2 Thessalonians 1
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God Will Settle His Accounts in the End
Intro: Imagine you are young parent with a newborn, you were raised in a well off family, and you are weeks away from being baptized as a new Christian.
All of a sudden, during your new members class, the police break down the door, arrest everyone and take the entire class to prison. You are in a dark, crowded cell with other people in a similar situation. People who are Christians. And you and thy are all waiting for some kind of trial by the Emperor to renounce your belief in Christ.
What would you do? Say you are not a Christian and can go back to your family, and friends and your comfortable life. Or do you say you are a Christian and now that your life will end in an arena, being ripped apart by wild animals, like leopards or lionsor killed by gladiators.
This is the world of a Christian in the year 203 AD. A Christian convert named Perpetua and her fellow convert and servant Felicity faced this exact situation.
Most Scholars think that something happened within about 6 months to make Paul to write his second letter to the Thessalonian church.
The problems the church may have faced was not like the situation described above bt i must have been something that the church as a whole withstood and came out The other side that made Paul rejoice when he received the news.
Read Verses:
Main Idea: You can count on God to keep Track of everything that goes on in His Kingdom
I. God Will Repay the Righteous (3-5)
After a fairly standard introduction, Paul gives thanks the the church for their conduct. We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, since your faith is flourishing and the love each one of you has for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore, we ourselves boast about you among God’s churches—about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions that you are enduring. 5 It is clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment that you will be counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also are suffering,
Their faith flourished, even more so from the time of the first letter.and this was cause for Paul to Boast to the other churches. And their faith increased in the Face of ongoing persecution and afflictions.
Face of ongoing persecution and afflictions.
“Persecutions” (diōgmois) is an infrequent word in Paul’s letters (; ; ) and especially connotes religious persecutions. “Trials” (thlipsesin) literally means “pressure” and metaphorically indicates some burdensome or chafing oppression (cf. ; , ). The modifiers of these synonyms (“all your” persecutions and afflictions “which you are enduring,” RSV) indicate that the persecutions of the church were numerous and were ongoing at the time the letter was written. For some this stands in contrast with the implications of , “You suffered …,” which speaks of suffering as a past event.
Perpetua was a Christian noblewoman who, at the turn of the third century, lived with her husband, her son, and her slave, Felicitas, in Carthage (in modern Tunis). At this time, North Africa was the center of a vibrant Christian community. It is no surprise, then, that when Emperor Septimius Severus determined to cripple Christianity (he believed it undermined Roman patriotism), he focused his attention on North Africa. Among the first to be arrested were five new Christians taking classes to prepare for baptism, one of whom was Perpetua.
Her father immediately came to her in prison. He was a pagan, and he saw an easy way for Perpetua to save herself. He entreated her simply to deny she was a Christian.
“Father do you see this vase here?” she replied. “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?”
“No,” he replied.
“Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”
How you face persecutions and trials is what tells people and yourself about your faith. Do you want to quit every time something happens? Or do you rest in Christ’s work on the cross and understand that the trial is there to help sanctify you and show you God’s faithfulness.
TS: We bear the name of our Lord in the name of Religion. We are supposed to be little Christ’s and he suffered,he went willingly, as did Perpetua, to their death, knowing that they will live again. His name lives on every time we say what we are. And very few people can name too many Roman emperors.
III. God Will Repay the Unrighteous (6-10)
Paul gives what can be looked as good news for the people who are being persecuted. He goes on to say in verse 6, “since it is just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you 7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted, along with us. This will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels, 8 when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength 10 on that day when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed.
People like justice and we get upset if we feel like we are wronged. When Perpetua went to jail her father thought that he could solve it by getting her to renounce her faith. Then since she had just had a baby, her father thought he could use that as some kind of a defese and fairness so the child would not lose his mother.
But Perpetua had a different view and it seems that she understood that she would die and the emperor would live. She would lose and he would win by the world’s standards.
Before her trial, Perpetua tried to comfort her father—“It will all happen in the prisoner’s dock as God wills, for you may be sure that we are not left to ourselves but are all in his power”—but he walked out of the prison dejected.
The day of the hearing arrived, Perpetua and her friends were marched before the governor, Hilarianus. Perpetua’s friends were questioned first, and each in turn admitted to being a Christian, and each in turn refused to make a sacrifice (an act of emperor worship). Then the governor turned to question Perpetua.
At that moment, her father, carrying Perpetua’s son in his arms, burst into the room.
He grabbed Perpetua and pleaded, “Perform the sacrifice. Have pity on your baby!”
Hilarianus, probably wishing to avoid the unpleasantness of executing a mother who still suckled a child, added, “Have pity on your father’s gray head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor.”
Perpetua replied simply: “I will not.”
“Are you a Christian then?” asked the governor.
“Yes I am,” Perpetua replied.
Her father interrupted again, begging her to sacrifice, but Hilarianus had heard enough: he ordered soldiers to beat him into silence. He then condemned Perpetua and her friends to die in the arena.
Perpetua is condemned to death, along with her servant Felicity ho had or will give birth just before their execution in the arena. She was put through a trial that was suspect at best. She had her passion in the arena. Christ had his passion on the Hill of Golgotha, after his trial and walking through the arena of the city carrying the crossbeam of the cross he would die on.
But Every Sunday, we talk aboutJesus, not Pontius. The story We are hearing is centered on Perpetua not Hilariuanus. We celebrate the faithful and not the faithless. Those people, if they did not become Christians will pay the eternal destruction of God. And those who are Christians will have eternal life. All of this is in the future though so we have to be patient in waiting for God’s Justice to be enacted.
In verse 10 Paul says on that day when Jesus comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed.
III. God Pays You in Advance with Faith (11-12)
11 In view of this, we always pray for you that our God will make you worthy of his calling, and by his power fulfill your every desire to do good and your work produced by faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and you by him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul explains to the thessalonians that they, Paul a,d Timothy and Silas are praying for them as they go through their ordeals. They are praying for their strength and that God would make them worthy because he called the people that are in the church and the church in general.
the Thessalonians in v. 10 but also with Paul’s prayer in , which refers to the God “who calls you into his kingdom and glory,” an act accomplished by apostolic evangelization. Today, as then, those who voice the gospel call must speak with boldness and awe. For their message is not a matter of personal opinion, and its power is not limited to their personal eloquence. They relay to humanity God’s call into his kingdom. The privilege of participation in this divine purpose must ever instill humility and confidence in those entrusted by God with this vital task. The thessalonians responded to Paul’s reaching and they responded to the calling.
Perpetua also responded to the calling on her life a was becoming a Christian. What we can tell is that the discipleship process took about three years from the time they confessed their faith to the time of baptism. Which was what her and her fellow classmates who became fellow prisoners were preparing for.
But instead of preparing for a life of worship and working for God, Perpetua, her friends, and her slave, Felicitas were dressed in belted tunics. When they entered the stadium, wild beasts and gladiators roamed the arena floor, and in the stands, crowds roared to see blood. They didn’t have to wait long.
Immediately a wild heifer charged the group. Perpetua was tossed into the air and onto her back. She sat up, adjusted her ripped tunic, and walked over to help Felicitas. Then a leopard was let loose, and it wasn’t long before the tunics of the Christians were stained with blood.
This was too deliberate for the impatient crowd, which began calling for death for the Christians. So Perpetua, Felicitas, and friends were lined up, and one by one, were slain by the sword.
Conclusion
Paul commended the Thessalonians for remaining faithful in the face of trials and persecution. Even though we do not have the specifics of what those trials were.
He also reminds the church that the righteous will be paid handsomely by God and the unrighteous will be paid in wrath and destruction. So even though it may not seem like it, the people who cause us strife will be take care of by God.
Her story is one that we see her exchanging her actual family for her new family in Christ. She gains a Heavenly Father for the earthly father she loses in a sense.
Perpetua had the faith and that faith strengthened and empowered her to remain faithful to her Lord. We can exhibit the same faith and strength when we rely on Jesus to provide that power. We have a finite amount of power, but he has limitless strength that he gives us.
13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.