When a church holds firm. Or doesn’t.

1 Thessalonians 3.6-10.

The biggest worry for any apostle, for any ministry leader or missionary or evangelist, is their work might be for nothing.

That everybody they’ve worked with were only running high on emotion: They were excited about this new thing they were trying out, were feeding off the adrenalin and other people’s zeal, were feeling their own endorphins instead of the Holy Spirit… or were faking it because everybody else seemed to be so into it. That as soon as the apostle leaves, everything they built just collapses, because nothing else was holding things together.

Because this happens. Has happened before to a lot of apostles. No doubt happened to Paul, Silas, and Timothy.

Acts records the places Paul went, and the churches he either found there, or started there… or didn’t. It doesn’t mention the churches he started which flopped. Sometimes that’s because Luke simply didn’t have the data. But if failed churches weren’t a real thing, the apostles who 1 Thessalonians wouldn’t have this worry! If they had nothing but success everywhere, they’d presume the Holy Spirit would guarantee more of the same.

So they were worried about Thessaloniki, Macedon. They didn’t get a lot of time there before they were driven out of town. They were anxious to return, but none of ’em went back but Timothy. But when he came back, he had good news—as it comes out in the letter.

1 Thessalonians 3.6-10 KWL

6 Timothy came to us from you just now, bringing good news of you—

your faith and love, and that you always have good memories of us,

greatly desiring to see us, same as we you.

7 This is why we’re aided by you, fellow Christians,

in all our distress and and trouble; we’re aided by your faith.

8 So now we live, when you stand firm in our Master:

9 Why are we able to repay you by giving thanks to God for you,

for all the joy which we rejoice because of you before our God?

10 Night and day, begging God all the more to see you in person,

to restore whatever’s lacking in your faith.

Timothy reported the Thessalonians were still together, and were still fruitful in the way Christians ought to be. And they fondly remembered Paul and Silas, and wanted to see them too. And that empowered them.

The word in verse 7, παρεκλήθημεν/pareklíthimen, “we’re aided,” tends to be translated “we were comforted” (KJV, NASB) or “we were encouraged” (NIV) because its word-root is παράκλητος/paráklitos, “paraclete,” a word used to describe both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and usually translated “comforter” or “advocate.” Jn 14.16 Properly it refers to a partner who comes alongside to assist us, and that’s what Jesus and the Spirit do—when we let ’em. The apostles aren’t expressing, “Aw, you’re praying for us too; that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” It’s “You’re praying for us too; that helps!”

Watch out for fake and fruitless prophets.

Matthew 7.15-20, 12.33-35, Luke 6.43-45.

Right after Jesus’s teaching about the narrow gate, Jesus gives this warning about people who pretend be prophets, but aren’t. What, there are fake prophets? Of course there are. You’ve met a few.

Pagans tend to define a prophet as someone who foretells or forecasts the future. But properly a prophet simply hears from God, and shares what he said. It doesn’t have to be a message about the future. Most of the time people just wanna hear that God loves them and cares for them, and has their back. Most of the prophecies I’ve ever heard, have been simply that: Reminders that God’s here, knows us very well, and isn’t going anywhere.

And usually that’s all someone has to tell people in order to be a convincing fake prophet. Do a little mentalism trick which makes it look like they know things they can’t possibly have guessed, then encourage people with common Christian platitudes. “God has a great plan for your life,” or “God knows the plans he has for you,” or “Everything’s gonna work together for your good,” and so forth. Those aren’t risky things to say. Most Christians already believe ’em.

Predicting the future’s way harder. So fake prophets avoid that as much as they can, or leave their predictions deliberately vague. Which, if you’ve read your bible, you notice God does not do. Unless he doesn’t want us to know details, and shrouds them in apocalyptic imagery, God gives details. Because he wants us to know it’s him.

Fakes can’t do this with any accuracy, so of course they avoid accuracy. That’s your first red flag.

But I digress. In the Sermon on the Mount, the red flag Jesus pointed to is the fake prophet’s lifestyle. If they’re legit, they should already be following the Holy Spirit, and produce his fruit. If they’re not, they won’t.

Matthew 7.15-20 KWL

15 “Watch out for the fake prophets,

who come to all of you dressed as sheep, but underneath they’re greedy wolves.

16 You’ll recognize them by their fruits.

People don’t pluck grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles, do they?

17 So every good tree grows good fruits, and a rotten tree grows bad fruits.

18 A good tree doesn’t grow bad fruits, nor a rotten tree grow good fruits.

19 Every tree not growing good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire.

20 It’s precisely by their fruits that you’ll recognize them.”

When we follow the Spirit, his personality tends to create a serious impact on our personalities. We start to act like him. More love, joy, peace, patience, and all the godly traits Paul listed in Galatians, Ga 5.22-23 plus other traits we see mentioned in the New Testament, like grace.

If you’re a fake prophet, y’might be able to fake the prophecies convincingly. Maybe even the fruit… temporarily. People who observe you up-close, long-term, will know whether you’re producing the fruit or not. Which is why a lot of the fakes who aren’t, try to make sure people don’t observe ’em up-close, long-term. It’s why they prefer independent prophetic ministries, separate from any churches which might be able to catch ’em when they’re not performing. Why they travel, stay in town just for the weekend, and insist on separate hotel accommodations in their riders, instead of staying with any of the folks of the church, and spending significant time with anyone. Why the stuff they preach sounds so iffy when you know your bible, and the fruit they profess also sounds kinda fake.

𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢.

There are a lot of ways God reveals himself to people. Obviously there’s the fact Jesus appears to people, either in the real world or in dreams, and talks to them. Obviously there’s prophecy; the Holy Spirit will speak to a person firsthand, or speak through a prophet secondhand.

And obviously these two situations aren’t good enough for most people. Because either they don’t want Jesus to appear to them—they claim they do, or think they do, but if he ever actually showed up, they’d freak the f--- out, same as the Hebrews when the LORD did it.

Exodus 20.19 KJV

And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

Same with prophecy: They either refuse to believe the Spirit’s actually speaking to them, or refuse to believe those prophets are real prophets.

Hence there are a lot of skeptics—Christians included—who insist God doesn’t speak in such ways to people. Not anymore, anyway; maybe back in bible times. Fortunately for them, we have a record of how God spoke back in bible times: The bible.

What about those folks who recognize God still communicates with us the other ways? Well, the bible’s still mighty useful.

First of all, we humans aren’t always the best at actually listening to the Spirit. Usually we don’t know the difference between the Spirit and our own inner voice, and we’ve been following and sharing that all along. Just as often it’s like a kid who never calls her mom: Some of us don’t take the time to listen. Or to comprehensively listen: We grab the first thing we’re told, “hang up” and never bother to listen to anything else the Spirit says, and run wild with the little half-message we have. Or we skip everything the Spirit says which we don’t like, and ignore him till he tells us what we want to hear—and if we don’t care to hear anything good, we might be waiting a mighty long time for that message.

So when the Spirit “isn’t talking,” we have the bible. Read it!

Secondly, when he is talking, he’s not gonna say anything inconsistent with his own bible. (The rare times he is inconsistent, it’s only because he’s checking to make sure we’re paying attention.) He inspires us; he inspired that. Same inspiration. Often the bible’s gonna confirm what he says, and often it’ll also fill in a lot of the blanks.

So this is how we know whether a “prophecy” or “revelation” or any unfamiliar doctrine is actually a God thing, or whether it’s a clever idea some scholar came up with… or whether it’s wrong, or outright heresy. We double-check against the bible. It’s our primary reference about God.

Or as Paul reminded Timothy,

2 Timothy 3.16-17 KWL

16 Every God-inspired writing is profitable;

it’s for teaching, proof, restoration, and instruction in righteousness,

17 so God’s person might be completely qualified,

equipped for every good work.

“I don’t 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 what the bible says.”

Lemme start by saying I do so care what the authors of the bible have written. Particularly about what Jesus teaches. But y’notice the title of this article is in quotes… because I’m referring to when other people don’t care about the bible. Because sometimes they don’t.

Back when I was 7 or 8 years old or so, my Sunday school class was doing some activity, and one of the other kids was interacting badly. Picking fights or swearing or some other less-than-Christian behavior, and our Sunday school teacher decided to correct him by quoting bible at him. “You know, Joonas, you ought not do that, because the bible says…”

“I don’t care what the bible says,” announced little Joonas.

And the rest of us backed away before the lightning struck him down. Except it didn’t, because we follow Jesus, not Zeus.

But the teacher was likewise taken aback: How, how could he not care what the bible says? Everybody cares. Or should.

Now yeah, when you’re a kid, especially when you’re sheltered kid, it’s entirely possible to grow up with no idea other people don’t respect bible. I was no such kid. I have an atheist dad, and obviously he doesn’t respect bible. I could tell him, “Because the bible says” till my tongue goes numb—I actually used to try this line of reasoning on him!—and it made no difference, because he thinks it’s poorly-written fiction which only children and retards believe. He preferred to believe Rush Limbaugh.

So that inoculated me from the idea everybody believes as I do. Other Christians don’t grow up that way at all. In the Bible Belt in particular, you can have absolutely everything in your culture suggest everybody, absolutely everybody, believes and respects and follows bible. Only ignorant heathens don’t; only depraved psychos won’t. And certainly there are none of those people in their communities… and if they can just ban immigration altogether, especially when it comes to Catholics and Muslims, they can guarantee there never will be. (Yep, that’s why they have those politics. It’s not racism so much as religious bigotry. Although often it’s also racism.)

I don’t live in the Bible Belt, but I do live in the United States, and even in non-Bible Belt states we have certain towns, certain communities, certain pods which share the very same Bible Belt mentality. Everyone they know, respects bible. (Or appears to; naturally there are hypocrites among ’em.) Nobody they know, doesn’t.

So when they find an exception, they freak out a little. Triggers the fight-or-flight instinct. Although for some of us it takes a few seconds to kick in… much like a deer surprised by an oncoming car, who hesitates, and dies. But freaking out is definitely the fight instinct.

And y’know, if we Christians are working on our self-control as we should, we shouldn’t run on instinct; we should be wise. Okay, we just discovered someone who doesn’t respect bible. So… do they know Jesus? If not, share! If so, find out why they don’t respect bible, and see whether you can steer them in a direction which does.

The guy who tried to delete the Old Testament.

I’ve touched upon Marcion briefly before. Thought I’d discuss him in more detail today.

Marcion (Greek Μαρκίων/Markíon, though English-speakers keep pronouncing his name 'mɑr.ʃ(i.)ən) was born round the year 85 in Sinope, Pontus, a city south of the Black Sea which is today’s Sinop, Turkey. Back then Pontus was a Roman province, and Marcion’s dad was the bishop of its Christian church. Marcion himself was a shipbuilder and sailor, and we don’t know much about his Christian life till he got into his fifties.

At that point, in the late 130s, we hear of him trying to join the church of Rome, and offering them a big donation of 50,000 denarii. (Roughly $120,000 American.) And of course they take it; you can help a lot of needy people with that money! But within five years, they booted him from their church and gave him back his money, ’cause they concluded he was a dangerous heretic. He insisted Jesus only appeared to be human; he wasn’t really. Theologians call this docetism, and yep it’s heresy: Jesus isn’t faking his humanity. Really born, really died—and really rose again.

Rejected in Rome, Marcion went back to Sinope and taught his heretic ideas there. And managed to get a bit of a following. Some historians call him gnostic ’cause his whole “matter bad, spirit good” ideas are similar to what Greco-Roman pagans believed, and gnostics taught. But properly, gnostics are big on secret knowledge—and of course charging lots of money to give up the secrets they know. Marcion shared his wonky ideas with anyone and everyone.

The big one—the idea which wound up getting called Marcionism and still gets taught by various Christians from time to time—is that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who handed down the Law to Moses, the God of the Old Testament, the LORD… is not the same god as Jesus’s heavenly Father. Different god. Lesser god. A demiurge, meaning a god who creates stuff—but not, Marcion insisted, the highest God, the Almighty. The Father is the Almighty. The LORD is some other guy.

Marcion went through the entire Old Testament, listing all the ways he figured the LORD was unlike God, and published his findings in a book called Antitheses. We no longer have a copy of it, but Tertullian of Carthage wrote a critique of it, and Marcionism in general, in his five-book series Against Marcion. In general Marcion figured the LORD is an evil god, or at least not worthy of our worship.

Where’d he get such a cockamamie idea? From reading the Old Testament literally—or so Marcion claimed. In Genesis, you read of the LORD physically walking around Eden, calling to Adam and wondering where he’s wandered off too. Ge 4.8-9 Well that’s clearly a material god; not a powerful Spirit who’s unlimited by spacetime. How’s this LORD who can’t find Adam, the same as the Father who sees everything we do in private? Mt 6.6

Yeah, you might be throwing up your hands in exasperation: We’re not meant to read the creation stories with this level of literalism! (Although you try telling that to young-earth creationists. But I digress.) But bear in mind Marcion was deliberately looking for inconsistencies. He already had an axe to grind: He didn’t believe in a material Jesus, didn’t care to believe material creation is good, and didn’t want to think of the Almighty as its creator. The cosmos had some other creator; some agent of the Almighty who made it for him. Some demiurge.

Doesn’t John point-blank state Jesus is the creator? Jn 1.3 Well yes, but Marcion either didn’t have a copy of John, or didn’t consider it bible. And yeah, let’s finally get to what Marcion did consider bible.

Worries, faith, and confirmation.

1 Thessalonians 3.1-5.

1 Thessalonians lists three authors: Paul, Silas, and Timothy. People presume Paul’s the one who really wrote it, and included those other guys as a courtesy, but that’s not how letters were composed back then. All three really did write it.

It was written by dictation. The reason you may not realize it’s dictation, is because we translators try our darnedest to make it sound like a coherent whole—and succeed. But in so doing, sometimes we lose a little bit of the sense of tag-team preaching.

The apostles spoke—sometimes Paul, sometimes Silas, sometimes Timothy. Maybe Paul spoke most often; then again maybe not. Sometimes they interrupted one another, which is why the original text is full of sentence fragments, and translators wind up tearing our hair out because we want complete sentences, dangit, with proper subjects and predicates. Other times we get big ol’ run-on sentences, with only one proper verb at the beginning of a 13-verse stretch.

So when the apostles begin chapter 3 with “We sent Timothy,” no it isn’t because Paul was the real author, and Timothy might not even have been in the room at the time. Timothy was there. He just didn’t speak this particular sentence though: “I, Timothy, was sent.” One of the other guys, Paul or Silas, said this.

1 Thessalonians 3.1-5 KWL

1 So we could no longer stand to stay in only Athens,

2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and co-laborer for God in Christ’s gospel,

for your support and assistance regarding your faith:

3 No one should be disturbed by these troubles,

for you yourselves know we’re meant to expect them.

4 When we were with you, we foretold you, “We’re about to suffer,”

and it happened just as we said, and you know it.

5 This is why I Paul could no longer stand it, and sent Timothy to know about your faith:

lest somehow the tempter tempt you, and our work might be wasted.

You remember Paul commented he couldn’t get to see the Thessalonians, no matter how much he wanted to. 1Th 2.18 Since the apostles used “we” to describe it, no doubt Silas was included. Timothy was not. He got to visit them, and return with the good news that they were holding steady. 1Th 3.6 The apostles hadn’t abandoned their fledgling church; they were just going through some suffering themselves.

What suffering? We’re not sure. The apostles weren’t specific. We can speculate, of course; many commentators have. Fr’instance Paul and Silas couldn’t visit them, but Timothy could; while all of them were Jews, Timothy was half Greek. Ac 16.1-3 So this mighta been a racist thing, where Jews were hindered from travel, but Timothy could pass for gentile and travel regardless. There was anti-Jewish persecution in the Roman Empire from time to time, and maybe that’s what was going on: People were on the lookout for Jews.

In any event, Timothy went to check on the Thessalonians, and strengthen their faith till it was tribulation-proof.

The narrow gate. Or door. Either way, tricky to get in.

Matthew 7.13-14, Luke 13.23-24.

Most people are universalist, meaning in the end—if not at Judgment Day, at least way, way further down the road—God’s gonna relent, and let everybody into his kingdom.

Doesn’t matter how much they want nothing to do with God in this life. They might be full-on atheist. Might embrace another religion altogether. Might not even be good; they’re selfish, wicked, rebellious, downright evil. But people figure God loves everybody, so in the end he’ll just forgive all and let ’em in. Every last bloody one of ’em. Even traitors, child molesters, genocidal mass murderers; they might have to spend a few thousand years in hell first, but eventually they’ll get out and go to heaven. You get the kingdom, and you get the kingdom, and everybody gets the kingdom! (That last line works best if you can imagine it in Oprah Winfrey’s voice. But it’s not mandatory.)

The problem is Jesus said he’s not gonna let everybody in. More than once. Today’s verses are two of the instances.

Matthew 7.13-14 KWL

13 “Enter through the narrow gate: The broad gate, the wide road, leads to destruction.

Many are entering destruction by it.

14 The narrow gate, the tight road, leads people to life.

Few are finding it.”

 

Luke 13.23-24 KWL

23 Someone told Jesus, “Master, the saved are few.”

Jesus told them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door.

I tell you many will seek to enter, and not be able to.”

In a number of early copies of Matthew, Jesus only said, “The broad, wide road leads to destruction.” Possibly some copyist threw an extra πύλη/pýli, “gate,” in there before the fourth century; it kinda works, so most bibles go with it. As for Luke, it uses the word θύρας/thýras, “door” instead—but in the Textus Receptus Desiderus Erasmus swapped it for pýlis to make it match Matthew, which is why the KJV has “gate” in both places.

There’s a broad gate and a narrow one. A wide road and a tight one. An easy way in, and a somewhat difficult way in. You wanna take the difficult way; that’s the right one.

It’s not because Jesus wants to make it difficult. Not because God doesn’t wanna save everyone. He does. 1Ti 2.4 But entering God’s kingdom means we gotta do it on his terms. People would much rather define the terms ourselves, or take a “shortcut” which turns out to be no such thing. Even when Jesus warns us away from it!

There’s an open invitation, an open door, and plenty of room. But people would much rather go to their destruction. Partly ’cause it’s the path of least effort: They can be absolutely self-centered and awful to everybody, and Pascal’s Wager—the worry there are eternal consequences to these actions—doesn’t sway them in the slightest. Partly ’cause goodness, grace, love, kindness, and generosity make them sick: They prefer karma and reciprocity, and they’re gonna hate how the kingdom lets in all these freeloaders.

Partly ’cause they think their path is exclusive and smarter… but in reality it’s still the much, much larger crowd. Yeah, the folks on the road to destruction is the larger crowd. Wish they weren’t. But that’s humanity for ya.