The Prayers of 2 Thessalonians (Part 1)

I have been studying 2 Thessalonians for a few days now, and the theme that has struck me the most is prayer.  Four times, Paul exhorts the Thessalonians (and all Christians) to specific prayers.  Twice he urges Christians to thanksgiving and twice to supplication.  In the next four posts, I will cover each of these prayers.

(1)  Thanksgiving for Sanctification

 

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your stead fastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.  (2 Thess. 1:3-4)

The first prayer of 2 Thessalonians is thanksgiving for sanctification.  We learn in verse 4 that the Thessalonian church is enduring persecutions and afflictions.  But in the midst of their trials (and perhaps because of them), their faith is growing and their love for one another is increasing.  Paul sees this not as a work of the Thessalonians, but of God .  He says, "We ought always to give thanks to God."  What I take from this is that when a Christian sees his brother growing in Christ, he should thank the Lord for His sanctifying work.  And this prayer is not meant to be prayed every so often, but always.  So, the first application I get from 2 Thessalonians is: 

Christians should, in their daily prayers, thank God for His work in their brothers' lives.  

Why I Haven't Blogged in Quite Some Time

Over the past few months, God has been growing me up into the image of Christ, but I came to the realization a few months ago that, frankly, I wasn't qualified to preach to other people because (1) my knowledge of God's Word was not sufficient and (2) I was not applying God's Word to my life and really fighting my sin.  I am slowly achieving greater success over my sin, but there is still a long way to go.  I've decided to begin posting again, however, and the first post should be coming up soon.  I'm studying 2 Thessalonians right now, and I'll be covering the four prayers Paul exhorts us to.

Murder or "Selective Reduction"?

I linked from Al Mohler's very excellent blog (here) to an op-ed by Dan Neil, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times.  In this op-ed, Neil writes on a topic very personal to him: abortion.  Specifically, his wife's abortion.  While all abortions are horrible, Neil's case highlights a shocking, gruesome development in the bloody story of abortion.  You see, Neil and his wife didn't accidentally get pregnant; nay, they went to great lengths to have children.  When in vitro implantation of five embryos into his wife's womb resulted in four fetuses, they should have seen it as a gift from God.  But rather than keep all four, they decided to "selectively reduce," or kill two of their children.  They had two boys and two girls on the way; they chose to keep the girls.  

The most startling section of Neil's column is the third paragraph, which begins, "We don't feel guilty.  We don't feel ashamed.  We're not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses--at 15 weeks' gestation--was a medical imperative."  To really understand the moral gravity of this situation, imagine if the fetuses had been allowed to stay for just fifteen more weeks.  By then, it being a multi-child pregnancy, the babies would be born.  If Neil and his wife killed the boys then, we would label them murderers.  A public confession similar to the one he writes in column would inspire visceral hatred from nearly everyone.  To kill an infant with pre-meditation and no remorse would perhaps bring capital punishment upon the Neils' heads.  Yet a difference of fifteen weeks in this case makes all the difference.  Our generation faces a choice: we may continue the shockingly evil customs of our parents' generation, or we may fight for truth and justice in an unjust, unmoral world.

The Astonishing Waiting of the Thessalonians

In 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10, Paul says, "Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us.  They [residents of Macedonia, Achaia, and the surrounding regions] tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath (NIV, italics added).  Eugene Peterson puts it this way in the Message: "They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son."  If we are waiting expectantly for Jesus's coming, our mindsets, actions, and words will be very different than those of the world.  In the secular, idol-worshipping Greek world, people were amazed at the faith the Thessalonians had in Jesus's coming back.  May we have the same faith and the same influence on our world.

Strangers In The World

I was reading 1 Peter 1:1 a minute ago, trying to understand what the KJV calls "strangers."  After looking at several translations, I discovered the amazing truth in this verse.  The NIV says, "To God's elect, strangers in the world."  Strangers in the world is a wonderful description of God's elect.  This is not our home.  We are in a foreign land.  The NASB calls us "aliens, the KJV "strangers."  The message is clear.  We must be ambassadors to the world showing the greatness of God's world in the fallen world.

Follow Me

18While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

This is really amazing. Peter, Andrew, James, and John had never heard of Jesus. But when Jesus said to follow him, they did. Why? The Holy Spirit. This is the only answer that makes sense to me. If a wandering preacher ordered me to follow him, I would probably (1) run away, or (2) ignore him. But, it appears the Holy Spirit led Jesus's first disciples to give their lives to His ministry. In the same way, we have been led by the Holy Spirit to follow God.

Bear Fruit

In Matthew 3, verse 8, John the Baptist makes a cutting remark to the Pharisees and Sadducees. He says, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." He's effectively saying, "I can't tell you've repented, for there is no fruit." The message is clear. True repentance brings about fruit. James writes in James 2: "faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." Earlier in the chapter, he says, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" God's message is clear: if you have been saved and repented from your sins, it will show in your works. So, brothers, " let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith."

Hate Your Sin

God hates sin. The word hate is very strong, but this is true. God hates sin.
God killed the entire clan of Korah, banished the Israelites to captivity, and currently damns millions to Hell because of sin.
Our job is to be like Christ. Since Christ is God, and God hates sin, Christ hated sin. Since Christ hated sin, we should hate sin.
Our job is to seek out and destroy sin. This involves meditating on God, his supremacy, and his saving grace.
I see what I have to change. My whole life, I've never given a thought to how much God hates sin. Now, I must change my ways.
I have tried to mortify sin because I didn't like it, but never because God hated it. Now, I will mortify sin because God hates it.

Very Interesting....

I read the initial greetings to epistles all the time, but I never noticed something almost all of them share: a healthy and comprehensive view of Jesus's righteousness. Look at 2 Peter's first verse: 1Simeon[a] Peter, a servant[b] and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

Peter understood (1) that the righteousness of Jesus is essential to salvation and (2) that without it, we would not be saved. "by the righteousness of Jesus Christ" we have reached a standing of righteousness. A metaphor for this would be washing your clothes. If you wash your clothes in dirty water, they will not be cleaned; if they are washed in clean water, they become clean. One of the bloggers I read, Mark Lauterbach, is currently in a series on applying Jesus's righteousness: something we don't often do.

A Counter-Culture?

The Rebelution (www.therebelution.com) is an attempt at exactly what it sounds like, a revolution. But this is no violent upheaval of authorities, it is a cultural revolution. Unlike Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, the Rebelution is an attempt to instill in today's Christian teenagers a heart to change the world. Just as the Russian revolution had Lenin and the American revolution had George Washington and Thomas Paine, the Rebelution has Alex and Brett Harris, the creators of the Rebelution. I encourage you to evaluate our culture and the Rebelution's counter-culture, and decide which is more God-honoring. More on this to come.