October 15, 2017 | Pastor John Bayles | Prayers of St. Paul: Living a Life Worthy of the Calling | 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

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October 15, 2017  | Pastor John Bayles | Prayers of St. Paul: Living a Life Worthy of the Calling | 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

Prayers of St. Paul: Living a Life Worthy of the Calling
2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

The historical context of this letter is Acts 17: Paul’s second missionary Journey; the inclusion of the author, Luke (see the sudden use of the personal pronoun “we” in Act.16, showing the moment Luke joined the team in Macedonia. The four of them visited Philippi and then set out south-west toward Thessalonica. There a huge disturbance started when Paul’s message that Jesus was the Christ enraged some Jews in the synagogue and over the course of a few days left the city at night in fear of being killed. He traveled on to Berea, then Athens and finally Corinth. From Athens Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to find out if his Gospel message had born fruit. Timothy found Paul and Silas (and Luke) in Corinth where he wrote the first letter to the Thessalonians. Because they stayed in Corinth eighteen months, Paul later sent a second letter to Thessalonica specifically explaining why God allows persecution, instructing them that the appearing of Christ would come after the great rebellion Christ declared in Matthew 24; and the coming of the lawless one, the Antichrist; and finally, that they must guard against being idle in the presence of the task of fulfilling Christ command to go into all the world. In this text, the Apostle Paul not only instructs the Thessalonians, but prays for them that they will be a clear reflection not of what they are believing or doing for God, but that they may be a clear reflection of who God is and what he has done for them thorough Christ.

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