Thursday, August 4, 2011

Questioning Our Leaders - 1 Thessalonians 2


My ministry here is not a failure.  You know that I have not been wasting my time and yours.  You may or may not know that sometimes I have been misunderstood, criticized, and treated unfairly.  Yet God has given me the strength to continue preaching God’s Good News boldly, in spite of those who may object.  
My teaching is not in error.  My motives are pure.  I’m not doing a bait-and-switch to catch people with a feel-good gospel.
I am called by God to be his messenger, his prophet.  God has entrusted me with his message, and you can be sure that I’m trying to please God not people.  God knows my heart.  God knows why I do this.
I’m not the kind of guy who flatters others or soft-pedals the truth or just says what you want to hear.  You certainly know that I haven’t taken it easy on you.  I’ve given you the truth even when the truth is difficult and unpopular.  Clearly, I’m not in this for the money or the glory.
As a pastor called and ordained by God and the Church, I could push my way.  I have that right, but I always try to side with gentleness.  I’ve cared for you like a mother nursing her own children.  And the truth is I haven’t just shared God’s Gospel, but I’ve been sharing my heart and soul with you.
Don’t you remember how I was bivocational - holding down two jobs so as not to be a burden to you?  Don’t you remember how I turned down pay raises to make room for more missional ministry?  You yourselves stand as witnesses - along with God - that I’ve been honest and faithful and above reproach here.
Like a father guiding the growth of his children, I’ve pleaded with you and encouraged you.  I’ve urged you - in every way I know how - to live in faithfulness to the God who calls you into his amazing Kingdom.  And I always thank God when you respond.  Somehow, mysteriously, God does speak through me.  Somehow, mysteriously, God uses me to work in you.  
It’s true that your faithful response has sometimes caused suffering for you, and some of that suffering comes from those who should love you best.  Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes.  When you suffer for following Jesus, you’re walking in the footsteps of the first Christians in Judea right up to the present time.  Some of the Jews rejected Jesus, just as they rejected the prophets before him and the apostles after him.  It seems that there are always those who try to protect God’s message but end up opposing God and everyone else.  Some will always stand in the way of God’s Good News moving out to everyone everywhere.
My brothers and sisters, I need you just as much as you need me, and I long for unity with you.  As much as I want for my heart to reach your heart, sometimes I feel like an orphan because I can’t speak through the mist.  The truth is we are in the midst of a larger struggle with the Evil One who wants to put divisions between us.
But in the end, what gives me hope and joy?  What gives me confidence that I’ll be able to stand with holy pride when Jesus comes back?  It’s you.  God’s transformation of your hearts and lives is my greatest reward.  God’s work in your life is the authentication of my life. 
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That was a paraphrase of 1 Thessalonians 2.  I fit this chapter into my life and our context to help us hear the depth of emotions and the depth of issues in this passage.  Listen to it again in Paul’s words.
 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.
 13 Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe.
 14 And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. 15 For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity 16 as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last.
Timothy’s Good Report about the Church
 17 Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. 18 We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. 19 After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you! 20 Yes, you are our pride and joy.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy are on trial.  Paul’s leadership is in question.  And it tears into Paul’s heart.  
Remember the history of their trip to Thessalonica (Acts 17).  They had just come from Philippi where they were beaten and jailed.  In Thessalonica they preached boldly in the Jewish synagog.  This synagog had a lot of Gentile seekers.  They were non-Jews who recognized that there is only one true God.  A few of the Jews believed Paul’s message about Jesus, but many of the Gentile seekers believed.  This naturally created a lot of jealousy.  To the local Jewish leaders,Paul was stealing their converts.  So these jealous Jews started a riot in the city and eventually drove the missionaries out of town. 
You can imagine what happened after Paul’s missionary team left.  The local leaders - both Jewish and non-Jewish - started working to return things to normal.  They used every objection they could think of.  They discredited Paul as a fraudulent traveling preacher - something like a poofy-haired televangelist.  They said Paul was just using them.  They said the missionaries were just putting on a show, trying to raise a following of people, so they could feel good about themselves.  They said Paul was mistaken.  They said Paul was distorting the ancient Jewish faith.  They said Paul was immoral, rejecting the laws Jews had followed for generations.  They said you can’t trust someone who loves you and leaves you.  The whole time, their message was: “You can’t trust Paul.”
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul gives three defenses of his ministry.  In essence, Paul says, “You can trust me, and here’s why.”
First, Paul says, “Look at our life.”  Obviously, Paul wasn’t in this for the money.  His team paid their own way.  They worked a side job so that they wouldn’t have to ask for money.  
Also, Paul points to their loving relationships as proof of his ministry.  Paul says, we were gentle among you - innocent as babies (2:7).  In fact, we loved you like a wet-nurse holding her own child to her breast (2:7).  We guided you like a father with his own children.  We held your hands and encouraged you and urged you toward a godly life (2:11-12).  Verse 17 has one of the most unusual images in the Bible.  The English says, “we were separated from you,” but the Greek verb is aporphanizo, or “we were made orphans”   When the apostles were forced to leave Thessalonica, it was like they were orphaned - ripped out of their loving family.
But most importantly, Paul says that his first loyalty is to God not people.  If they were just in it for the the money or the praise, they would have quit after the first beating.  They didn’t hold back on the difficult topics.  They didn’t cheat or cut corners or sweet talk anyone.  They simple told God’s message with love and honesty.  Paul, Silas, and Timothy lived with honesty, hard work, gentleness, and love.  The Thessalonians themselves can remember this and silence the critics.
Second, Paul says, “Look at our message.”  Again and again and again, Paul says he declared “God’s Good News” and “God’s word.”  He wasn’t preaching his own invention.  He hadn’t cooked up something new.  Paul was carrying forward the work God began in Israel.  Paul was continuing God’s promise to Abraham to bless the whole world through Israel (Genesis 12:1-3).  
The problem was that Jesus was a reformer.  Jesus was re-forming God’s people according to the ancient mold, the original intentions.  Lots of human dust and mud had been packed onto God’s plan and God’s design for the people, so Jesus and the apostles had to break off all of that extra dirt to see the stark beauty of God’s love for all of humanity. 
We can be pretty hard on the Jews and the Jewish Christians who resisted change, but we need to remember that, to many of the Jews, Jesus’ Good News sounded like a rejection of everything they had ever known.  Jesus was so different from their teachers.  Paul’s message was so different from the message of their rabbis.  They had a hard time seeing the faults with their old view of the Bible and God’s people.  Maybe they felt like believing Paul’s message meant rejecting centuries of teachers who had come before, rejecting the whole system they had grown up in, rejecting their fathers and grandfathers. 
What was Paul’s answer?  In Acts 17, when Paul was in Thessalonica, “he used the Scriptures to reason with the people.  He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead.  He said, ‘This Jesus I’m telling you about is the Messiah’” (17:2-3).  Paul’s answer was basically, “Go back to the heart of God’s word.  Go back to the heart of God’s action in the world.  You’ll find that, although this sounds new, it’s actually very old.  The Good News of Jesus that I’m preaching is actually the age-old message of God’s love for the whole world.”
Finally, Paul says, “Look at our results.”  When we preached, God worked in your hearts, and God is still working in your hearts (2:13).  You believed so deeply that you remained faithful despite persecution (2:14).  You yourselves are our reward.  You yourselves are our best argument for faithfulness.  God has used us to change your lives.  That is the final proof (2:19-20).
Paul’s leadership was questioned, and he gives an answer.  You can trust us because because we lived with honest and humble love, trying to please God not people.  You can trust us because we are preaching the ancient message of God.  You can trust us because God has worked in you through us.
Some things never change.  Leaders still get questioned.  We still wonder whether we can trust each other.  We still wonder whether our leaders are being faithful to God.  There are still false prophets in the world.  There are still teachers who lead people astray.  How do we know what is what?  How do we know who to trust?  We can start with Paul’s three basic arguments.
Look at their life.  Are they totally honest all the time?  Do they speak the truth even when it’s difficult?  Are they in it for the money?  Are they loving at all times?  Are they gentle and faithful?  Do they show genuine care for you?   Do they live what they preach?  Do you see evidence of Jesus in them?
Look at their message.  Are they faithful to the Word of God?  Are they proclaiming God’s Gospel and not their own?  Are they telling people what they want to hear, or are they preaching the truth boldly?  
Now this part can get really difficult because we humans have a bad habit of distorting the message over time.  In the Old Testament, God’s prophets often ran into trouble because they said justice and mercy are more important that orthodox sacrifices.  Jesus got into trouble because he said the religious leaders had misunderstood God and faithfulness.  Paul got into trouble because he said grace triumphs over law.  Luther got into trouble because he said we have to obey the Bible not the Pope.  Wesley got into trouble because he said God actually wants our day-to-day total loyalty not just Sunday attendance.  Bresee got into trouble because he followed Jesus to the poor instead of expecting the poor to clean up and come to Jesus.    The church is always in need of reform, and we have a bad habit of shooting our reformers.  
When we look at our leaders’ message, we have to be careful not to get on the wrong side of the Holy Spirit.  Yes, of course, reformers can take things too far.  Yes, of course, we have to be cautious and make sure we are still being faithful.  But, yes, we also need to remember that God’s prophets of reformation always contradict the teachers who came before them.  God’s prophets of reformation always sound wrong at first.  So we need to be careful not to ask, “Does their message sound the same as the message we’ve always heard?”  Instead, we need to ask, “Is their message in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  Are they going back to the heart of what God wants?”
Look at their results.  Are they “filled with power - with the Spirit of the Lord” (Micah 3:8)?  Is God saving and changing people through their ministry?  Where is the fruit?  Are people becoming more like Christ?  Are people who didn’t know God coming to put their life-trust in God’s amazing love?  Is the Church becoming more loving and more faithful?  Do you and others hear God’s voice, confirmation, and conviction in your own heart when the leader speaks?  
When Jesus was defending his ministry against criticism, he said, “Wisdom is proved right by all her children” (Luke 7:35).  In everyday English, we might say, the proof’s in the pudding.  Give it time, and you’ll usually see if someone is faithful or not simply by seeing the results.
So if you find yourself questioning your leaders, that’s OK.  Some things never change.  But make sure you judge them by the right standards.  It’s not how they make you feel.  It’s not if you like them or don’t like them.  It’s not if their style or vocabulary suits you.  It’s not if you feel comfortable or uncomfortable around them.  As Christians, we assess our leaders based on their lives, their message, and their results.  
But we aren’t done yet.  God never lets us off that easily.  Any time we start talking about evaluating or assessing others, we also have to judge ourselves.  “For you will be treated as you treat others.  The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.  And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? ... First get rid of the long in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye” (Matthew 7:2-5).  How can we check our own eyes?  Let me suggest a few questions.
  • How is your own life?  Is it possible that you are ready to criticize someone else to get the attention off your own faults?
  • Are you yourself practicing what you’re preaching?
  • How is your own understanding of the message?  How much have you studied this topic?  Have you considered all sides of the topic?  Who have your teachers been?  Were they people with a balanced view of the world today?  Were they people committed to truth but open to change?
  • What about your results?  If people follow you, will they become more like Jesus?  Are people drawing closer to God because of you?
  • Who is fueling this criticism for you?  Remember, some of the biggest opponents to Jesus and the apostles were religious leaders who were resisting change.  Also remember that some of Paul’s biggest opponents came from the other extreme - advocating a total abandonment of all ethics.   Who is whispering in your ear?
  • Are you really listening, or are you hearing a stereotype?  Is your leader “an old stick-in-the-mud” fundamentalist?   Is your leader a social-gospel liberal?  If you’re thinking in those categories, there is a high likelihood that you are actually listening to your own stereotypes instead of what the person is actually saying.
  • What do you have to gain or lose through this conflict?  Are you trying to protect someone or something important to you?  Is that thing really at risk or does it just feel  like it is?
  • Is this issue that offends you really at the heart of God’s message?  Or is it a side-issue and not all that important after all?
  • Are there larger forces at work here?  Is it possible that this conflict is part of a larger social change or spiritual battle?  If so, do you really have all the information you need to understand these complex forces?
Paul says three times in this chapter that he preached “God’s Gospel.”  What is God’s Gospel, and what does it mean for us today?  God’s Gospel starts with God’s unchanging love for every person who has ever lived.  God made us, and God won’t abandon us.  God came to earth in Jesus and lived among us.  Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and to set us free from sin and death and selfishness.  God raised Jesus from the dead and sent people around the world to share this Good News of freedom and grace.  God invites everyone everywhere into his kingdom and glory, into his new life of love and peace.  
As God forms us into “societies of mutual aid” (a.k.a. churches), he gives us leaders.  But even leaders God chooses are not without fault or error.  As God’s people, we are all invested with the same Spirit of God.  We are all mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and children to each other.  In the body of Christ no one is beyond accountability - even our highest leaders.  
So, as people called by God to live like God, we look honestly into each others lives and call each other to greater faithfulness and love.  Sometimes that involves difficult conversations or hard work to understand each other.  But we do the hard work of love because we are one family.  We do the hard work of love because God has already done the hardest work of love - dying to include us in one family.  We do the hard work of love - with love and grace - because this is the only way to have a loving community that changes our world.  We do the hard work of love because this is the best life possible.

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