Priorities
for Pastors: Approved by God
1 Thessalonians 2:4
We are
continuing our study in 1 Thessalonians. We are in the second chapter of 1
Thessalonians I have taught on the first three verses, but this is a reminder
that this is not a normal series where I taught it week after week after week.
What happens is that I am teaching this as a series to use when I am out of
town, when I’m sick, when some situation arises when I just can’t be here,
maybe at the last minute, and I need to have Bible class. So, this is not a
continuous series. In fact, the last two lessons that I taught were taught in
December 2015. So now it’s May 2018, so it’s been 2-1/2 years. So, I’ll do a
little review before we get started.
I’m
entitling this lesson Priorities for Pastors: Approved by God. Ultimately a pastor is
accountable to God. When we think of this word that is used here, twice forms
of this word used in verse 4 having to do with being approved by God and Paul
using that as a criterion for his ministry. This is fundamental in terms of his
accountability, that he is accountable to God and therefore that is what
undergirds his integrity as an apostle, his integrity as a minister.
That
has great application for all of us because ultimately, we are not to live our
lives; we’re not to work at our jobs as men pleasers. We are there to serve the
Lord by serving in that capacity—the same thing is true for pastors. So
ultimately it is not the pastor’s job to seek approval from the sheep but
approval from God. So, we’re going to look at this with first a little bit of
review in 1 Thessalonians 2:1.
In 1
Thessalonians 2:1–2, we read, “For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in
vain. But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at
Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of
God in much conflict.”
The
first thing I want to point out in terms of our review is that in this first
verse of chapter 2, Paul asserts that they themselves know that their coming,
which implies their teaching and proclamation—they’re not on vacation, they’re
not just traveling—they are coming to teach the Word of God, to proclaim the
gospel. This is made clear in the current exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 2:3,
that it was not without meaning, purpose, or result. It had borne the root of
their salvation and their spiritual growth.
If
you look at 1 Thessalonians 1:9, he writes, “For they themselves declare concerning us
what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to
serve the living and true God.” So, he’s really emphasizing what is
happening in their lives and that there’s been a transformation in their lives,
and that is part of the evidence of the credibility of the apostolic ministry.
With
this first line, he says, “For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in
vain,” 1 Thessalonians 2:1 That word [“vain”] is the word KENOS and it is used a number of
times by Paul. It refers to something that is meaningless: it’s empty, it has
no value; it has no worth. It’s the opposite of a word that means something
that is significant, important, something that is full. It could refer to, for
example, an empty wineskin or a full wineskin. It can be referred to the
opposite of something being filled with the word PLEROO, which would be the opposite.
This
is something that is meaningless and has no value. It has no significance whatsoever
and has no result or impact. So he is emphasizing this and this is true for
anybody who is a pastor or a Bible teacher or minister who is legitimate, who
is focused on teaching the Word, because we know that the power is in the Word
of God. We have to understand what the Word of God says because it is the Word
of God that is being breathed out by God. It is the Word of God that has power,
and so we teach the Word of God. If a pastor is teaching the Word of God, there
will be three results that will be obvious in any group.
First
of all, people will be saved; people will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ. It may be a few; it may be more. It just depends on the culture, the
congregation, the background; things like that. I have had over the years a
number of people who have come and who have been saved, and I had no idea until
maybe some years later when they told me that. So, it is the Word of God though
that presented accurately, has an impact in saving people spiritually.
Second,
it will produce spiritual growth. People will learn the Word and they will grow
spiritually. I always enjoy receiving emails from people that tell me how much
certain lessons have impacted them and how they have grown and matured under
this ministry. That is a great source of encouragement.
The
third thing that results from the teaching of the Word is spiritual service.
Spiritual service is not the cause of spiritual growth. It is a natural
consequence of spiritual growth. That is, people grow and mature, and they want
to serve the Lord, and here there are some opportunities to serve the Lord:
teaching in Sunday school, other people serve the Lord just in terms of some
administrative things that they do volunteering in different aspects, other
people serve the Lord singing in choir. Some people serve the Lord going, for
example, to Camp Arete serving there during the summer, and I hope sometime
that we have opportunities to take groups on short-term missions trips. But
that’s one of the ways in which of the Lord is served as a result of spiritual
growth. We see those through three results: salvation, spiritual growth, and
spiritual service.
Now
Paul has seen these consequences. Whenever you see these consequences, when the
Word of God is having an impact in people’s lives, then one of the things that
frequently happens is opposition, especially if you’re going into a new area
where there’s never been the truth there and the angelic conflict gets focused
at that point. There are those who are holding to the lies, holding the false
doctrine, worshiping idols.
This
is what has happened in Thessalonica—they have turned to God from idols to
serve the living and true God. This angered a lot of people. It angered
Gentiles who were idol worshipers. And on the other hand, it angered as we know
from the background studies in Acts as we looked at, it angers the Jewish
community because they had made an idol out of the Law, out of the Torah, which
is still very much part of Judaism today.
So,
they attacked the messenger. They attacked Paul, and they had many false
charges against him.
They
accused him of doing it only for money, that they were just trying to become
wealthy off of this, that they were deceiving people. They had all these
different charges brought against him, and this is not new for Paul. He had to
defend his apostleship to the Corinthians in both the first epistle to the
Corinthians and in the second epistle to the Corinthians.
So,
we ought to look at this in terms of solving a problem. We have our spiritual
skills that we talk about. Otherwise they’ve been referred to as
problem-solving devices or problem-solving skills that God gives us.
Paul
is facing a problem of people testing in opposition to the Word, opposition to
the truth, and these lies that are told about him. Often what happens if we’re
victims of gossip, we’re victims of lies and slander, that we take it
personally. But I want you to notice, that’s not what Paul’s doing here. Paul
is so focused on the gospel; what matters to Paul is its impact on the gospel
presentation, its impact on the gospel truth, and whatever the consequences of
that might be are really his focus. He is not really focused on the fact that
his feelings have been hurt or that he has been treated unjustly. It is always
all about the gospel.
One
of the things that we have to learn is how does Paul deal with this. What are
the doctrinal methods that we’ve studied in terms of spiritual skills that are
brought to bear on his opposition as he’s dealing with that? One of the things
that he does in these first 12 verses is he brings people back to his life as
he was serving among them. What is important about that is that it brings into
perspective two words that we see used.
Actually,
it’s these two words that are used in chapter 4. They’re forms of the root
word, and the root word comes from the noun DOKIMOS or DOKIMAZO is the verb. It
has a couple different forms here, but what it refers to is approval. Whenever
we see these words it immediately should bring to our mind that there’s future
accountability to God—we’re serving God. Ultimately the way in which we handle
any kind of opposition—slander, lies, and everything—is to bring it back to the
to the gospel and that eventually there’s accountability at the Judgment Seat
of Christ. That’s what Paul is going to be bringing out here.
As
part of this he refers to the way in which he served them. See, he’s serving
them at that point because of his long-term understanding of God’s destiny for
them, so that’s a form of our personal sense of eternal destiny. I want you to
notice as you read through these 12 verses how many times Paul refers back to
what they witnessed in terms of his ministry, what they knew about his
ministry, his personal relationship with them.
For
example [referring to 1 Thessalonians 2:1–11], in verse 1, he says, “As you yourselves
know.” In verse 2, he says, “As you know,” then in verse 5, again, he says, “As you know,”
then in verse 5 he says, “God is witness,” and verse 6, he said, “We did not seek glory from men or from you
or others.” He’s appealing to them and to remember that we weren’t there to
glorify ourselves; we weren’t trying to gain attention for ourselves. In verse
7 he says, “We
were gentle among you.” See, he keeps going back to their frame of
reference of his ministry when he was there. Verse 9, he says, “For you remember,”
verse 10 he says, “You are witnesses,” and then in verse 11, again for the third time,
he comes back and says, “As you know.” He is constantly referring back to that testimony
that he had when he was in their presence and was ministering to them. He’s
telling them that his ministry and their witnesses of it was not in vain; it
wasn’t worthless. We see the use of that word KENOS several times in the New
Testament. It has this idea usually of just a wasted time, a wasted life,
something that had no impact and no significance.
For
example, Paul uses it [KENOS] three times in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, remember 1 Corinthians
15 talks about the resurrection and the significance of the resurrection to the
Christian life; it’s a great resurrection chapter. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul
says, “by the
grace of God I am what I am,” and His grace toward me was not in vain. See,
it’s the same idea—God’s grace has an impact. It’s not empty. It transforms our
lives, and so that’s what Paul is referring to.
The
grace of God was when Jesus appeared to him when he was on the road to
Damascus, and at that point he clearly understood the gospel. Jesus said in
Acts 9:5, “Why
are you kicking against the goads?” In other words, why are you kicking and
constantly resisting all of the gospel presentations, all of the testimonies
that you’ve heard and witnessed? Why are you constantly resisting that? Then
Paul responds and states, God’s grace wasn’t just emptiness in his life, and he
refers back to what he’s done, Before that he labored more abundantly than
everyone, but that didn’t count. It was God’s grace, which was with me, that
made the difference.
In 1
Corinthians 15:14, he talks about the content of our faith and the foundation
of our faith, and that is the Resurrection. That without the Resurrection,
there is no Christianity. It is the Latin phrase sine qua non, it is without which nothing, and it refers to
something that is indispensable, and if it’s removed, then you just don’t have
anything. So, the Resurrection is central to our proclamation, and that word
refers to proclamation of the gospel, and then if there’s no Resurrection, then
our faith is also empty.
Then
in the third use in 1 Corinthians 15:58 where he says, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be
steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you
know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That is referring to your
spiritual service, that it is not something that is just empty and meaningless.
But if we are steadfast in our spiritual walk, staying in relationship with the
Holy Spirit, growing to spiritual maturity, then whatever we do counts for
eternity. In 2 Corinthians 6:1, he says, “We then, his workers together with him, also plead
with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” So, don’t just ignore
it, or receive it in a way and believe the Scriptures and then you will go
forward.
This
is what is being said in 1 Thessalonians 2:1, “For you yourselves know, brethren, that our
coming to you was not in vain.” It produced a transformation that was caused
by the content of the gospel.
He
uses the word again in 1 Thessalonians 3:5, he says, “For this reason, when I could no longer
endure it, I sent to know your faith.” He sent a messenger. He had left
Thessalonica; he was only there for two or three months at the most, and he
left and he went from there to Berea, as its anglicized. He goes to Berea, and
then he went down to Athens, and then he has to send back because he left his
coworkers Timothy and Titus back there in Thessalonica. He wants to find out
what’s happened because he basically got run out of town because there was such
opposition from the Jews in the synagogues to what he was what he was doing.
So, he sent to know how they were doing.
They
were young church, young believers. How have they survived since he last left?
Had they fallen prey to the tempter who is the devil? He says, “I sent to know
your faith … lest by some means, the tempter had tempted you, and our labor
might be in vain,”1 Thessalonians 3:5. But it was not, and they were
growing, and they were maturing, and they had questions for him to clarify
their faith. All that is just a first review that Paul had had a significant
impact in the ministry there.
Then
we come to verse 2, “But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at
Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of
God in much conflict,” 1 Thessalonians 2:2. Here he refers to the
suffering, the persecution, and the arrest that had occurred when he was beaten
in Philippi. But he says despite this opposition, the hostility, the
persecution, and the physical abuse he said, “we were bold in our God to speak to you the
gospel of God in much conflict.”
The
second thing is that he reminds them that Paul and Silas had endured tremendous
rejection, hostility, and suffering as they proclaimed their message, which
they would not have done if they had been frauds. They would not have stayed in
that ministry and gone through that entire suffering if they had left much
earlier.
So,
this goes to his appeal to their character and their ministry. The reason that
they are ministering is because he has his eye on the long game; not only their
eternal salvation, but also their future destiny to rule and reign with Jesus
Christ. So that’s why I say that what is motivating his ministry is his
understanding of the long game, that is our spiritual skill or problem-solving
device. That is what will come into play whenever we are facing opposition in
our spiritual life.
Just
to remind you, we have this map here of Greece. Achaia is the lower area;
Sparta is down here in the south. Achaia is the central area and then in the
north, we have Macedonia and the yellow line that you see going from east to
west horizontally is the Ignatian Way. This is a main east-west thoroughfare
that Paul would have traveled. If you go to Greece, you can still see sections
of this that are still there. It’s about six feet wide, and it’s stone at the
bottom. It’s pretty rough now, but it would have had to be much smoother
earlier to have wheeled vehicles.
We
see that both Philippi and Thessalonica are on this Via Ignatia, the Ignatian
Way. Thessalonica is about 40 miles to the west of Philippi. On that second
missionary journey Paul had come in and he’d gone to Neapolis and actually had
his ministry. This is Acts 16, where he’s arrested in Philippi, and from there
he went to Thessalonica.
He
talks about that; they were bold to have confidence that even despite
opposition, they continued to proclaim the Word and to teach the Word.
The
third point that he is making here is that his life was an example to other
believers on how to face life challenges with spiritual courage and boldness
because they understand what that eternal destiny is. So, whether the
opposition is some sort of overt organized persecution, or whether it is just
people who are slandering and lying about you, keeping your eye on the end
game—your eternal destiny—allows us to live with joy and happiness today and
proclaim the gospel with courage and boldness. But it’s dependent upon having
the Word of God in our soul. So, Paul faces the situation with humility and has
grace orientation.
In
Philippi he is imprisoned, but I want you to notice that he just doesn’t roll
over. He’s not becoming the doormat for those who are in opposition. He just
doesn’t sit there with this pious look on his face and just, you know, “do to
me what you will”. He is a very strong individual, and he is going to go to the
Lord in prayer. He is going to have great joy as he and Silas are in the jail.
They’re going to sing hymns to the glory of God while they are in the jail
overnight and then God miraculously is going to deliver them.
There
are a couple of lessons that we learn from that. You might want to turn with me
in your Bible to Acts 16, and we will just review briefly what happened when they
went, when they were arrested, and they were put in prison.
In
Acts 16, the first thing we notice as we look at this episode is that Paul’s
focus is on the gospel and his Christian testimony, that he is not focused on
the opposition in terms of his own personal suffering. He’s not whining
personally; he’s not angry; he’s not in a mode of retaliation. He is relaxed
because he knows that God is in control, and he is applying the Word to his
life. He understands God has a plan and purpose for him, so he can relax in the
situation.
We
see him thus stating the principal in 2 Corinthians 10:17–18, the same way he
has been rehearsing some of the various types of persecution, suffering,
hostility that he has met in his and his apostolic ministry. And at the end, he
says, “But he
who glories let him glory in the Lord.”
That’s
our mental attitude—we’re not glorying in ourselves. The ministry is not about
me, it’s not about my success, it’s not about how many people that the Lord
gives me, how few people, how large a church, how small a church, whatever; it
is to faithfully serve the Lord with whomever the Lord brings in my life. If
there’s going to be opposition and persecution, then that means that the Lord
has a testimony that He’s developing in me and for some reason and some
purpose. So, it’s not for me to glory in my ministry, but to glory in the Lord.
For Paul, as he points out, it’s always ultimately about the Lord.
Then
in 2 Corinthians 10:18, he says, “For not he who commends himself is approved.”
So, if you’re always focusing on how great your ministry is, how large it is,
talking about all the positive things that God is doing, then in a way, you’re
commending yourself as opposed to the Lord.
The
issue here is his approval, and that brings in the word that we’re going to see
in 1 Thessalonians 4, and that’s the word DOKIMOS, and that supports the verb
form DOKIMAZO, but here it’s DOKIMOS. It’s an adjective
and it means approval, or something that is excellent, or something that has
passed inspection, and therefore, it is accepted. “For not he who commends himself is approved,”
and that usually refers to the Judgment Seat of Christ. At the Judgment Seat of
Christ, this will not accrue to gold, silver, and precious stones to rewards,
but only to a loss of rewards. The one who is approved is the one who the Lord
commends because of what the Lord is doing in their life. So, we see the hint
of where we’re going.
The
second thing that we see here is that Paul doesn’t take advantage of the
miraculous release that occurs when the angels appear, the chains come off, and
they are freed. This is described in Acts 16:25, “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” So,
this is a great testimony.
You
ought to ask yourself, how many hymns could you sing if you were thrown in
jail? How many hymns could you sing from memory? I always remember reading a
book about a Vietnam War era prisoner of war talking about how the men in the
prison, the Vietnamese prison camp, would piece together the bits and pieces of
verses that they could remember. They figured out codes where they could use
like Morse code to tap out things. One guy would remember part of a verse;
another guy would remember part of the verse that would put things together and
the same thing for hymns. So, Paul and Silas have learned hymns. This is part
of walking by the Spirit. We should know our hymns; we should be able to sing
hymns without our hymnal because we know them.
Suddenly
there’s a great earthquake, the foundations of the prison were shaken.
Immediately the doors are open and all the chains are loosed; all these
prisoners could escape. Paul doesn’t take advantage of that, but he extends
grace because he knows as they all leave the prison, the jailer is going to be
held accountable and face the death penalty.
That
was what the situation was in the Roman Empire. So, the keeper of the prison is
awakened in the midst of this, and he runs to make sure the prisoners haven’t
escaped. He just knows they’ve escaped, so he’s going to kill himself. But Paul
stopped him in Acts 16:28, and then the keeper of the prison calls for a light
and went in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
He’s
scared to death because he knows that his life is in danger. He cries out to
them and says, “Sirs,
what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30. Then we have Paul’s succinct
answer in terms of the gospel, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be
saved, you and your household,” Acts 16:31. In other words, all your family
can be saved, and then they spoke the Word of the Lord, and they explained the
gospel to him.
The
gospel is succinctly, "just believe"; not believe and have works that
are consistent with your belief. It is simply believe. At the instant of faith
alone in Christ alone, we are saved. We are immediately born again, are
immediately a new creature in Christ; we immediately receive the imputation of
righteousness. God declares us justified, and we have eternal life that can
never be taken away from us.
But,
the succinct gospel is “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” So, after
he believes, he takes Paul and Silas to his house. They treat their wounds from
having been whipped and flagellated. Then he and his family are baptized. We
don’t know where they were baptized. We do know there’s a small river that runs
through Philippi. It could have been right by their house, and they just went
right there and were baptized. Then the next day they’re going to wait.
This
is what’s so interesting is how Paul handles this. He doesn’t just say, “Okay,
we’ll leave town.” He is going to force the issue in a gracious way, but he’s
going to force the issue because he wants the opposition to know that they just
can’t walk all over them and just take advantage of him because he indeed is a
Roman citizen.
One
of the laws related to Roman citizens is they are not to be whipped. They are
not to be flogged. And the next day, the magistrates, having awakened, know
about the earthquake during the night, send officers and they were going to
just let him [Paul] go. They figured they learned their lesson, and were going
to let the men go.
But
the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now
therefore depart, and go in peace,” Acts 16:36. Paul says in Acts 16:37, “They’ve beaten us
openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put
us out secretly?” Basically, what he’s saying is they’re not going to get
away with this; there has to be accountability.
So,
he says, “Let
them come themselves and get us out,” Acts 16:37. When the officers were
told this in Acts 16:38, they were afraid when they heard they were Romans.
They just didn’t listen. They didn’t give them the opportunity to defend
themselves at all the night before. So, they came, they pleaded with them and
asked them to depart from the city.
So,
this is the suffering that Paul is referring to here, but he treats even his
opponents with grace, but he holds them to accountability.
Now
the third thing, or point c, that I’m bringing out here, is that by
application, we can find ourselves mistreated, we can be legally mistreated. We
can be legally held accountable and that could very well happen in this country
with the rise of such hostility to Christianity, especially in some of the
very, very liberal parts of this country. There are many people, even in
government, that don’t know any evangelical Christians. You say, “Christians”,
and they’ve never known them.
A
number of years ago, now it’s been about 12 years [2006], we were on our first
trip to Israel, and there was a film crew along with us. They were all from
Boston, and they just simply made the comment that they wanted to film
Christians and understand their support for Israel because in their lives, they
didn’t know any conservative, evangelical Christians. This was a major issue at
the time when George W. Bush was president.
But
that’s the point, there are these enclaves of people in liberal bastions in
California, in Washington state, Oregon, mostly along the coast of New York,
Boston, Connecticut. They have no contact with anyone that is a Bible-believing
Christian. And so, they just have believed a lot of lies and misrepresentations
and caricatures of Christians, and as a result, they’re prone to even
increasing that slander.
We
may eventually, even in this country, face legal persecution. That’s happened
with some people that have taken stands in their business against serving cakes
or being photographers at homosexual “weddings”.
We
may be personally defamed. It may be family members who are hostile to us as
Christians. So, how do we handle that? We have to understand our personal sense
of our eternal destiny—where we are headed eventually—and we handle this
opposition with grace and humility so that brings to bear two of those
spiritual skills: grace orientation and a personal sense of our eternal
destiny. As they apply that, as we see Paul and Silas apply this, there’s no
anger, there’s no retaliation that takes place. Everything is oriented to
ultimately the message of the gospel and the salvation of those who may be
around. As a result of that, Paul had a tremendous opportunity to give the
gospel to the Philippian jailer and to his family. And there were probably many
others who through the witness of the Philippian jailer and his family, also
came to know and understand the gospel.
So,
when we handle this opposition on the basis of grace, humility, and personal
sense of our eternal destiny, it opens the door to opportunities to give the
gospel. If we retaliate in anger and bitterness, then we feel pretty foolish if
then we get the opportunity to give the gospel, because we discredited
ourselves already. So, we see a positive example here with Paul.
Slide 19
Now
the fourth thing in terms of review, in the second part of 1 Thessalonians 2:2,
it points out that their past failure, their past suffering, didn’t minimize
their boldness and courage. Even though they faced this opposition in Philippi,
when they came to Thessalonica, they weren’t hindered. They didn’t say, “Well,
we don’t want to upset the ruling class. We don’t want to upset the Jews. We don’t
want to create a problem. We will just back off a little bit and maybe just
going into people’s private homes.” They didn’t do that at all.
They
went to the synagogue; they taught at the synagogue. Then there were those Jews
who became hostile to them and kicked them out, but there were others who
believed and they developed a ministry to them. So, they continued to be bold
because they understood God’s plan and purpose for their life.
So,
this leads us into 1 Thessalonians 2:2 where he says, “But even after we had suffered before and
were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to
speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.” They don’t water it down.
This is what happened in Galatia; this is what all of Galatians is about. The
Judaizers, who were Jews who were hostile to the gospel, wanted the Christians
to obey the Law for salvation as well as for sanctification, and so they wanted
them to water down and change the gospel. But Paul is not going to water down
or change the gospel, or make it any less offensive to those who might take
some form of offense. They are bold, but it is in conflict; something we should
expect as Christians, that when we take a stand for the truth, take a stand for
God’s gospel, there may be opposition and there may be great conflict,
especially as we see where our world is headed today.
Then
we look at 1 Thessalonians 2:3 where Paul reminded them of the basis for what
he taught. He says, “For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it
in deceit.” The word that he uses here for exhortation is the word PARAKLESIS from the verb PARAKALEO, allow to be
encouraged, to comfort, to encourage. But here, it has a broader sense, and
it’s related to the message that they had brought, the message of the gospel.
Their exhortation was to challenge people to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
for their salvation, and that is what the pastor is supposed to do.
Paul
tells Timothy in 1 Timothy that he’s to do the work of an evangelist, that although
the pastor doesn’t have the gift of evangelism necessarily, he is to present
the gospel all of the time; he is to do the work of evangelism. It doesn’t come
from a place of mixed motives. He’s not teaching error. He’s not teaching some
sort of false doctrine. Uncleanness has the connotation in some passages of
some sort of sexual impurity, and it’s not deceitful. He is to be open and
honest and clear on the gospel and not compromise it in any particular way at
all.
Now
if we look at 1 Thessalonians 2:3, at least in the English, at least in the New
King James Version, verse 3 ends with a period. The sentence doesn’t end in the
Greek text. It’s clear—the Greek text doesn’t have punctuation. Modern Greek
text has punctuation, but the original did not have punctuation. But we can
punctuate it because of the way Greek grammar works. You can tell where the
sentence breaks are. One of the characteristics of the King James Version when
it was translated was to try to make every verse a standalone sentence. Now
some places they just couldn’t do it, but they try to break these complex
sentences of Paul down into single sentences.
Actually,
in the Greek text, 1 Thessalonians 2:3–4 are the same sentence, and Paul is
explaining how they were bold and why they were bold in the gospel. In 1
Thessalonians 2:3–4, he says, “For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it
in deceit, but as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel,
even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.” So,
the positive statement that he is making is in 1 Thessalonians 2:4.
Here’s
sort of a phrase breakdown of 1 Thessalonians 2:3–4. In verse 3, he is talking
about what wasn’t part of their motivation, and we see these words “not,”
“nor,” “nor,” and so he is saying it’s not from deception, nor from impure
motive, nor from deceit, but as we’ve been examined by God to be entrusted with
the gospel. That’s the beginning of 1 Thessalonians 2:4.
He
says, “So we
speak.” Then again, we have a negative, “not as, those who please people,” but
now expressing the positive, “those who please God, the one who examines our hearts.” So, the
positive statement that he is making is that we have been entrusted with the
gospel as members of the body of Christ, followers of Jesus, those who have
trusted in Him for salvation, have been entrusted with the gospel.
This
takes us back to an understanding of what is called the Great Commission in
Matthew 28:19–20, where Jesus commissions the apostles to make disciples by
baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is what
was normally done after people got saved. We just saw it in Acts chapter 16. As
soon as the Philippian jailer believes, he, as a Gentile, is baptized and it happened
right then.
So,
baptism signifies evangelism. So, part one is we witness; we explain the
gospel. People respond, they’re baptized; that doesn’t save them at all. It is
just a visual aid for understanding positional truth. Then the second thing is
like teaching everyone to obey all that I command. That’s the Great Commission:
evangelism and teaching. The lion’s share of the ministry to believers is about
teaching the Word. This is the foundation here—we’ve been examined by God to be
entrusted with the gospel.
This
idea of exhortation would be not only inclusive of the gospel, but also of what
came afterwards.
And
it didn’t come from error; they’re not distorting anything. It’s not some sort
of a personal con job that Paul’s involved with in order to fool many people
and get their money, but nevertheless they got opposition. We have got a couple
of verses here to show you how many times Paul has faced opposition.
In 2
Timothy 1:12, he says, “For this reason, I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not
ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to
keep what I have committed to Him until that day.” He writes this when he’s
in the maritime dungeon in Rome, and he is a prisoner for the gospel. He is in
chains for the gospel and that’s what he is suffering. So, he’s now at a point
where he’s facing opposition from Nero and the Roman government.
In 2
Corinthians 2:17, Paul says, “For we are not as so many, handling the Word of God.” This is
something that came up quite a few times as Paul would be accused of doing this
for money, and often he would go to places because that was the claim, and he
would work for a living. He was a tentmaker; he would organize some other
tentmakers, and they would go into business, and he would work at that so that
he would not be dependent on a church. There’s a whole chapter in 1 Corinthians
where he defends that, but he says others do it a different way.
There’s
nothing wrong with that. In fact, he says in 2 Timothy that a workman is worthy
of his hire, and that a pastor is worthy of double honor. The word that he uses
there is a word that referred to pay, to income, and that a pastor who labored
well should be paid twice as much as anybody else—that was the standard that he
set. But he chose not to be a burden to the local congregation. He said this in
many places.
2
Corinthians 4:2 and following, he is also emphasizing this, he says, “But we have
renounced the hidden things of shame …” In Corinth, the Corinthians were
constantly attacking the credibility of Paul and his legitimacy. He constantly
had to defend himself to the Corinthians. But he doesn’t do it out of a
personal motive; he does it because he wants the gospel to be clear, and he
doesn’t want anything to detract from the gospel ministry.
There
he says in 2 Corinthians 4:2, “But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in
craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully.” See, he’s saying, “we
are honest in the way we handle the Word of God. We’re not trying to deceive
anybody. We’re not trying to take advantage of anybody financially, but we
believe that just manifesting the truth commends us to everyone and your
conscience will understand that.”
It’s
very interesting because an example of this occurred just yesterday here in
Houston. It’s in May 2018, and we just had a runoff in a primary between two
Republican candidates. There was a political action committee for one of the
candidates that was funding a tremendous amount of attack ads on the other
candidate. Now this candidate who was the source of these attack ads on the
other guy had actually accumulated the most votes in the primary, and this was
a runoff. His claims against the other candidate were just getting outlandish,
and he accused him of some of the most extreme things, and it got to the point
where people just didn’t believe that anymore. If you said a few things, maybe
people would believe you. But day after day, you just got these attack ads in
the mail, and people realized that he didn’t have any credibility because as
they heard the answers from the other guy without maybe taking a directed
attack on his accuser, people understood that the guy doing the attacking was
lying.
That’s
the idea that Paul has here, if we just teach the truth, then your conscience
will recognize that and will validate it and understand that we’re not doing it
for our own gain. And that’s what happened. In fact, the guy who was making all
of these false claims and these attack ads didn’t get half of the votes that he
got in the original primary, and he lost by almost a vote of three to one. So,
it became obvious to more and more people that these attacks just couldn’t be
true. They were made up. He lost all his credibility. See that’s what Paul is
dealing with here is that if you just focus on the truth, then it will be
evident to people.
In 2
Corinthians 4:3–5, it says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are
perishing, whose minds the god of this age is blinded, who do not believe, lest
the light of the gospel of the glory Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves …”; it’s not about us, “… but Christ Jesus
the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.” It’s all about
Jesus; it’s all about the gospel. It is not about us. That’s his focal point.
In 2
Corinthians 12:16, I read verse 17 earlier, he defends himself, and says, “But be that as it
may, I did not burden you,” financially I didn’t come and ask you for money. “Nevertheless,
being crafty, I caught you by cunning!” There he’s being sarcastic. “Did I take
advantage of you by any of those whom I sent to you?” 2 Corinthians 12:17.
See, wasn’t I smart? I was so cunning; I didn’t ask you for money. I didn’t ask
you to support the people I sent to you, Timothy and Titus. They didn’t take
advantage of you. They just taught you the truth—wasn’t that crafty? That’s the
sarcasm that’s there. So, he was being accused of that. What this does is it
emphasizes that that we are to focus on God’s approval. This is the focal point
of the growth in the in the church.
Ephesians
4:14, the goal of teaching in the in the local church is, “that we should no longer be children, tossed
to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of
men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.” That’s what the
false teachers were doing, and Paul is showing that he doesn’t follow that
mentality.
So,
in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, it says, “But we have been approved by God to be entrusted
with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our
hearts.” The noun form, I just put over here on the left side so you would
see that; that’s the word that we saw earlier in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. But
the verb is used here twice, the first time as “we have been approved”. It’s a
perfect tense verb, which means it is action that occurred and completed in the
past. When did God do this approval? He did this when they were commissioned as
apostles when they are to begin a teaching the Word. They had been approved at
the beginning to be entrusted with the gospel; that was part of their mission
going back to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20.
But
they’re entrusted with the gospel, “even so we speak, not as pleasing men,” 1
Thessalonians 2:4. See, he’s not there to have all the great sermons, the
oratory, the rhetoric is not to entertain people. This is just what happens in
so many churches today, and that’s not the point. In fact, that just shows if
they’re not false teachers, for some of them to get the gospel right and some
of them as shallow and superficial as they are, it’s still basically true. It’s
just that that they’re pleasing men. They are not pleasing God. They are not
carrying out the tasks that God has assigned to the pastors, and that is
teaching the gospel, and teaching people to grow to spiritual maturity.
So
Paul says, we’re not to speak as pleasing men, “but God who tests …” and there’s that
second use of DOKIMAZO. It’s a present
active participle. It’s a relative clause. God is characterized as the One Who
proves, Who tests, Who evaluates our hearts, our thinking. He understands our
motivation. He understands why we’re doing what we’re doing and that is to
serve Him.
The
noun is used in passages like 1 Corinthians 11:19, which I always thought is a
very interesting verse, that there should be factions among you, there should
be divisions in the church. Why? Because it shows who are approved, it shows
who are true, who are honest with the Word. 2 Timothy 2:15: We are to be
diligent to present ourselves “approved unto God,” evaluated and commended by God.
James
uses the word in James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who endures testing; for when he has been approved”—when
he passes the test—“he will receive the crown of life.” So all this approval always
focuses on the Judgment Seat of Christ in the future.
The
verb is used in Romans 12:2, that we’re to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind that we
may prove”—that we may test, evaluate—what the will of God is. It’s
long-term, in its focus. 1 Corinthians 3:13 is the key one because this talks
about the Judgment Seat of Christ: that the Judgment Seat of Christ, it’s only
for believers; it’s not for unbelievers. “… each one’s work” —that is our service to the
Lord—“will
become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire;
and the fire will test ...” That’s our word DOKIMAZO again. It’s a positive term.
It’s to reveal what is positive, not to expose what’s negative and so it’s
always oriented to that which is productive and going forward. That’s the
Judgment Seat of Christ.
1
Thessalonians 2:4, our passage, emphasizes that this is looking at something in
a long-term evaluation by God.
It’s
related to self-examination. The verb is used here in 2 Corinthians 13:5 for
self-examination, “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.” That’s not
talking about are you a believer that is, are you walking consistent with the
Word of God and the doctrine that you have learned? We are to constantly
examine ourselves to make sure we’re walking in the truth. Galatians 6:4, “But let each one
examine his own work.” So, we are to be involved in using the Word of God
to self-evaluate.
Now
we’re to test all things. That’s discernment, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Test all things;”—not
to seek what is bad, but to seek that which is good, and to “hold fast what is
good.” And in 1 Corinthians 11:28, at the Lord’s Table we’re to examine
ourselves. That leads to confession if necessary before we partake of the
Lord’s Table.
Ultimately,
what we learn when we look at this is for the pastor, as Paul talks about for
the apostle, we are to be servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that they build a large church. Is
that what it says? No. That they should become wealthy in the ministry? No, it
doesn’t say that. That they should be leading hundreds of thousands of people
to the Lord? It doesn’t say that. “Moreover, it is required in stewards that they be
found faithful,” 1 Corinthians 4:2.
God
has given every pastor, every one of us some finite amount of ability, and
we’re to be faithful with the talents that God gave us and how He has gifted us
in order to serve Him. When He evaluates us, He is going to evaluate us in
terms of have we been faithful. He’s not going to say, “Well you only led 10
people to the Lord, but somebody over here led 10,000, so you don’t get
anything.” Are you faithful with what God has given you?
For
pastors and teachers, that is the mission—to equip the saints for the work of
service and building up or edifying the body of Christ. That is the pastor’s
mission. Ephesians 4:12.
Next
time, we’ll come back and further develop what Paul says about the ministry in
1 Thessalonians 2:5–8.