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 5:5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.
In our last post, we considered what believers aren’t. We aren’t in darkness. We aren’t as those who are in darkness, blinded to the truth of God, and of His mercy and kindness to us in Jesus the Messiah. We aren’t in darkness.
Now if verse 5 had not been written, my first thought would be that Paul is going to refer to Jesus as the Light of the World, and that since we know Him, we have light, and can see reality as opposed to simply making assumptions, guesses or estimations about life on this earth. What a horrible condition to depend of guesses!
John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
But Paul wrote our verse this morning. My assumptions of where he was going are worthless, and we find that he is speaking of believers – you and me – being the light.
After a few moments considering this statement, the statement begins to reveal in a small way, the genius of Paul, the pastoral heart of Paul, the desire of Paul to see his people walk properly. By identifying the believers as light themselves, Paul is assigning personal responsibility to each believer to transmit light.
Yes, Paul was much like his Master, for the Lord Himself, though He spoke of being the Light of the World, He also looked at His disciples and declared the very same message Paul has to the Thessalonians.
Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world….
But consider one more point. Even with the Lord’s declaration of being the Light of the World, He also spoke of the limitations of this claim. When He ascended into heaven, His direct influence was also relocated to the heavens.
John 9:5 ESV – As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Ok – Final exam time.
Who is the light of the world today?
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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.
