Can I pray for you in any way?
Send
any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers.
And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For He called you to share in His Kingdom and glory.
1 Thessalonians 2:7-12 NLT
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Nearly everywhere that Paul traveled during his missionary journeys, he was bringing the Gospel to people, both Jews and Gentiles, for the first time. In other words, Paul and his fellow missionaries had far more knowledge of the scriptures and could speak to them with authority through the power of the Holy Spirit than those they hoped to bring salvation to.
And yet, as we see in today’s scripture passage, the evangelism approach in Thessalonica wasn’t overbearing or demanding. Rather, the “apostles of Christ” engaged the perspective Thessalonian believers as if they were fellow children in the faith, fellow children Father God.
Indeed, the scriptures assure us that everyone who chooses to believe in Jesus as Savior will become a child of God, a co-heir with Christ for the inheritance of the kingdom of Heaven.
Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God...The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. Romans 8:14, 16-17
And so we know that Paul and the other missionaries wanted the budding Christ believers to know that they were all the same, children of God because they believed in Jesus for salvation.
But note that the apostles of Christ also assumed a nurturing role for the Thessalonian church, treating the congregants like a “mother feeding and caring for her own children” or a father who would encourage and plead to his children to live lives that God would consider worthy.
In other words, Paul and the others with them held a deep parental love and sense of caring for the new Christians in Thessalonica, understanding their newness to the faith as they shared “God’s Good News” with them along with fellowship. Paul would write more about this nurturing ministry posture as he wrote to the Jesus followers in Corinth:
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2
As a newborn baby craves milk from its mother as its body is not yet ready for solid food yet, so too do new Christian believers need to be brought along slowly as they mature more and more in their faith. That’s the point Paul was trying to make to both the Thessalonians and Corinthians.
Just like parenting, evangelizing new Jesus believers is hard work but there is no more fruit-bearing labor that anyone will ever do in life. Paul and the others worked very diligently among the Thessalonians for the cause of the Gospel but not in a way that was overbearing. They avoided being a burden to the Thessalonians as they preached God’s good news to them.
They also carried out the Christ’s Great Commission with devotion and integrity. We see Paul reminding the Thessalonian church that the ministry work carried out by him and the others was done devoutly and faultless with honesty toward all believers. There was never a time that the apostles for Christ wanted to compromise the Gospel cause through misconduct in their behavior.
Friends, we need to be just as conscientious as we continue to carry on the work of Paul and other Gospel messengers found in the scriptures. For as we go forth to bring the message of God’s salvation offer through Jesus to others, we need to remember to be nurturing in the way we go about our evangelistic work. We need to keep things simple, spiritually feeding prospective new believers baby milk rather than a lot of theological solids. We also need to operate with devotion and love and integrity in everything we do for the cause of Christ.
If we do this, follow in the ways of the greatest apostolic evangelist ever after Jesus, then we can be sure of success in our quest to help the lost become found and saved.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment