An eighteen-year-old discovers a passion for preaching the gospel and runs straight into a problem: trace almost any trouble he has and you find a person at the root, and people are what he cannot stand. So he prays: if you want me to do this, teach me to love. From that prayer the road leads to Paul’s letter (1 Thessalonians 1), where you see what a faithful pastor finds his greatest joy in. Paul writes in three names, because Jesus entrusted the message to a community rather than to a single speaker, and when he has to flee Thessalonica too early, he sends Timothy and learns that the young church is still standing. Listen if you carry a passion for something you have no heart for.
When the Joy of Eternity Shatters
Eternity? Now!
When we live in the present, it’s sometimes easy to forget about eternity and live as if what is here and now were all we can expect. However, the Apostle Paul, in his First Letter to the Thessalonians, though writing about very everyday matters, constantly reminds his readers of eternity, and every chapter of this letter ends with a reference to the second coming of Jesus. He does this because, even though we live in the present and struggle with the here and now, we can learn to view our lives, our daily struggles, and our everyday choices from the perspective of eternity-and that changes everything.
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