Monday 24th February
Read 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8
“But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. 7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. 8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.” (NIVUK)
The amazing thing about these early Christian letters is how much insight they give us to what Paul was thinking and how he felt. The joy at Timothy’s return with news of their faith and love lifts Paul’s spirits immensely.
When we cross-reference his letter with Luke’s account in Acts we can begin to understand why he was thinking what he was. Paul declares that they were living but a shadow of a life whilst uncertain about the fate and faith of Thessalonian followers. News that they have stood firm prompts him to declare that ‘now we really live’ (v8)! Paul’s life was bound up with theirs.
This is a very Christian idea. We are familiar with our ‘life’ being bound up in Jesus as Paul taught and wrote this often. We are less familiar with our ‘life’ being bound up with the community of faith. Logically this makes sense if the church is the ‘body of Christ’, but it is not something we reflect on regularly. The closeness between Paul and the believers in Thessalonica is real. They are part of the same body and share the same life-bringing Spirit.
Perhaps Paul was meditating on this in Athens whilst waiting for Timothy. Luke records a summary of Paul’s message to the Athenians, a masterclass in contextual preaching, and reports that Paul concluded his message by appealing to their own poets and philosophers. Paul quotes Epimenides of Crete who wrote concerning deity and humanity, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:28a) (NIVUK). God is not distant Paul argues, He is within reach, even your own philosophers think so!
The connectedness between the divine and the human was at the heart of Paul’s message to the Athenians. It makes sense then that Paul is animated by the faith of those who share the divine Spirit, ‘For now we really live’ (v8). The connection between the divine and the human has been bridged by Jesus.
