1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.
2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Although Paul wrote a lot of confusing things throughout his letters, he had a great knack for praising the faith and the effort of those early Christian communities in spreading the gospel. We are meant to do that for one another in Christian community too, when we endure both sorrow and celebrate joy as one body.
God has claimed us in our creation and reminds us through the promises of our baptism. Promises that call us to share the gospel, not because we have to but because we can. Martin Luther had a way of referring to disciples of Jesus being “little Christs”. Not Christ is the sense that we have anything to sacrifice, because that has already been done through Jesus.
But little Christs in the sense of bringing about the tenants of God’s kingdom just a little bit more every day. Paul refers to such work in this passage as imitators of the Lord, in which we seek to bring hope into the suffering of this life for the next one that is yet to come.
– Pr. Kyle
Gracious God, send us strength to bear witness to your love and kingdom every day. Equip us to be bold in our imitation of your love and mercy to everyone we meet and are called to serve. Amen.