Category Archives: Christianity

Arts, Christianity, Culture

New Testament: Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians

OVERVIEW

MASS EVANGELISTS who jet into a city, conduct a campaign, and jet out again, are often accused of leaving their “converts” high and dry, with no on-going support.

Paul, on his visit to Thessalonica, may not have intended to do this but in the end had little option. He was there for just three weeks before opposition forced him to make a hasty exit.

His new converts had no trained pastors to teach and support them. They had no New Testament to learn from, and no Christian books to read. They had no established church traditions to latch onto. They didn’t even have a telephone over which to get quick advice from the apostle.

Yet they not only survived but grew spiritually in double quick time. They became examples for others to follow. The letters to the Thessalonians provide today’s Christians with important encouragement: when God begins to work in someone’s life, he can continue it even if no human support is available.

That does not excuse any lack of pastoral follow-up. Paul was anxious to provide it: the letters are one means he used; visits from his associate Timothy were another.

Despite their growth in numbers and vitality, like any other fledgling church they had their problems. Not surprisingly, they had to endure ongoing opposition which raised doubts about Paul and his motives in some minds.

Others, captivated by the thought that Christ had promised to return, assumed that he was coming soon and packed in their jobs to wait for him. They present us with one of the first examples of the trend repeated later by “millennium cults”. Beliefs about Christ’s return often excite as much passion now as they did then.

Thessalonians provides some simple guidelines for today. Unfortunately, because they are simple and incomplete, they have been the source of as much speculation in the centuries since Paul wrote them as was the apostle’s original verbal teaching to the church. What followed in Paul’s letters, however, was a need to return to the original simplicity.

GUIDELINES FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING

– A narrative on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-10; 5:14-24

THIS is a brief manual for Christian living. It is incomplete because Paul has already given it verbally (4:11) and here he is stressing only what the Thessalonians need to give further attention to. Which is what most people need to give attention to.

On the subject of personal conduct he warns against unbridled lust and encourages marital faithfulness (4:3-8). The former was common and the latter rare in his first readers’ society.

Perhaps some church members were still struggling and failing. Being different is not easy and new habits take time to learn. There is none of the righteous indignation here which he unleashes against the Corinthians. Instead, he stresses the social dimension of immorality. It destroys relationships within the church.

As history repeats itself and people come to Christ from non-Christian lifestyles, his firm but non-judgmental approach sets a pastorally sensitive example.

Social conduct seems to be his chief concern. Brotherly love exists and he encourages it further (4:9). He describes what it looks like in 5:14: patient, kind, supportive and encouraging.

As for spiritual conduct, Christ, not circumstance, is to dominate Christians’ thoughts and feelings (5:16-18). The Thessalonians faced potentially depressing battles with their opponents, yet even they were to rejoice and give thanks. Christ is bigger than our problems.

They are also encouraged to keep the charismatic balance. The gifts of the Spirit are not to be despised, but neither are they to be received and exercised uncritically (5:19).

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Matthew’s Gospel: Blind to the Truth?

NEW TESTAMENT

– A narrative on Matthew 13:10-17, 34-35

“What is the use of a book,” thought the heroine of Alice in Wonderland, “without pictures or conversations?” Jesus was a master of telling stories which included conversations and evoked pictures. But it was not enough. Some could never get the point.

Ordinary people delighted in them, but the theological experts got nothing out of them, drawing Jesus’ sad quotation from Isaiah 6 that they were blind as proverbial bats. However, the quote almost implies that the parables were meant to make them blind, which modern readers find puzzling.

The parables were used to convey profound truths in picture language. Normally they were intended to make only a single point. They are not allegories in which every detail “means” something. So, in interpreting them, we should not press the detail too much.

They were more like paintings than photographs. The experts found them frustrating because the deliberate vagueness left them arguing over the meaning (which was Jesus’ intention) and not grappling with concepts in the way they were used to.

The quote from Isaiah 6 is therefore not a prescription – “I’ll make sure you never understand” – but a description of people whose minds are closed to new ideas. They don’t want to discover anything about God which doesn’t conform to their preconceived formulae; they are incapable of seeing it even if it stares them in the face.

The most dangerous state of mind is a closed mind. Diseased minds can be healed; confused minds clarified; minds in error corrected; uninformed minds educated; narrow minds broadened. God, who is bigger than our minds, would like to enlarge those that are open. But even He cannot penetrate a closed mind. And Christians can be as closed as their critics.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians

NEW TESTAMENT

SOME people just seem to be problems waiting to happen. So do some churches, and Corinth was one. Paul tells the Corinthians about his mysterious “thorn in the flesh” (11.12:1-10) but if we had not known that it was some personal ailment, we might have thought it was them.

The two letters to the Corinthians deal with a variety of teething problems which might confront a church without the benefit of mature leadership and a library of books. They may not be all our problems, but the principles Paul enunciates in dealing with them are permanently important in a variety of contexts. Whilst he is seen to rebuke church members for their divisions, selfishness, and indulgence, he also offers encouragement to hard-pressed Christians. His advocacy of personal restraint as a mark of discipleship is implicit.

They let us see, too, a little of Paul’s personal emotions and ministry. At times he is desperately anxious, struggling to communicate and finally appeals to his apostolic authority. He tells us of the suffering he endured for Christ, and we are humbled by the great faith which kept his spirit afloat.

Written in the heat of the Corinthian troubles, these letters include teachings which have remained controversial. They include Paul’s comments on women’s ministry and on relationships not exclusively between a man and a woman. We should remind ourselves of both the spiritual and cultural context in which he was writing as we seek to interpret them and compare his teachings with other New Testament passages.

Some writers claim that their best work is produced when they are under pressure. Paul might have said the same thing. For in the middle of his pleas and threats is his immortal prose poem about the nature of love. And much else that is memorable, instructive, and uncontroversial is here too.

Words of witness need wisdom of God

– A narrative on 1 Corinthians 1:18 -2:16; 3:18-22

SOME places of worship have as their motto, “We preach Christ crucified” (1:23). Apart from the fact that this is only part of the gospel, it can become a coded message about the style of ministry being used. Such a motto distinctly signals the cross lacking its full meaning apart from the resurrection.

It may also mean ‘we never employ “modern” methods of communication’ such as drama or projected images. Paul, however, is not writing about preaching as a method, but about the approach he adopted: not that of philosophical argument (beloved of Greeks generally), but of a straight presentation of the historical facts and their practical relevance.

Indeed, to turn this text into a catchphrase is to fall into the trap Paul was warning his readers against. It is a form of pride: We do this, believe that; others don’t, therefore we are right, and they are not. Paul is stressing that reliance on any form of human “wisdom” is unsafe. What counts is that we allow God the Holy Spirit to guide our ministry, inform our thinking and empower our evangelism.

He is not decrying “apologetics” (reasoned argument for Christian truths) nor fresh methods (he sought to “enculturate” the gospel in terms relevant to the different communities he visited, 9:19-22). But he does want the Corinthians humbly to depend on God and to seek his wisdom in all they do.

Above all he wants them, and us, to understand that the gospel can never be “heard” by anyone unless the Holy Spirit takes the scales from their eyes and illuminates them. That is why neither preaching nor pictures can communicate anything unless God is at work in people’s lives. That really does call for wisdom; our witness must be in the right place at the right time.

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