Sermon Tone Analysis

*2—Fail-Proof Spiritual Leadership (**2:1–6**)*

*For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.

For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority.

*(2:1–6)

For nearly half a century, beginning in the 1950s, the world has asked the question, “Where have all the leaders gone?”

During that time, society has placed more and more of a premium on leadership, but has found few noble leaders with skill and integrity.

Leadership is not easy.

When a sports team does not win, the owner fires the head coach.

When a corporation loses its competitive edge or fails in a major way to live up to expectations, the board of directors often fires the president.

When a church does not grow according to people’s expectations, the pastor is often forced out.

And because spiritual and eternal matters are involved, the leadership crisis in the world is insignificant compared to the leadership crisis in the church, God’s agency to fulfill His mission on earth (Matt.

28:19–20; cf. 1 Tim.

3:15) until Christ returns.

Those called to be elders in the church, who preach, teach, and lead God’s flock, are entrusted with the unequalled duty of proclaiming the gospel to unbelieving sinners, and bringing those who believe and are baptized into the fellowship of the local church.

There the Holy Spirit will sanctify them as they worship God in spirit and truth, submitting to the exposition and application of Scripture.

Pastors also must intercede for their people through public and private prayer, oversee the administration of the Lord’s Table so their people will regularly confess their sins and renew their covenant of obedience, equip other teachers and workers within the church, superintend and enforce church discipline, and provide biblical counseling to the congregation.

All of this spiritual work is to build up the saints to maturity—“to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph.

4:13).

The elder must be a spiritual physician who can capably apply biblical cures to those vices and heresies that might afflict members of his church.

He also must be a tender shepherd who, while feeding the flock, also heals their wounds, calms their fears, protects them from spiritual dangers, and comforts them in their distresses.

In short, he is to be a champion for biblical truth (2 Tim.

4:2), a provider of spiritual resources (1 Peter 5:1–2), a guardian and protector (Acts 20:28–31), and always a model of spiritual virtue (1 Tim.

4:12), for all of which he is directly accountable to his Lord Jesus Christ (Heb.

13:17; James 3:1).

Even the uniquely gifted apostle Paul asked the question, “And who is adequate for these things?”

(2 Cor.

2:16).

He realized that no man could effectively discharge the immense obligation of spiritual leadership by human wisdom, effort, and strength alone.

He knew that only God could provide the power to be an effective leader, although he struggled with his flesh and found himself not doing the things he wanted to do and doing the things he did not want to do (Rom.

7:14–25).

God graciously gave him suffering and pain to continually humble him and make him dependent on divine power (2 Cor.

12:7–10).

False teachers assailed Paul, as they often do other faithful shepherds, by impugning his character and challenging his authority.

Thus the opening statement of chapter 2 is a polemic in defense of Paul’s ministry to the Thessalonians.

Opponents of his ministry were lying to the church in Thessalonica concerning his integrity and sincerity.

They hoped to ruin the new church by destroying its confidence in the person God had used to found it.

That group probably included both unbelieving Jews and pagan Gentiles, both of whom were extremely hostile to the gospel.

(This was a similar situation to the one later addressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians.)

In a negative response to the coming of Messiah and His redemptive work, as well as to the spread of the gospel message, the attacks on the truth of salvation by grace escalated—and Paul was the main target.

Since the first-century world was full of false spiritual leaders and charlatans, it was easy for the apostle’s foes to lump him in with those charlatans who traveled around and ministered merely to gain personal power, wealth, and prestige.

W. Neil writes about those times:

There has probably never been such a variety of religious cults and philosophic systems as in Paul’s day.

East and West had united and intermingled to produce an amalgam of real piety, high moral principles, crude superstition and gross license.

Oriental mysteries, Greek philosophy, and local godlings competed for favour under the tolerant aegis of Roman indifference.

“Holy Men” of all creeds and countries, popular philosophers, magicians, astrologers, crack-pots, and cranks; the sincere and the spurious, the righteous and the rogue, swindlers and saints, jostled and clamoured for the attention of the credulous and the sceptical.

(Cited in Leon Morris, /The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians.

/The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 68, n.3)

In spite of the purity of Paul’s life and the transforming power of his message (sufficient and convincing proof of his legitimacy as an apostle of Jesus Christ), the enemies of the gospel were having some success in convincing the Thessalonians that Paul and his companions were men of wicked intentions, nothing more than self-seeking frauds like so many other “spiritual teachers” of that time.

Therefore, as distasteful as it was for Paul to have to defend himself, he answered his detractors directly and concisely for the sake of the truth.

*Paul’s Opening Reminder*

*For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, *(2:1)

Paul opened the defense of his spiritual leadership with a general statement about the effectiveness of his ministry: *For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain.

*The apostle immediately urged his audience to remember their own experience with him and his companions—what had occurred was obvious and self-evident.

Awareness of how Paul ministered among the Thessalonians did not come from a secondhand report (cf. 1 Thess.

1:9) but from their own firsthand involvement.

The phrase *our coming to you *refers to the missionaries’ arrival in Thessalonica with the message of the gospel.

*Vain* translates /kenos/,/ /which means “empty.”

The term also could denote something that was without purpose, effect, or importance and was thus inconsequential.

But the ministry of Paul, Silas, and Timothy in Thessalonica *was not *so insipid.

On the contrary, it had a powerful impact because it produced deep and far-reaching effects in the lives of the Thessalonians—the marks of genuine faith recollected in 1:1–10.

The strength of the Thessalonian church, even after Paul’s leaving, was evidence that he had not labored *in vain.

*As he continued the defense of his ministry in this section of the letter, Paul expressed five ingredients that opened his ministry to divine power: his confidence in God’s power, his commitment to God’s truth, his commissioning by God’s will, his motivation by God’s knowledge, and his dedication to God’s glory.

*Paul’s Confidence in God’s Power*

*but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

*(2:2)

Paul’s confidence in the power of God, both to energize his ministry and protect him from harm, gave him boldness, courage, tenacity, and fearlessness in the face of his enemies.

Paul was thinking of those enemies when he reminded the Thessalonians that he and his companions *had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi.

*Luke recorded that episode in Acts 16:16–24:

It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling.

Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.”

She continued doing this for many days.

But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!”

And it came out at that very moment.

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities, and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”

The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.

When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Paul and Silas were actually harmed in two ways at Philippi, as indicated by the two words *suffered* and *mistreated.

*They were treated brutally, being beaten and imprisoned in stocks, falsely accused, and illegally punished.

*Suffered* refers primarily to the physical abuse, whereas *mistreated* refers to public disgrace, or even legal abuse—they were unjustly judged and made prisoners when they had committed no crime.

In the first century, /hubrizō/ (*mistreated*) meant to treat shamefully, insultingly, or outrageously in public—all with intent to humiliate.

Paul declared that even *after* they had experienced such bad treatment *in Philippi *they continued to preach the gospel in Thessalonica, where they were falsely accused of treason (Acts 17:7) and unfairly assaulted by a mob (17:5–6).

The word rendered *but after* (/alla/) by the /New American Standard Bible /is a strong adversative that in this context might better be translated “but on the other hand” or “although.”

Even though the missionaries encountered such a terrible reaction in Philippi when they proclaimed the gospel, they came to Thessalonica committed to the same privileged duty of preaching *the gospel of God.

*In fact, Paul reasoned that the pagan Philippians’ hostile reaction was a sure indicator he and his friends were preaching the truth.

Paul’s statement here makes it clear that confident, bold, biblical preaching does not lead to popularity.

Rather, it leads to conflict that requires courage and renewed boldness.

Paul’s confidence was not in himself.

On the contrary, his confidence or *boldness* was solely *in God.

*Paul wholeheartedly trusted that God would sustain him.

As he would later write to the Ephesians, he was “strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Eph.

6:10).

His human weakness was the best tool for God’s power (2 Cor.

12:9–10).

The term *gospel of God *appears two more times in chapter 2 (vv.

8, 9) as well as in Mark 1:14; Romans 1:1; 15:16; 2 Corinthians 11:7; and 1 Peter 4:17.

It describes the gospel from the perspective of God as the source.

It is the good news designed by and revealed from God about what He has done to redeem sinners through His grace and by His Son Jesus Christ.

As in Philippi and so many other places, the apostle ministered the gospel in Thessalonica *amid much opposition.*

The Greek word translated *opposition* is /agōn/ (“struggle,” “conflict,” “fight”), from which the English word /agonize/ derives.

It referred to an agonizing life and death struggle.

In the ministry, there is always pressure to mitigate the message, to be inoffensive to sinners, to make the gospel acceptable to them.

But such a compromise had no place in Paul’s strategy.

Instead, he had full confidence in God’s power to overcome all opposition and achieve His redemptive purpose.

The servant of God preaches the true, unmitigated message God has laid out in His Word, not some other message.

He does so for the sake of truth, not for personal popularity.

And when opposition comes, he trusts in the power of God and stays obedient to his calling.

All that was true of Paul and his companions.