Smoodock's Blog

Paul wrote to believers in Thessalonica that to despise or disrespect a brother in Christ was to despise and reject the Lord, himself (1Thessalonians 4:8; cp. 1John 4:20), because all believers have the Spirit of God, in that we partake of divine nature (2Peter 1:4). So to reject or withdraw from a brother whom the Lord has received as his own, is to reject or withdraw from the Lord, himself, and God will judge people who do such things, because he identifies with the weak (cp. Matthew 25:40, 45).

Years after his visit to Thessalonica, Paul would tell the Jews of Palestine: “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). The context in Hebrews 13, as in 1Thessalonians 4, is receiving the gentiles as equal citizens in the Kingdom of God. Paul is speaking spiritually, not literally, in Hebrews 13. The ‘marriage’ he mentions is that between Christ and his Church (the marriage feast) and the ‘bed’ that is undefiled refers to the begetting of new believers through the Gospel of Christ (cp. 1Corinthians 4:15; 1John 5:1), be they Jew or gentile. That evangelistic marriage bed, therefore, is undefiled, for Christ’s bed cannot be unclean. It is a spiritual, heavenly union, and cannot be judged in the flesh, which is what Judaism tried to do in the first century AD with respect to receiving uncircumcised gentiles as equal heirs with Jews before God (cp. Acts 17:4-5).

This is why the doctrine of physical circumcision, which was (and still is) practiced in Judaism is wrong. If a man or woman is begotten of God (cp. 1Peter 1:3; 1John 5:1), that one has equal access to the Lord as with any other child of God, whether Jew or gentile. No physical exercise has the power to interfere with one’s access to God. The whole idea of segregation before God flies in the face of the crucifixion of Christ, who died for all, whether Jew or gentile.

Nevertheless, Paul told his readers that as far as brotherly love is concerned, they were taught by God and had no need of instruction from man. To a degree, they already knew how to practice brotherly love and had been doing it, even before Paul arrived at Thessalonica. Hospitality etc. was practiced throughout the Roman Empire, but it was especially so among the Jews. Paul’s only encouragement in this context was to do it to an even greater degree, i.e. more than folks who practice the virtue outside of Christ (1Thessalonians 4:9-10). How else would believers be set apart in brotherly kindness? If all nations practices hospitality to some degree, believers should do so in excess, not being careful of the degree of one’s hospitality.

Paul’s advice in all of this was to labor to be quiet or to seek to serve the Lord without fanfare (1Thessalonians 4:11). There is an unseen line that is drawn in a man’s heart that defines one’s service to the Lord. On the one hand we should let our light so shine before men that the good we do is known of them, so they are able to glorify God, whom we serve (Matthew 5:16). Nevertheless, we might also ‘serve’ the Lord in doing good works in an effort to bring glory to ourselves (Matthew 6:1-2) and thereby lose our reward from God. Paul’s advice is that one should serve the Lord with his own hands, do his own work, and do it quietly without trying to be noticed.

In ambitiously pursuing to labor quietly, Paul mentions his readers would have a good report from them who are outside their Christian fellowship (1Thessalonians 4:12). Folks know good when they see it. They know when they’ve been treated kindly, and when such a thing is done without the intimidation of repayment or for self-glory, it doesn’t get missed. So, the tendency would be for those folks to try to understand why believers act the way they do, and in this way the Lord would get the glory. We are who we are because we worship him, and in him we lack nothing, because he will see to our necessities as we serve him.