Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22 (May 19, 2025)

May 19, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22

Good morning my dear friends and may our LORD'S richest blessing be with you throughout this day and always. Please keep Pastor Ron and Becky in your prayers as they travel to their summer home in Minneapolis. The weather across the plains has been pretty vicious, so let's pray for good travel days filled with renewal and joy for them.  Please also remember to keep Mark and Linda in your prayers. They are now home in Wisconsin for the summer, and they too are in the line of the bad weather that has been brutalizing the mid-west. Please also pray for the families of the victims of the tornados that have been sweeping across our nation nearly every day. Please offer continued prayers for peace in all the places in our world where hatred, greed, and sin have taken nations to war.

This coming Sunday we will honor Logan and Caleb on their graduation from High School. We will have a brief cake reception after service. Congratulations to both of you!

Today we are in the closing part of Paul's first letter. Once again Paul encourages the behavior that identifies who the truly faithful ones are in this fledgling Christian community. Not only are they identified by the words they speak, but also by the joy in Christ that their hearts know in His love, and by their actions. In the Gospels, which are later writings in the New Testament, we hear these very hopes and behaviors that Paul writes to the Thessalonians. (Remember that it was Paul's letters that came first in the New Testament, yes, even before the Gospel writers felt God's call in their lives to record the true record of Christ's life in Israel) Let me say that each one of these suggestions of Paul for the Christians in Thessalonica could be a lengthy sermon.  In this passage Paul speaks for how the teachers of the Good News, who are discerned by the people who listen to them to be teaching and preaching authentic and true representations of the very same truth that Paul brought to them are to be held in esteem for this gift of God in their lives,  Paul talks about this by saying that they should have the highest rank of love.  Paul then moves on to tell the Thessalonians that they should live in peace with one another. We all know that damage that happens when even one person in our midst finds it difficult to be the Love of Christ for their brothers and sisters.

Here, as in the Gospels, we read that the community has a responsibility to lovingly call out that poor behavior which may split the congregation. And this must happen in private when those who guide the community must have "that talk" with a member who is so off the mark. This can only become community information if that change of heart has not filled their life with repentance, forgiveness, and grace. Let us admit that this is tough on both sides when church discipline must intervene to restore the wholeness of Christ to the community of believers. I am thankful that in our congregation this is a rare circumstance.

What we find here is very similar to chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew, and its beatitude teachings by Christ, and indeed the failure of the leaders and people of Israel to do this, meant that they would once again find themselves driven from the promised land.  Following is Paul's list of what is right and good and just:

1. Console the downcast.

2. Help the weak.

3. Be sympathetic towards everybody.

4. There should be no revenge between brothers and sisters in Christ.

5. Always find a way to treat everyone you meet with loving kindness and goodness.

6. Always celebrate. (meals, receptions of honor, donut fellowship in Christ)

7. Pray constantly.

8. In everything be thankful. This is God's will for all people, and most especially for we who accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.

9. Don't quench the Spirit, for with Her, all things are possible, even the surprising ones.

10. Don't look down on prophecies, remembering that the only way to discern their truth is to wait to see if they come true. Then you will know.

11. Test everything, holding it up to the glass of Christ's love and forgiveness in all things.

12. If discernment shows Christ's truth and gentle love is present hold it fast in your life and faith journey. However, if in discernment you know Christ's teaching opposes something coming into your life that would seem to be evil, then stay away from it.

This long list is all about what choices and decisions are faced by those who are the children of Jesus Christ. This is how we are called to live, and the journey is Spirit guided, and Redeemer fulfilled through God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

When you have a life question, refer to this list for help.

With the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim