Honoring God (06/19/22)

I considered Timothy somewhat in the previous study, but having considered some other references in regard to this man, I find I have other thoughts to pursue.  There are repeated notes of doubt or even inadequacy in the various discussions of Timothy.  Paul’s letters to him are taken as evidencing concern for a certain weakness of character in the man, which the M&S, for example, attributes to the lack of a father in his upbringing, for it seems his father was dead or otherwise departed when Paul first took him on, and Luke assigns to his mother and grandmother the role of Scriptural training.  Apparently, Lystra and Derbe lacked a synagogue proper in which he might have been taught, and with father gone, instruction fell to his mother and hers.

This is all well and good.  But still, we find it is to Timothy that Paul entrusts some of the most difficult assignments.  Here, he has been sent back to Thessalonica.  Granted, the church itself could be expected to give him full welcome, but here there was a proper synagogue, and those who ran it had shown deep animosity to the Gospel, and to the messengers of that Gospel.  It was due to them that Paul had been driven from town, and even from Macedonia, for their opposition did not stop with ridding the city of his presence.  They chased after him.  Arguably, it was this same outfit that stirred things up in Jerusalem at the end, leading to Paul’s imprisonment and appeal to Caesar.

Timothy was also the one Paul chose to bear the first, painfully corrective letter to Corinth, and to set things straight there.  That had to have been a difficult assignment indeed.  Yes, they knew him, for he had ministered together with Paul at the outset, but we can readily sense the factionalism and even antipathy towards Paul in that congregation.  This was no task for a shrinking violet of a man, and from what we see thereafter, it would seem he performed his duties quite admirably.

When we later find Paul offering counsel to him as he ministers in Ephesus (an assignment one article suggests had him in tears even at the outset), is it the case that his background has left him weak and ineffective?  Or is it simply Paul recognizing the inevitable difficulties of what would prove a fairly lengthy engagement?  After all, his relative youth would present fairly obvious difficulties for one tasked with governing those who were far and away his elders.  And they had most likely been in office prior to his arrival.  This is no easy task.

I think of the situation of a new pastor coming into his new church.  There is an elder board already in place, and he is not in position to dissolve and reform it, nor, I think, should he be.  He would not have the background familiarity by which to assess who should be assigned anyway, and God has not so ordered His house that such disruptions should arise at each changing of the office.  No, the elders are appointed by Him, and at least in our polity, through the means of the approbation of the congregation at large who, having hopefully prayed diligently as to their leadership, have esteemed these men as qualified.

So, here’s the new guy, this pastor.  It is by no means a guarantee that the whole of the congregation, nor even the whole of the elder board, approved of his appointing, and even if they did, there is the great unknown of who this man will turn out to be, and what changes he may bring.  The pastor, in turn, cannot know how the board will respond to his perception of his charter.  There will, I should think almost of necessity, be a period of discomfort.  Now, let that pastor be a younger man, perhaps fairly fresh out of seminary, and you can see where tensions might arise as he seeks to guide the course of God’s house.  It is no commentary on his character that he might find the situation challenging.  It is no surprise, surely, that he might seek the counsel of his mentors in such a case.

If we assume the same sort of general difficulties as arise in our own body likely arose in Ephesus as well, there is even less reason for surprise that he may have been a tad stressed.  I think of my own brief tenure on the elder board.  There were, it seems monthly, reasons for feeling a bit stressed, reasons for feeling overwhelmed, or humbled by the trials God had entrusted into our care to see them sorted.  How we learned to lean on God, to depend upon Him for strength and wisdom alike!  How much we were driven to pray, and yes, to seek counsel from those of more experience and maturity, where such was possible.

In short, I find nothing in those epistles, though I have not as yet studied them in depth, that would cause me to make such an assessment of young Timothy.  Neither do I find evidence that Paul had lessened his trust in the man.  Clearly not!  It was Timothy he wanted by his side at his darkest moments, facing the worst trials.  One doesn’t call out for a weak sister in such cases.  One wants his most stalwart and steadfast friends, those who can be of help, even if help can only consist in consolation under the circumstances.

The other big question mark that arises in regard to Timothy concerns the matter of Paul having him circumcised.  Now, that question mark pertains more to Paul than to Timothy, but it seems we cannot discuss the young man without this point coming up.  Why, Paul?  Did you not say that circumcision or its lack are nothing?  Why, yes he did.  And he surely meant it as well.  It’s not a question of his doctrine developing more teeth as he matured.  These were matters settled pretty much from the get-go.  This was the same Paul who had confronted Peter for his inconsistency amongst the Gentiles.  This is the same Paul who took the Gentiles’ case to Jerusalem, and brought back the assessment of those other Apostles that such concerns of Mosaic Law did not apply to the Gentiles.  They were not prerequisites to saving faith.

So, whatever was happening in the case of Timothy, it was not a matter of faith, nor was it a capitulation to the Judaizers.  At this early juncture, I don’t think we’re dealing with Judaizers at all.  We’re dealing with fresh entry into a region previously untouched by the Gospel.  It was a Jewish community, at least in part, as Timothy’s family was Jewish in part.  And therein lay the difficulty for him, so far as Paul was concerned.  His parentage would be known, at least locally.  The fact that his father was a Gentile would be known.  And, given Paul’s penchant for bringing the Gospel first to the Jewish community, and given the sort of opposition he could expect from same, what was known locally and could be used against them could be expected to be noised abroad wherever they went.  Just look how those Jews from Asia came down to Jerusalem to harass him (so I guess it wasn’t the Thessalonian synagogue, come to think of it.)

Here’s the thing:  Whatever the status of Timothy’s father, he remained a Gentile.  That he had not himself seen to the circumcision of his son suggests that if he was a proselyte at all, it was only of such a sort as acknowledge God in some degree, not such as had himself complied to the demands of Mosaic Law.  And yet, we have this:  Timothy’s name, according to Hastings at least, means ‘honoring God’.  Strong’s suggests ‘dear to God’.  Take your pick.  There is acknowledgement of God in the naming of the boy, and that naming is not applying attribution to one or the other of the Greek gods, nor to any of the other sundry so-called deities given credence at the time.  But even with that, this mixed parentage left Timothy, in Jewish estimation, at the bottom of the social heap.  He was barely above the dogs and tax-collectors, although, as the M&S article suggests, his evident training in Torah, and that, in the absence of a synagogue to supply the training, may have given him a slight leg up.

But for one who would be joining Paul in ministering within the Jewish community as well as without, this status would be an unnecessary hindrance.  Now, it might occur to us to wonder just how such status as to circumcision would be known to total strangers as they traveled, but as I say, a culture so concerned as to lineage and as to compliance to the requirements of Mosaic Law would be inclined to keep records.  And one can readily suppose that those who questioned, or even reviled Paul’s message would avail themselves of those records, seeking to find that by which they might discredit this messenger and his message.

The M&S here observes that whereas an out and out heathen might well have been tolerated at synagogue (unlike in the temple proper), the presence of an uncircumcised Jew would be construed an utter abomination.  This was grounds for stoning!  This was evidence, to their thinking, that such a one had rejected his Jewish heritage entirely.  This being a charge often brought against Paul and his teaching, such a needless ‘proof’ would be hindrance indeed.  Paul’s concern, then, was not with Jewish opinion, but with the Gospel.  It is in perfect keeping with that approach we see him take in every instance.  He will appeal to the culture around him in its own terms.  He will not, by any stretch, deny or alter the Gospel to make it more appealing to that culture, but neither will he suffer any unnecessary offense to prevent that culture hearing and accepting the Gospel.

Timothy was already ‘honoring God’.  He was already ‘dear to God’.  He didn’t need physical proof of this any more than we do.  We are baptized not as thereby gaining admittance, but as acknowledging that which God has already determined.  We acknowledge Him Who has acknowledged us as His own.  Yes, it marks out a dying to sin and being resurrected into that life which comes of being in Christ.  So, too, was circumcision after its fashion, albeit with a less complete understanding.  It was a covenant marker.  Yet, women were of the covenant as well, and could hardly take upon themselves that mark.  Baptism is different in spite of these parallels, but for my purposes here, it is a sufficient comparison, I think.  And as we would not reject the faith of one not yet baptized (we might reject membership in the local body on that basis, but not the faith itself), so Timothy’s lack of circumcision did not in any way mark him as opposed to God.  But whatever might be made of that, and however the local community might come to know of it, Paul would not have it be an issue.

Here, I think, I could see another parallel to believer’s baptism as we practice it in our church.  If one comes to join us who has not been baptized subsequent to having come to faith, i.e. baptized not as evidence of one’s parent’s faith, but of one’s own, this is not taken as somehow proof that said faith was insincere or defective.  It is, however, a safeguard set upon full entry into body fellowship.  It is, perhaps, a first visible evidence that one has committed himself to not only believe, but obey the Lord.  And given that the members of the body are those who undertake to hear God as concerns those He would have leading His body, and as they undertake to take up the responsibility of aiding parents in the nurture and instruction of their own children, it is incumbent upon us to do as best we may to confirm the sound faith of those who will have such powers granted.

I don’t know as I’ve made my case to anybody’s satisfaction but my own, but there it is.  Timothy was already God-honoring and God-honored.  He was already uniquely fit and prepared for the mission which God was assigning him as evangelist alongside the Apostle Paul.  His circumcision was not some needful prerequisite to faith or office.  But as it would, or could prove to be an unnecessary excuse to reject the Gospel, let that excuse be removed.

That rather puts it in the same category as those who somehow conclude that offense given is proof of unflinching faith.  God did not send us out to offend.  That was hardly the point.  And if we choose to be offensive in our approach to proclaiming God’s Truth, we present an unnecessary excuse for those we offend to reject His gracious gift.  Now, that offer may offend in spite of our best efforts to present the case in winsome fashion.  Truth will offend those committed to their lies, and there’s not much can be done about that if we are determined that the Truth should be proclaimed.  But that doesn’t mean we have to be jerks about it, nor even that we have permit to be so.

Let every unnecessary excuse for rejection be removed from us.  Let us commit to present the best case we may for the majesty and mercy of our God.  Let us seek with all that is in us to allow nothing in our word, our manner, or our custom give cause for offense in those whom we would reach with the Gospel.  But rather, let all we say and do and are advertise the goodness of our Lord, and the immeasurable value of His gift of life – real Life worthy of being called such.

The Substance of Faith (06/20/22)

I want to touch briefly on the topic of faith as we come into this passage.  Timothy, we are told, has brought news of their faith, and Paul says he yet hopes to come to them so as to fill up, or perfect that which is lacking in their faith.  Now, depending how we are thinking of faith, this can lead to some problematic understandings, particularly that latter notice of Paul’s prayers.

A glance at the lexicons gives indication as to the breadth of meanings that may apply when we speak of faith.  Are we talking that sort of faith which is exercised in bringing miracles to pass?  Are we talking simply of being persuaded as to the truth of some matter?  Are we speaking of trust or of trustworthiness?  For all that, are we considering the same aspect of faith at the end of this passage as we are at the beginning?  Much like the use of ‘we’ in this letter, one might suspect that ‘faith’ is being used with varying application.

In verse 6, it seems to me we are nearer the meaning of trust in God, that trust, as Thayer phrases it, that arises from faith in God.  Of course, this leaves us, in the end with faith defining faith, which is less than helpful if one is seeking the base meaning.  But that faith which is in God is, much to the surprise of many, built upon being persuaded, that root word which lies behind the Greek pistis of faith.  Faith of this sort has seen and heard convincing evidence for the veracity of those claims of which one has become persuaded, convicted even.  God truly is God, and His claims of exclusivity are legitimate.  God has shown Himself God, historically and presently.  He has made Himself knowable and known.  And in this Jesus, this Man who lived among us, born to the virgin Mary, who died the most ignominious death by crucifixion at the hands of Rome and of his own countrymen – His own creations! – truly did return to life from that tomb in which they laid Him.  Too many had witnessed this reality for it to be accounted a hoax.  Why, even the Roman centurion who had been charged with oversight of his crucifixion attested to the wonder of that event.  “Truly, this was the Son of God.”  If we understand the Biblical record correctly in so asserting, it would seem he was alive and well and testifying to Messiah in later years.  Even without him, we have the news that several hundred individuals, at the time yet extent, had seen the risen Christ, had witnessed His ascension into heaven.  In sum, there were far too many confirming testimonies to allow for even the cleverest of deceptions.

And we are by no means bereft of evidence in our own right.  God has not been absent these thousands of years, but remains deeply involved in the lives of His own.  We who have believed have not done so blindly, as is often suggested.  We have become convinced by solid evidence of the God Who is Spirit.  We may have had our own encounter with Him in some fashion.  I recall quite clearly that evening in the Chinese restaurant, when He made His proposition to me in some unfathomable inward voice.  He did not so much declare Himself as posit a test to me by which He might convince me of His being.  And convince me He did!  Thereupon, with these sound evidences of His reality and His goodness, do we find our faith established, and being established on such verified terms, faith stand firm.

But was there something lacking as to faith in those earliest days?  In the sense of being firmly convicted as to the veracity of God’s existence and God’s claims, no, I don’t suppose so.  How could there be?  Faith, as Paul informs us in later letters, is not something we have worked up in ourselves, but is rather a gift of God’s grace, such that no man may boast.  Even belief is not something we can claim to have achieved on our own.  It is implanted, much as the seed of Christ was implanted in Mary, growing into the Man.  In our case, the seed of salvation was implanted, growing under the watering of the Word to blossom into full-grown assurance that the God Who Is has called us and we have answered, that He has called us by name, and we are His.  There’s nothing lacking there.  From that first flush of faith, our situation as one of God’s elect, adopted into His kingdom has been established in full.  He who began the work is faithful to complete it, and it upon that rock-solid reality that we rely, particularly in our weakest moments.

So, what is it Paul thinks to complete and perfect in them?  Well, here we arrive at one of the least discussed aspects of faith.  That aspect pertains to instruction.  And at the very thought of this, many a believer, through what I must insist is mis-instruction, shakes their head, certain that faith and instruction are somehow at odds one with another.  It’s not unlike that position that supposes biblical belief and Greek modes of learning are necessarily opposed.  Paul would have none of that.  Shoot, he practically embodies the contradictory evidence in himself.  But faith requires instruction.  Faith is instructed.  We cannot properly trust in God if we do not properly understand His being, His essence.  And He being so infinitely beyond us as to His nature, we don’t get there by stumbling about blindly.  If we think to formulate our views on His being on the basis of mere cogitation or on imagined ideas of divinity, we shall have a very warped view of Who He Is.  That being the case, we will not in fact find that we have been worshiping God, but rather some idol we have fashioned and to which we have applied His name inappropriately.

So, then, what Paul seeks to complete is not salvific faith – as if man could do so even should he wish to try!  No, his concern is full and sound apprehension of God’s truth, of God’s nature, of God’s true intention for His elect.  This would require more than simply countering the excessive demands of those Judaizers who sought to enmesh their Gentile brethren in the demands of Mosaic Law.  This was not rejection of Moses, understand, but recognition that significant as he was, he was yet but a man, and unable to save.  Nor were the systems he established by God’s direction sufficient in and of themselves to save.  They were designed from the outset to point us to our need for One greater than Moses.  And now, as Paul would regularly observe, that One had come, and His own had seen Him put to death.  But death could not hold Him, and because it could not hold Him, neither can it hold us who are His by the Father’s gift.

There is more, of course.  There would be much that needed unlearning, given their heathen background.  The myriad gods of the Greek and the Roman must be cast aside, along with all their perverse practices.  The ideas that these mythologies gave of what a god was must be corrected, first and foremost to leave room for there being only one, but then also to avoid carrying the nature and attributes of those capricious and demonic entities into our understanding of the true God.  And then, there were the mystery religions that filtered in from the East.  They had their own half-truths, and much about them might strike the unwary as being Christianity in another guise.  Only a full and established understanding of real Truth would guard one from being enticed by their errors.  That, and of course, the Holy Spirit indwelling, by Whom the elect are guarded from any final apostasy.

And this reality must also be fully established and internalized.  The Christian who goes about in constant fear of failing out of faith has not in fact established faith in the first place.  That may seem a bit harsh, given some of the standard beliefs of our Arminian brothers – and yes, brothers they are, in spite of myriad points of disagreement.  But the doubt as to one’s salvation cannot but be doubt in God’s ability at the end of it.  If one probes to the depths of this system of beliefs, it seems one discovers that fear of falling away always applies to others, not to the one professing such concerns.  I mean, I certainly wouldn’t fall away, but others could.  Of course, I cannot make it a blanket statement, but it seems to me that when it comes to the doctrine of permanent election, the most vehement Arminian turns out to be quite Calvinistic.  And, from where I sit, if one lays hold of that doctrine, those others which define the two camps must likewise resolve to the Calvinist view if they are given sufficient thought.

I will say there was a period where my thinking followed the more Arminian perspective.  Naturally so, for I came to faith in an Assemblies of God church, and for denominations at that end of the spectrum, Arminian perspectives are the norm.  But came a time when I got my hands on a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, and given sufficient months, managed to work my way through.  The thing that struck me as I read was the way in which this whole thing held together.  Truths connected, intertwined into a whole and non-contradictory system.  The understanding given to Scripture did not require dismissing this passage or that to maintain.  Granted, there remain passages that are harder to comprehend from that perspective, but they are not dismissed, and neither are they twisted from their moorings in order to fit.  Then, what truly sealed it for me was working my way through Romans, particularly when the time came to apply sundry commentaries to that effort.  Given what I account solid proponents of both the Arminian and the Calvinist perspective on things, I found the Arminian view truly wanting, insisting on reading into Paul’s words things he clearly did not convey.  On the other hand, Calvin in particular presented again a consistent view that did no injustice to the written word it sought to interpret.

Here, then, was an example of the very thing Paul is talking about in this passage:  Faith being made complete, or perfect.  Here was understanding of God made a bit more full.  I don’t dare suppose I know Him perfectly, but I know this:  I am perfectly known by Him.  I am perfectly preserved, secure in His hands, from whence, as I so often remind myself from the words of Jesus of which John reminds us, no one is able to snatch me.  And that, I conclude, most assuredly includes myself.  I could no more tear myself from His blessed grasp than could the enemy of my soul.  He, after all, is more powerful than I am, and this, too, is attested by Scripture.  Well, if he, with his wiles and his angelic might (albeit fallen), can by no means pull me from out of the Father’s grasp, then certainly I, in all my fleshly limitations, stand no chance of doing so, even should I desire it!  And, then, there’s this:  Faith is a gift, given me by my Father in heaven, and fully established within by the indwelling Spirit of God Himself!  And I’m going to counter that with my puny will and ego?  I don’t think so, mate!  My God is greater.

I will push it even this far:  If you think yourself able to mislay that faith in God which He has given you, then your God is too small.  Your idea of who He is is yet lacking, and has more of mythology to it than reality.  Come, I say, and meet the real God.  Come and know Him as He truly is.  Do so, and I dare say you will no longer find room for doubt, no longer walk in fear of falling.  You will be no casual Christian, blithely presuming upon the grace of God, but neither will you continue in the cringing sort of belief that supposes a need constantly to appease an angry and vengeful God, after the fashion of those who made their gifts to the sundry deities of Greece lest one or the other of them should become resentful and cause trouble.

Here is the completeness and perfecting that Paul seeks.  He later expresses it to the church in Corinth from whence he has written on this occasion.  “I praise you for remembering me in everything, and holding fast to the traditions as I delivered them to you” (1Co 11:2).  You have not fallen for those twistings of doctrine that others have sought to introduce.  You have not been swayed by those, even in your church, who have been undermining those very traditions.  You have not joined with those who suppose that grace means you can just go on sinning without concern; that God, being forgiving, simply doesn’t care about such things at all.  Such a perversion of the idea of permanent election was an issue even in the earliest days of the church as we learn from Romans 6.  No surprise, then, that in our own day, the same lies persist, and seek to mislead, were it possible, even the elect.  But the elect will not be misled.  They will be firm in the full instruction of the true doctrines of Christian faith, fully attested by the Holy Spirit, and held fast in the hands of our all-Powerful Father.

Depths of Concern (06/21/22)

Having considered the meaning, the significance of Paul’s addressing the faith of the Thessalonians, one cannot but sense the depth of concern he feels towards them.  While he admits to a bit of anxiousness in regard to their estate, even a certain fear lest they have strayed from the Gospel he proclaimed to them, there is no anxiousness in him as regards his God and ours.  His fear is not that salvific faith might fail, but rather that perhaps what he had thought was saving faith coming to them was in fact no more than a passing emotion.  And even that might be overstating the case somewhat, as what we have before us in this section is certainly the expressions of a rhetorician and a skillful composer of thought.

But whatever his cause in writing, it is clear that what he expresses so eloquently comes from the depths of his heart.  This is no manipulative play on the marks.  This is the heart-cry of a pastor.  Go back to the last chapter, as Paul explains his forced absence from them.  It has been like we were orphaned!  We suffer this separation, but though we cannot see you, our hearts remain with you, and we are so eager that we might see you again (1Th 2:17).  Nothing could have been more desirous to him, apart, we must suppose, from departing to be with the Lord.  That sentiment echoes in the last of our current passage.  Night and day, we pray with utmost earnestness that we might yet come to see you again.

Now, however, anxious concern has been replaced by insuppressible joy.  They stand fast!  Faith has not fled from them, even in the face of stiff opposition.  News of him being driven leaf-like from city to city by that same opposition, or by the sort of indifference he met in Athens, have done nothing to dampen their enthusiasm for Christ, their full-throated trust in Him and Him alone.  Their faith has not, after all, been set on Paul, but on the Lord.

And so, as Paul digests news of their joyous perseverance and hospitality toward their fellow believers, what is his response?  Let me combine a couple of translations here to convey the powerful reaction.  I’ll use the NET and the TLB.  For now we are alive again!  We can bear anything as long as we know you remain strong in Him.  It’s not a question of whether he’s leaving a mark, making a name for himself, establishing some supposed legacy.  It’s all about Jesus.  Your faith remains strong!  That’s not me.  It’s Him.  That’s not my mad skills as a teacher.  That’s the evidence of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in you.  Now, we are alive again!  I can breathe now.  You’re safe.  You’re secure in His hands, and I can get on with ministering here, where I am.

This is satisfaction for the preacher.  I’m not just blowing wind week by week.  People aren’t just sitting politely, perhaps entertained by an energetic performance, but untouched by my words.  Pause for just a moment.  For all the years you have attended worship in the house of God, how many sermons do you really remember?  How many points have struck home with such force that they become unforgettable?  For all that, if you are a regular student of the Word, how much do you recall of last week’s studies?  Last year’s?  I don’t say this to convict or condemn; merely to observe the reality of our condition.  Alongside Peter I observe, as to my own condition, the constant need of reminder.  For his diagnosis is correct:  We are forgetful, and sometimes life is too much with us.

But here, however poorly they might recall specifics of his preaching, Paul has evidence that God – GOD! – is at work.  It’s not about Paul.  Paul knows this only too well.  It’s about the one who chose to make him His instrument, and plays so skillfully upon him.  Here is his satisfaction.  His work has not been in vain.  He has not been a poor and broken instrument, but one well-fashioned for the music of the Gospel message, and God, the most skillful of Gospel musicians, has played His music to full effect.  This news is more than welcome relief.  It is release.  So powerfully received is this message that it’s as if he has been restored to life at the reception of it.

Thayer offers that wonderful definition of life of this zao form as being life truly worthy of being called life, as it consists in being blessed in the kingdom of God.  This news of their firm faith, their joyful and generous faith, was, after its fashion, God’s, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Paul wouldn’t have to wait for heaven to hear that approval.  He had it in the fruit of his ministry.  And having received it, particularly on the heels of the weak response of Athens to his ministry, here was fresh energy to apply to his work, God’s work, in Corinth. 

Til now, the record shows, he had been supporting himself with his tent-making alongside his efforts of preaching.  The one must necessarily cut into the energy given to the other.  We might sense a bit of discouragement.  He hadn’t given up, but he was tired.  He wasn’t his usual self, perhaps, being bereft of his companions, finding he had been pretty much dismissed over the last few months.  Maybe he had misheard God’s leading in going into Achaia.  Something, at any rate, was lacking.  But with the return of Timothy and Silas, things changed.  I don’t think it was just that his junior partners could find employment to support him so that he could get on with preaching, although it seems this shift did in fact occur.  After all, he had already met with Prisca and Aquila, and surely they would have contributed to his support had he expressed the need.  I think it was more to do with discouragement.  It is, of course, speculation, but given the passion of this passage, I find cause to think it possible that this was the case.

Paul was far from passionless, after all.  He had been passionate in his fierce opposition to Christianity prior to conversion, and that hadn’t disappeared from him with the coming of the Gospel.  He was still Paul, just as we, perhaps much to our chagrin, find ourselves still recognizably ourselves in spite of rebirth.  So, as deep as had been his sense of loss at being so soon separated from his new converts up there in Thessalonica, just as deep was his joy at learning they fared well in faith.  Oh!  How we thank God for this news of you!  Indeed, what thanks could ever be enough?  Just as often as we pray that we might see you again, we rejoice over you in God’s presence.  We rejoice together with God for your steadfastness, the welcome news of your holding fast.

And this joy, this thankfulness, was fuel for present ministry.  Whatever disappointments and feelings of failure had dogged him coming from Athens and from being chased out of Macedonia, for all intents and purposes, now he was alive again!  Now joy and confidence were restored.  Now he was reminded that yes, God was working in and through him, and to ultimate purpose, never mind good purpose.  Lives were indeed being transformed.  Sinners were in fact being turned from lifelong sin to a new and blessed life in the kingdom of our Father.  Jesus saves!  And knowing this, looking around this new city, in which Jesus had reminded him at his lowest point, that He had many people – people who needed to hear this glorious news of the Gospel, he was fully energized and ready for the mission.  Play on, Father!  I am Yours.

All of this demonstrates to me the familial connection that Paul had with all those who came under the influence of his ministry.  If I wished to get a bit mystical, I could accept that even now, he feels that depth of feeling that marks our ties to family, when it comes to the myriad millions who have come to know Christ in large part through the words of his own testimony and teaching.  Indeed, with each fresh convert down through the ages, is it not the case that he hears yet again the “well done” of his Lord?

And this depth of connection, this depth of involvement is nothing reserved to the apostle.  It’s not an experience designed to be specific to the pastor, nor to other officers of the church.  It is intended to be the common, shared experience of us all.  Our involvement in each other’s lives is designed to be on the level of kin.  Now, I have to recognize that in the modern world that degree of involvement is rare, at least in adulthood.  We no longer remain near to home as adults, but rather, scatter as we will into the world.  We don’t know those same ties of clan that we once did.  I think back to the town where my grandparents lived, where my father and his siblings were raised.  That whole town was clans.  There was our clan.  There was the Campbell clan.  There were the Seamans, the Normans, and others.  Family connections ran deep and wide.  And they ran deep.  They went back generations.  Everybody’s mother knew who you were, and who to call if you were in trouble.  Everybody was, you might say, in your business.  I’m not talking back-fence gossip.  It wasn’t like that.  Nor was it somehow insidious and dark.  It was natural.  This was community in the old sense.  It didn’t intrude and impinge, but it was always there.  It was a small place, and in many ways, survival still depended on mutual aid.

Did people care?  That might, I suppose, be stretching the memories a bit too taut.  But everybody connected on some level.  Everybody knew what was going on with everybody else.  If there were needs, they did not go unnoticed.  If there were ways that help could be quietly put in place, it would be.  I think of my grandfather and my good friend’s mom.  Gramp kept his garden, and it was immense.  It produced far more than we could use, even after canning and freezing.  So, there would be the days of putting up a sort of vegetable stand out front, although that rarely did much trade.  But when my friend’s mom came by, though she would seek to pay for the veggies she went home with, he would have none of it.  No, however much she tried to pay him, that money would be back in with the veggies.  She was effectively alone in the world – at least I never, over those many years, met Pete’s father.  So, Gramp helped.  Quietly, lovingly.  They may not have been family, but they were family.

What has happened to this?  The impulse is still there, I think.  People still wish to have that security that comes of true community, but our distributed lifestyles make it hard.  We are always new in town.  And those with whom we associate, even in the church, come from a wide-spread region.  Connection takes work.  It takes time that never seems to be available.  It takes travel, and an open door at the other end.  One suspects our forebears had better sense when they insisted that church be local enough that one could get there on foot in a reasonable time.  You know, that was the basis on which new towns formed, quite often.  The farms were too far-flung to maintain that level of access to the church.  A new church was needed, and that was fundamentally the seed of a new town.  Whatever one may think of the faith of our fathers, there was this:  Church and town were close-tied.  Indeed, in many a New England town, they were a covenanted relationship between the townspeople.  And in losing that relationship we have lost much.

I think we can just possibly regain some of that if we will devote ourselves to our brethren in Christ.  But it takes time and effort.  It takes sacrificing our comfortable evening at home to be among others of like faith.  It takes energy, commitment, and a willingness to face potential frustration and even rejection with unbowed grace.

Let me ask this.  How do you respond when a prayer request or a praise report comes in your morning email?  Is it a message that can be readily dismissed as unimportant, not needing attention?  We are too much, I think, driven by this need to filter.  We have too much of ‘communication’ and not enough of community.  We are inundated with items seeking our attention, and time does not permit of giving each item the attention it desires.  So, we assess.  What needs attending to?  Where’s the fire?  And anything that doesn’t make the cut tends to get dismissed with barely a glance.  Maybe we’ll catch the first few sentences before we simply delete it and suppose we’ve read enough.

Don’t we do much the same with our news consumption?  We even have an abbreviation, and acronym for our response, because even our response is too long for our attention span:  TLDR.  Too long, didn’t read.  And it hits after less than a paragraph, if we ever even move beyond the headline, or the subject line of our emails.  This is something we must break free of, if we would live life that is truly worthy of being called life.  This is a fundamental contributor to our hunger, our loneliness.  We’ve forgotten how to be community.  And the Church is, first and foremost, at least in its earthly manifestation, a community.  Whatever else we may make it out to be, whether field hospital for the soul, or military outpost in hostile territory, or training center, or whatever else we might think it to be, it is community.  It is the community of faith; the very thing we ostensibly celebrate in taking Communion.  That Communion is a celebration of community – together with Christ fundamentally, but also with one another.  We happy few face the darkness around us together, able to stand and even to stand joyously knowing that our brothers and sisters around us have our backs.  We are not alone.  God has many in this city, though we may not know them, and they may not even know themselves as yet.

The war is not lost.  It cannot be, for our Lord is our Victorious Warrior.  We, then, need not cower away from the world, and if we do, we cannot but discover we have cowered away from one another, and rendered ourselves far weaker than we ought to be.  Let us, then, resolve to establish once more the true community of faith.  Let us resolve to open ourselves to others, and to seek out others that we might once more be knit together as God intended.  May we have hearts so tuned to the Spirit of God that news of a brother’s steadfast faith is truly cause for thanksgiving and joyful praise to God on our part.  May we come to trust our brothers and sisters enough to expose both our victories and our low points to them, that they might comfort and encourage us in our lows, and celebrate alongside us in our highs.