A little while ago, I produced a verse by verse series in Philippians. I really enjoyed that exercise and have been wondering if I should take on another book. Well it turns out that 1 Thessalonians is the victim of my machinations, and hopefully, the thoughts produced by this fantastic book will edify and encourage the reader.

As with Philippians I am going to limit each post to one verse, and hopefully produce a short, succinct read for my friends who follow.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

Let’s try to remember what Paul is thanking God constantly for in this verse. The previous two verses spoke of how he as thier father figure in faith, spoke to them, that he exhorted them, encouraged them and charged them.

For this he was thankful. Now of course he may be referring to the following message within this verse, but I think his flow of thought goes something like this.

I acted as a father to you, sometimes saying difficult things, challenging you to make life choices, to do hard things! But you realized that though I am a mere man, the message was from God, and it carried great authority!

One reason, I fear, that the church nowadays is quite shallow, is that the message is simply a message of man, and we know it. We do little challenging, rebuking or charging due to the knowledge that the authority is our own.

For the Word of God to be “unleashed”, I understand that in a number of ways.

We are to know the Word enough that when we come to a situation we can unsheathe the Word and make a statement, using the bare Word of God.

I admit that this is easy when it is a time of encouragement, but when the difficult truths have to be expressed, I tend to want to soften the blow, dull the cut, and explain away some of the toughness of the Word.

If I am honest with myself, it is for my own comfort. I will have to face hard difficult truth first! For any truth to be communicated correctly, for the Word to be “unsheathed”, the truth has to go through the vessel, through the messenger. The Word has to be active in the messenger before it can intentionally and effectively be communicated to another.

Not only does the Word have to be acting in the messenger, the Word has to have the priority. Priority over your own thoughts, feelings, sensitivities and concerns. The Word is to be understood as having come from God, through a man. The truth is originating from God, and as we understand this, the Word should become more and more of a priority in our lives.

A final thought as to why I may not speak the Word in difficult situations or as a challenge to others is that I fear I will loose the one I am speaking to. In the culture we live in nowadays, many are easily offended. Feelings are hurt and people shut down, refusing to communicate. Believe me when I tell you that I have experienced decades being outside of a loved ones life, simply because of an offence, and sad to say, it was not due to the gospel. This is wasteful, sinful and so unnecessary!

I consider this as simply a wrong focus if I am honest about it. Consider the teaching of the Lord. He is teaching us

• to love one another
• to serve those in need
• to be meek and lowly for those who are around us
• to live in peace with our neighbor, as much as we can
• to not place (personal) stumbling blocks before others
• and yet not fear the offense of the gospel

I suppose in the end, we all need to prioritize the Word in our lives, accepting and speaking of hard things when necessary. As Paul started out this passage, even the difficult things need to be spoken as a father to his child. He had authority as the great apostle, but he did not describe this interaction with the faithful as a judge to a criminal. Let us remember that the Word is over all of us, we are all under the Word. As those of us who may be maturing, we need to recall this truth. Maturity does not set us up as judges, pouring commands on those “below us”. What a foolish, religious stance!

Difficult truths, as they work in us as believers, will produce a patience, an understanding of others struggles and in my own life personally, recognizing my very deep weakness before Him.

Consider thought that if the Word is creating a hardness in you, an impatience with others, even a disdain for those who haven’t attained to your level of spirituality, consider your position before God.

He is the authority, and we all are but mere men.

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