Fundamental Lessons For Young Christians

by JAS. MARTIN | Category: General | Jul 1956

"We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father." Thus the apostle Paul greeted the young saints of the Thessalonian Church in the first epistle. Here, amongst a people, so many of whom had recently turned unto God direct from paganism, we find a warmth of heart and practical fellowship that calls forth a worthy commendation, and gives real joy to the apostle's heart (1 Thessalonians 3.9).

There must have been a surprising aptitude to learn the truth of God amongst those early believers during the apostle's brief visit of three weeks to Thessalonica. Although we have not, in detail, the discourses given at these addresses in the synagogue at Thessalonica (see Acts 17), as we have, at length, in the report given in Acts 13 of the address at Antioch of Pisidia, yet we can gather some of the fundamentals that they were taught and learned. Of the latter part the apostle is assured, as such recurring phrases in his letter testify, viz., You, yourselves, know, and Remember ye not?" The foundation was laid in the truth, alleging from the Old Testament Scriptures that "this Jesus, whom I proclaim unto you, is the CHRIST." Here was the Rock on which men must build. The purpose of His coming into this world was also clearly indicated, that" it behoved the Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead." This, too, they had learned to their eternal gain (1 Thessalonians 5.8-10). Paganism had been abandoned; faith in a living and true God had been exercised; that God had become their Father.

It is not surprising, then, that a warm love should have sprung up between the teacher and the taught. The apostle has difficulty in finding terms endearing enough in his letter to express his love for them (1 Thessalonians 2.7-11, 17-20). They are his boast (2 Thessalonians 1.4) and his glory and his joy (1 Thessalonians 2.20). So thus he bends every endeavour to encourage them to glory in their many afflictions, and to look ahead to the Coming Again of the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely it was true encouragement to them, as it should be to us, to be the channels through which the cause of Christ was being furthered (1 Thessalonians 1.6-8; 2 Thessalonians 1.8, 4).

Two points are indicated as characteristic of the Thessalonian saints: (1) they had turned to God, "to SERVE a living and true God," and (2) "to WAIT for His Son from heaven." "Serving" and "Waiting" cover the Christian's activities, suggesting, respectively, present and future, practical and ideal, aspects of our position. "Service" springs from faith, "waiting" from hope, and both are wondrously enhanced by a demonstration of Christian love. Faith, love, and hope are the essentials of practical Christian experience. Their expression is seen, respectively, in work, labour and patience.

"Work" speaks of a thing done, a matter of achievement. "Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself," wrote James (2.17); and with this Paul agrees. Faith is ever a living active principle, "working through love" and producing fruit (Galatians 5.6, 22, 23). "Labour," on the other hand, stresses mainly the energy expended, the pains taken in the accomplishment of anything. Whereas "work" may be a pleasure, "labour" is always a toil. "Labour" is the test of true love.

The "waiting for His Son from heaven" may be seen in their "patience of hope." Here "patience" implies the active endurance and bravery, through the toil and heat of battle, of a campaigning soldier inspired with the hope of victory. "Hope" is the parent of "patience." Such endurance and courage gave testimony to the spread of the Gospel (1 Thessalonians 1.7). It is a patience which comes from a hope vested in our Lord Jesus Christ, a hope which is the keynote of the Thessalonian epistles.

In a world that has known much change since the time of the writing of the first letter to a Church of God there is still great and crying need for the exercise of Christian attributes that may be dimmed in lustre by the roll of years-" now abideth FAITH, HOPE and LOVE; these three, and the greatest of these is LOVE."

JAS. MARTIN | Jul 1956
General