On the road to completion
Life’s challenges have a way of sowing doubt and discouragement. The second letter to the Thessalonian Church starts with encouragement, countering the threat caused by suffering and persecution. The people of the Church were suffering, but they were also growing. Paul thanked God for answered prayer, because God was growing their faith, love and hope. As a result, the Church was inspiring and encouraging all those that heard about them. We can also grow through trials, knowing that God will finish everything that He starts.
Scripture
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4 ESV Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
Bible Study Questions
Qualified to comfort
The 2nd letter to Thessalonica is from Paul, SIlvanus (also known as Silas) and Timothy and it starts with an encouragement to continue enduring trials and persecutions. These men were equipped to comfort the Church through persecution, what experience did Paul and Silas have of suffering and persecution?
Acts 16:22-24 ESV The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
The Church In Jesus Christ
The letter is addressed to the Church that is “in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. What does it mean to be “in God” and “in Jesus Christ”?
2 Corinthians 5:17-18 ESV Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
Grace brings Peace
A Mark of Paul’s letters was the blessing of “grace and peace”. How can we have peace when we’re suffering trials and persecutions? What does God’s grace have to do with peace?
Colossians 1:19-20 ESV For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
The power of Gratitude
The Holy Spirit inspires Paul to give thanks to God for the Church in Thessalonica even though they are suffering. How is Paul practising what he preached in his first letter to this Church?
1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
God’s Faithfulness
Paul is not only “giving thanks in all circumstances” but is also joyfully showing gratitude to God for answering the prayer offered up for the Church. What prayer request had God answered, and was also continuing to answer?
1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 ESV and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
The fruit of faithful endurance
Was God growing the faith, love and hope of the people in spite of the difficult times they were enduring, or was through these challenges?
Romans 5:3-5 ESV Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Equipped to comfort
God promises to use all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Apart from the spiritual grow of the Church in Thessalonica, how was God using the persecution for good elsewhere?
2 Corinthians 1:3-6 ESV Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.