Slices
Prepare
Do you keep a prayer journal, to keep track of what you pray and the way God answers? If you do, have a look back at some answered prayer. If you don’t, how might you do this?
Bible passage
1 Paul, Silas and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving and prayer
3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: he will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Explore
I had a decision to make: should I accept the offer of the perfect and highly paid job? I was desperate for God to say ‘yes’, but his answer was ‘no’, that I should stay put. It took two years before I understood and could give thanks (and mean it!).
Paul gives thanks (v 3) that his prayers have been answered (see 1 Thessalonians 3:12) – all the more amazing because they were suffering (vs 4,5). It sounds serious. Paul describes what was happening as ‘persecutions’, ‘trials’, ‘suffering’ and ‘trouble’. It was bad.
This helps explain the language Paul uses next. Note when the punishment will come (v 7) and who will receive it (v 8). The word means paying a penalty, facing consequences and just deserts, not something over the top or arbitrary.
Also note the difference between the punishment (v 9) and Paul’s prayer (v 12): to be cut off from God is the ultimate consequence of sin; to be with him and in him is the greatest reward.
Respond
How are you struggling or suffering at the moment? Can you pray some of Paul’s prayers (for example, vs 3,11,12)? Ask God to give you the eyes of faith to see things as he does, to know his presence more and more.
Deeper Bible study
God our teacher and our guide, may your word be a ‘lamp to my feet and a light for my path.’1
Does this passage make you feel uncomfortable, with its apocalyptic imagery of ‘everlasting destruction’ (v 9)? Before we look more closely at it, acknowledge your feelings honestly to God and pray again the prayer above.
I hope most of us never experience the persecution and suffering the Thessalonian Christians endured, but if we did – or do – it’s easier to understand why Paul might be concerned to assure them that God would come and bring justice on earth. They might easily have started wondering: are we suffering because God has rejected us? Or forgotten us? Philosophical debate at the time was questioning the idea of divine judgement.2 Accordingly, Paul acts swiftly to reassure the Thessalonians that their perseverance under suffering is evidence that they are ‘worthy of the kingdom of God’ (v 5) and that God in Jesus Christ will not fail to bring them justice and relief on the day he comes in glory. It’s important to read the references to punishment in this light. Paul’s focus is on ‘those who trouble’ the Thessalonians (v 6) receiving their just punishment. For ‘God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish’.3 For God to be good and loving, he must be just.
In 2020, Mina Smallman’s daughters were murdered in London. She strove for justice. Yet she also spoke of her ability to forgive the killer as being God’s gift, enabling her to be free.4 We are able to hold these responses together because the Lord Jesus, who brings justice for the afflicted, is also the one who died upon the cross. Jesus leads the Thessalonians, and us, in enduring suffering with faith. We trust in him, not ourselves, for salvation and ultimate justice.
Pray: God, make us worthy of your calling. By your power, bring to fruition our every desire for goodness and every deed prompted by faith (v 11).
1 Ps 119:105, TNIV 2 Green, Thessalonians, Apollos, 2002, p293 3 Ps 9:18 4 BBC Radio 4, Today, 1 January 2022
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Leviticus 1–3; Acts 5
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray that God will give vision to Faith Guides to start new Grow Communities around the country and that the 95 will come with open hearts to these Grow Communities to connect and hear the good news of Jesus.
