Friday, December 20, 2013

How to Bless Your Pastor

1 Thessalonians 3:6 KJV
But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you:

The Apostle wrote this epistle in an effort to comfort and strengthen the suffing Christians in Thessalonica. But remember that the Apostle suffered as well. Such suffering he reminded them of in the first few verses of the chapter. He then transitioned into a passage intended to express to them how he had been comforted by news about them. Paul lists three specific things that were of great comfort to him:
Their faith
They had not abandoned either faith in Jesus Christ or the doctrines and practices he had taught them. Though the days were difficult and they might have relieved a great deal of stress if they had just bowed to the local Jews in a couple of areas, they still stood for those things Paul taught them; a much different scenario than had happened in the churches of Galatia.

Their charity[2]
I take this word to reference love for one's church[1]. Charity is used in a particular manner in the Bible, not merely to speak of a godlike love which gives expecting nothing in return, but a focused love that is directed to the Church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.

Their desire for Paul
Paul saw this as the confirmation that the first two were real. They had not moved passed what Paul taught them but continued to embrace and grow in those things. They weren't looking for new teachers to give them something Paul had missed; they looked for Paul to give them more of what he had previously.

A preacher[3] lives to see the people in his congregation hold fast to their faith, focus their affections on the things of Christ in His church and long to hear the Word preached once again.


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