and God alone.

“I thank God for you.” What a simple, powerful phrase.

And then he gives specifics. Always better.

How am I thankful for you? Let me count the ways! Four, the answer is four, at least for these verses this morning.

Work → Faith

Labor → Love

Endurance → Hope

Richter put rats into large buckets, half-filled with circulating water. Being notoriously good swimmers – the rats lasted about 15 minutes before giving up and succumbing to the depths of the bucket.

In a follow-up experiment, as the rats started to give up and sink, he pulled the drowning rodents to safety, dried them off, gave them a brief period of rest only to put them right back into that same bucket.

Those same rats now swam for an average of 60 hours, 240x the first.

The only difference was hope.

I may have just called you rats, but you get the point.

Love → Secure

You know you’re His because the proof is in your life.

I think a lot of the time, the root of our awkwardness in showing brotherly affection is insecurity that if we were truly known, we wouldn’t be loved.

The gospel meant to take that away.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

Tim Keller

God has no problem showing his love/affection for you.

Outdo one another in showing honor.

Romans 12:10, ESV