The Spirit’s power in a new church.

1 Thessalonians 1.1-5.

This letter, which we traditionally call 1 Thessalonians instead of 8 Paul, wasn’t solely written by Paul of Tarsus; it’s a team effort. Most commentators, myself included, usually talk about it as if Paul did all the writing, and gave co-authorship to his team members out of courtesy. Timothy gets a mention in 1 Thessalonians 3.6, and since he’s spoken of in third person whereas Paul is always “I,” y’gotta wonder how much authoring Timothy really did.

But the giant run-on Greek sentences are a dead giveaway: This letter, same as probably all Paul’s letters, was dictated, spoken aloud to a scribe. Possibly Paul doing most of the talking, and the other guys added a sentence or two. We really don’t know the level of their contributions. We do know they’re listed as co-authors, so it wasn’t nothing.

Still, for convenience, I’ll refer to 1 Thessalonians’s authors as “Paul.” And here they go.

1 Thessalonians 1.1-5 KWL

1Pavlos, Silvanos, and Timótheos,

to the Thessalonian church,

in Father God and Master Christ Jesus:

Greetings. Shalom.

2We always praise God for our every memory of you,²

unceasingly mentioning you² in our prayers,

3remembering your² faith-works, love-labors,

and enduring hope in our master Christ Jesus,

before God our Father.

4We knew, beloved fellow Christians,

you’re² selected by God:

5Our gospel didn’t come only to you² in words

but in power, in the Holy Spirit,

and in absolute certainty—

same as you² knew what sort of people we were

once we interacted with you.²

Paul and Silas were the apostles who helped found the church of Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedon (a Greco-Roman province which is not the same area as present-day North Macedonia). They first proclaimed Jesus in a Thessalonian synagogue, Ac 17.1-4 but the local Jews “became jealous” of their following and rioted, eventually hauling Paul’s relative Jason before the city leaders. Ac 17.6-9

Because the story in Acts is so brief, we don’t know how long Paul and Silas spent there developing the church. Obviously it was long enough to really get to know the people, and see what sort of Christians they became. Seems the Thessalonians made an impact on the apostles. Paul listed three things he particularly noticed in them: Faith-works, love-labors, and hope in Jesus. I could make a three-point sermon of it, but nah. I’ll leave that to the amateur preachers.

What is religion?

Over the past four decades, Christians in the conservative Evangelical movement have come to consider “religion” a bad word. Even an offensive word. In fact we’ll get downright snotty about it: “I don’t have a religion,” we’ll scoff; “I have a relationship.” By which we mean a relationship with Christ Jesus.

To the conservative Evangelical, “religion” means ritual. Namely the rituals of people who lack this relationship with Christ Jesus. And for the most part, they’re thinking of people who aren’t conservative Evangelicals like them. They figure progressive Evangelicals are more focused on social justice and works righteousness. They figure non-Evangelicals are more focused on sacraments, on getting saved because they do the rituals—which is just another form of works righteousness.

If they grew up in such churches, the way they remember them was based on how these churches introduced ’em (or, let’s be fair, didn’t properly introduce them) to Jesus: How they were told they gotta behave themselves, gotta follow the rules, gotta practice the rituals, and so forth. These churches might’ve taught their adults about having a personal relationship with Jesus, but all they ever seem to have taught their kids was, “Goddamnit, behave yourselves.” Consequently they felt like hotbeds of legalism, and the kids had to leave those churches before they could adequately, properly hear the gospel.

Assuming they ever heard the proper gospel—that Jesus is inaugurating God’s kingdom. More often they just figure God forgives all, so regardless of the evil crap they still do, they go to heaven when they die. Good old-fashioned cheap grace. Which is great news for people who don’t care to change their lifestyles at all, and remain the same old a--holes they were before they turned to Jesus. But no, that’s not the gospel. As new citizens of Jesus’s new kingdom, we likewise have to be made new.

Hence, religion.

Conservative Evangelicals insist they have a relationship, not a religion. But here’s the thing: We do have rituals. We do practice various faith-based things on the regular, in order to further our relationship with God. ’Cause when we don’t, our relationship with God is really gonna suck. So we pray. We go to church on a regular basis; maybe not every week, but certainly more than Easter and Christmas. We read, and quote, our bibles. We behave ourselves, more or less; we cut back on the cussing (at least when church people are around), and rein in some of our evil… well, the evil we can’t justify to ourselves any more.

But that’s religion. Might be disciplined; more often it’s extremely undisciplined. Still religion.

And whenever we conservative Evangelicals tell a pagan, “Oh, I’m not religious,” the pagan immediately notices:

• We name-drop God an awful lot for someone who’s “not religious.”
• We rail against sin an awful lot for someone who’s “not religious.”
• We keep up to date with our bibles an awful lot, for someone who’s “not religious.”
• We pray way more often than any not-religious person would.
• We use a lot more religion-based vocabulary than any not-religious person would.
• Wait, we go to church? Voluntarily?

Pagans know we absolutely are so religions. Because they’re not religious. So what other conclusion can they come to?—they think we’re trying to pull a fast one. “You’re ‘not religious’? Oh, what a hypocrite; you are so.” And they’re exactly right.

So, if you’re using the word “religious” wrong, this is why you need to cut it out.

“Silent years”: Did God once turn off his miracles?

It’s usually round Christmas when preachers start talking about “the silent years,” or “the 400 silent years,” and how the annunciations of John the Baptist and Christ Jesus mark the end of that era.

As it’s taught, for roughly four centuries between the writing of Malachi, “the closing of the Old Testament canon,” and Gabriel’s appearance to John’s dad, the Holy Spirit was silent. He stopped talking to prophets, and had none. ’Cause if he did, these prophets would’ve written a book, right? But no prophets wrote a book, ergo no prophets.

And during these “silent years,” it’s claimed the Spirit likewise stopped doing miracles. ’Cause if he had, again, someone would’ve written a book about it. But nobody wrote one, so nothing miraculous musta happened. If those 400 years weren’t silent, we’d have more books of the bible.

(Um… what about the books of prophets, and of the Spirit’s activity, in the apocrypha? You realize they were written during that 400-year period. But the preachers who claim there were silent years either know nothing at all about the apocrypha, or dismiss ’em as Catholic mythology—or worse, claim they’re devilish. Either way they don’t count.)

Okay, lemme first clear up a minor mistake: The actual last book written of the Old Testament was 2 Chronicles, not Malachi. It’s what we find in the Hebrew book order. There are three groupings, Law, Prophets, and Writings, which were written in that order. Malachi is among the Prophets; Chronicles is the last of the Writings. Some scholars figure they were written round the same time; some don’t.

Now the major mistake: The entire idea of “silent years” contradicts the scriptures. You knew I was gonna get to that, didn’tcha?

The books of a Christian’s library.

Birthdays and Christmas frequently mean gift cards, and if you got one you might be thinking, “Hmm, what books ought I buy?” But probably not. People don’t read.

Okay you clearly do, if you read TXAB. But most don’t. Christians might read the bible, though many of us consider it a massive struggle; a New Year’s resolution we never get round to completing, and peter out in March along with our gym memberships. We’ll read little else. We don’t want any more books, and figure most Christian books are either poorly-written fiction, repackaged sermons, or light devotional stuff which are no deeper than the stuff we hear Sunday morning. (Which largely ain’t wrong.)

So I rarely get asked, “What books should I own?” Most Christians figure if their Christian library contains a bible alone, they’re good.

Sometimes more than one bible. Maybe a study bible; maybe a concordance, exhaustive or not; maybe an inexpensive one-volume bible commentary, like Matthew Henry’s. Maybe a prayer book or devotional.

The rest will be the odd Christian book they were given as gifts, or bought when a traveling preacher visited the church and had a book table, or bought because they heard it was really good… so they read it, and likely won’t read it twice.

Ought we own more than that? Well, it won’t hurt.

Supernatural discernment: Knowing what you 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 know.

Yesterday a coworker was trying to explain some scripture to me. It’s an interpretation I was entirely unfamiliar with, so I found it interesting. Had my doubts, but kept an open mind. It sounds a little bit plausible, so I spent some of this morning investigating it. Turns out it’s something the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach, and nobody else. So, nah.

But yesterday, while he was still talking to me, before I ever looked it up and knew it was something JWs teach, I had deduced, “Y’know, I think this guy’s Jehovah’s Witness.”

No, the Holy Spirit didn’t supernaturally reveal this to me. I deduced it. From the clues:

• It’s the Christmas season, and I had heard him mock Christmas a number of times. Admittedly I do this too with the materialism around the holiday, but JWs are particularly notorious for not observing Christmas. Big obvious red flag there.
• He dismissed any comments I had to make, or any corrections I offered to his proof texts. He was entirely sure he knew what he was talking about. JWs are notorious know-it-alls; their claims of knowing it all is largely what attracts people to them.
• I’ve studied Christianity all my life and generally know what most Christian branches teach about that particular scripture. (And I know what Mormons teach about it; it’s not substantially different.) I’ve not studied JW teachings, so I suspected that was why this teaching was unfamiliar.
• We have two big JW churches (ar as they prefer to call ’em, “Kingdom Halls”) in town. They’re predominantly black churches; every JW who’s come to my door has been black; and this coworker is black. Yeah, I admit there’s some racial profiling in this “clue.” Still.

So I had a working hypothesis. But of course I couldn’t prove this hypothesis… till I looked this interpretation up on the internet, and bada-bing: It’s a Jehovah’s Witness view; dude’s a Jehovah’s Witness. Okay. So now I gotta approach him from that angle whenever we talk about Jesus.

Okay. How would supernatural discernment work? Simple: The very minute I met him, before he’d said or done anything, before I had anything I can draw a conclusion from, I’d know he was Jehovah’s Witness. I’d just know.

I’d still have to confirm this belief, ’cause while the Holy Spirit is infallible, I’m surely not. It might be my own gut, not him. But it’s the easiest thing to confirm. “Hey, what church do you go to?” “Well it’s not a church; the church is people, not a building.” Ah, so you are one of those. Good to know.

You see the difference? Natural deduction, the non-supernatural stuff, involves my brain finding clues and drawing a conclusion. Sometimes properly, sometimes improperly, but it takes brainpower. The supernatural stuff does not. It’s revelation: The Holy Spirit had to give it to me. It appeared in my mind as if it’s any other data I drew from it, like how many toes are on my foot, or what color are that passerby’s shoes. It felt like pre-existing knowledge, not something the Holy Spirit told me at that instant.