Messengers

We are making our way through Paul’s first letter to the Jesus followers in Thessalonica. Today, Paul talks about talking.


1 Thessalonians 2
1 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. 4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! 6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. 7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. 9 Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses - and so is God - that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.


Messengers. Yesterday, we talked about our role of being examples. Today, we take it a step further and look at our role of being messengers. Paul demonstrates some important ingredients every messenger needs to have ... boldness, purity, gentleness and passion. The one ingredient that really stood out to me ... was me. I was struck by the idea that sharing the Good News of Jesus includes me sharing my own life ... sharing my weaknesses and my fears and my uncertainties (along with demonstrating my faith and love and hope). It may seem contradictory; but it is just as important for me to be bold as it is for me to be transparent. My former education professor (Dr. Shiverdecker) used to say, “Student won’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. That is true for teachers ... and for messengers. The real question is ... do I care?