Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Turn from Political Idols and Embrace Persecution | New Testament | 1 Thessalonians 1

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Is following Jesus worth the persecution it brings? In today's episode, Patrick uses 1 Thessalonians 1 to encourage Christians to persevere even when the world is against you. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Thessalonians 1

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. We are pressing pause on our series through Acts to hop over to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. If you're just joining us, you'll know that we're going through the whole New Testament, but as we're talking about the story of the early church in the book of Acts, we thought it would be fun to read the letters that Paul wrote during the time at which he actually wrote them. And so when we last left off, you might remember that Paul had actually just visited the book. Thessalonica, and within a very short period of time, had been run out of the town. He was preaching in

the synagogues, but then the synagogue leaders began to get jealous. They stirred up a crowd, and the crowd gathered together in assembly. It's kind of funny. It's actually the same word for the church. We'll talk about that and just together to get Paul to leave. And so he had to run from town. He runs to Bria, and they follow him to Brria, and he ends up having to sail away to Athens to escape persecution. And when he's in Athens, he begins to hear news of what's happening to the recent converts in Thessalonica. He's learned that they believe that the return of Jesus has happened or that it's almost imminent. It's right around the corner and this is causing all kinds of trouble. And it makes a lot of sense when you think about it while he might need to write a letter. He was only there for

three weeks. How much can you teach? How much can you help people to understand who the Messiah is in a short period of time? And when you only have a short period of time, it's totally understandable that there's going to be confusion. But one of the things that interests me most about this letter and about Thessalonica in general is a bit of its history. Thessalonica sits on what is easily the best natural harbor in the Aegean Sea. So that's a part of Greece, if you know, your Mediterranean geography. And it was located at the junction of two very important roads. One was called the Via Ignatia.

And this was a long east-west road that started in Rome and ran all the way through most of the empire. It's the road that Paul had been taking earlier on his missionary journeys. And there was also another road which went north from Thessalonica all the way up to the Danube. And so it put Thessalonica right in the middle of commerce and travel in the ancient Roman Empire. As a result, it ended up growing to a pretty tremendous size for the ancient world. It was a city of about 100,000 people. Now, that's smaller than the city I live in. But back in the ancient world, you're talking about a very large city. But it goes deeper than that because

before the time of Jesus, not super long before, but a bit before, there was a civil war in Rome. And there was a battle over who is going to replace Julius Caesar as emperor, as the ruler of Roman Empire. And one of those warring parties, obviously won. His name was Octavian. And he went on later to become Augustus Caesar. He was the Caesar who was reigning at the time of Jesus's birth. But the Thessalonians sided with him. And as a result, they got all kinds of benefits in their city. They were what was called a free city. And this meant that they had more autonomy over local issues. It meant that they could mint their own coins. It meant that they got all kinds of great tax concessions and that they had freedom from military occupation. And so perhaps it's no result that the Thessalonians rather liked

their Roman emperor. They were very much so a beneficiary of what Rome was doing. And it's also probably no surprise that the Thessalonians were worshipping the emperor. This was common throughout the ancient empire. And it's hard for us to imagine because we don't see people bowing down to presidents. But ancient Rome had a whole mythology that was built around the emperor. In fact, often when an emperor would die, they would tell stories of people seeing shooting, shooting, stars in the sky. And this was called the apotheosis. It was the idea that when the emperor died, he became a god. And this is why the emperor's son, who usually reigned in his place, would be called the son of God. And emperor of worship went deeper than that because the fundamental

belief was that by both worshipping the emperor and the entire pantheon of deities, that was the means by which a city and a community secured its own welfare. If you worshiped the emperor, if you served him, then you would have peace in your city. You'd have prosperity in your city. And when people came along who questioned your worship of that emperor, were not just jeopardizing a issue of personal religion or personal worship. They were jeopardizing the peace and the welfare of the entire city. And this seems to be how the local synagogue got the entire city riled up at Paul when he came to Thessalonica. It seemed that they got people to see that he was proclaiming a different king, a different lord, a different Caesar. And as a result, he was turning the

world upside down. And so when an ancient Greco-Roman person heard what Paul was doing, they would have been worried. They would have thought this is going to be something that jeopardizes our city. And so Paul leaves, but what happens to the people that he leaves behind? I mean, can you imagine for a second? If you were in a city, you're converted to following a new king, King Jesus, and you say that he is the ruler of all creation. He is the Lord. He is the son of God. He has all the names that were given to Caesar. You say, no, that's Jesus. That's not Caesar. And the guy who converted you has been run out of town at the threat of death. But you're left behind. Your whole life's there. All of your life. life savings, they're all of your relationships, are there, your businesses, there. Everything you have

is there. You are not leaving. And if you did, it would be incredibly difficult. And now you're the one who's representing this religion that is seen as a threat to your city. Can you imagine what they were facing? Can you imagine the fear that they had? And so that's the other reason why Paul needs to write a letter to this young congregation, not just to help them further understand the truth about who Jesus is and his return, but even beyond that, to encourage them to continue the good fight. I just want to read the opening to Paul's letter, chapter one, because I find it to be deeply encouraging. The truth is that today we live in a culture that maybe doesn't explicitly tell us to worship presidential figures or political figures, but nonetheless, we do often see political figures as saviors,

as people who can save the world. And if you don't give that political figure of your loyalty, people will tell you that you are jeopardizing the welfare of your society. Beyond that, there's all kinds of other idols in gods that our society tells us to worship. whether it's consumerism or entertainment or comfort or self-expression. And they will often tell you that if you don't do this, you will not only jeopardize your own personal happiness, but you'll make everybody else's life less happy around you. You see, there's a truth that when you're following Jesus, you are living inside of attention because you are different than the people who are around you. And that difference is a threat to them. But Paul doesn't want his followers to respond to that threat

with violence or with anger. He wants them to respond to it with sacrificial love, just like Jesus did. So let's pick up his letter that he wrote to the Thessalonians with Silas and Timothy, two of his co-workers. Verse one. It starts with who's writing it. Paul, Silas and Timothy. To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you.

See, this wasn't a church that was in Caesar. There's not a church that was in the Roman Empire. This was a church that would find its identity in God, the Father. And this was a church that knew its security. Even though things were scary, its security came from God the Father. Father and their Lord, their Caesar, their Emperor, Jesus Christ. Verse 2, we always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. So Paul is saying, we haven't forgotten about you.

Do not worry. He continues, we remember before our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying, I haven't forgotten about you. But the best thing about you is, you are doing good work. you are doing good labors, but they come from a true heart, from a heart that loves God. And when those labors come from a heart that loves God, they are absolutely beautiful. Verse four, for we know brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he has chosen you because our

gospel came to you, not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. So Paul is saying, I know God chose you because of how you responded to the good news that Jesus is our forgiving king. And he says he knows it because they didn't just hear it as words or as ideas. They heard it in the power of the spirit. Some sort of transformation happened in their hearts such that they began to love and know Jesus more than anything else in their lives. And that goes back to where he starts the letter saying, your obedience comes out of love. You say, this is how grace works. God reaches out to us in grace and mercy. And when we receive that grace, when we receive that love,

we return it back to him in loving, faithful, beautiful obedience. He continues, you know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model. To all the believers in Macedonia and Acha, he was talking about Greece and the area north of it

where Thessalonica was located, he's saying, look, you imitated us by person. persevering through suffering, which is exactly what Jesus did. And so that means you're also immitating the Lord. But he goes on to say, your perseverance through suffering, well, it has also become a model to churches outside of you. He continues in verse 8. The Lord's message rang out from you. Not only in Macedonia and Achaia, your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell us how you turn 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. You notice how this first chapter of his letter ends. It ends with him pointing out what they'd done, which is turning from idols to the living God. But there's a real political subtext here because the idolatry they turned away from wasn't just worshipping Zeus and Athena and the Greek and Roman Pantheon. The idolatry they turned from was the worship of the emperor. And that's why he says you've turned from these idols to worshipping the one true Lord and the one true king. And I think that's a message that we need to hear too. Whatever persecution you fear, whatever threat comes with following Jesus, it is always worth taking because that means that you are turning away from idols to follow

the living king, the one who rescues you ultimately, as Paul says from the coming wrath. You see, believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior as your king. It's not simply about having a better life in the present. In fact, in many ways you may not. In many ways you may experience more persecution, more suffering, more difficulty, more hardship. But you have to be assured, just like the Thessalonians were that in the end, God will sort it out. In the end, God will set the world to right. In the end, if you hang on to Jesus, he is going to be hanging on to you. His grace saves. His grace saves now. His grace saves in the future. And that's why you can have hope. And that's why you can persevere through hardship in the present.

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