To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 2:1-3 “For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. . . For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive”

Motivation for ministry: it’s such a critical thing.  As Paul recounts the underlying characteristics of his fruitful ministry among the Thessalonians, he describes both what it was, and what it was not.   As to what it was, it was a ministry marked by boldness in the face of much conflict and an unwavering commitment to the Word of Christ both in what he taught and in how he lived.  He anticipated trouble as he worked to advance the kingdom of God and take territory from the kingdom of darkness.  It took courage to do this, and it was courage that Paul demonstrated.  

But as to what his ministry did not demonstrate, he described three things. His ministry did not spring from, i.e., it was not motivated by, error, impurity, or an attempt to deceive.  It is those three things that will characterize the “ministry” of the enemy of our souls.  He is an expert at propagating error and he does this through false religions and false teachers of those religions.  Perhaps that error is obvious when we are talking about non-Christian religions. However, the error is insidious when it comes in the form of teachers who call themselves Christians.  Such teachers were all over the place in Paul’s day and they are no less evident today.  They teach things that sound good, but that are anything but. 

For example, they may teach that because God is love, then He would never bring judgment on anyone.  Such teachers are remiss to speak about sin and God’s hatred of it.  They never talk about sexual sin, or they may even celebrate it as just another form of “love.”  Some teachers tell us that there is no hell, although the Bible is very clear that there is.  Then there is a plethora of so-called “Christian” religions that have developed extra-biblical writings that they have placed on the same spiritual plane as the Bible – or they have altered the Bible in some way or another to alter what God has said about the way of salvation or the nature of Christ.  They may call themselves names that speak of God, like “The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints,” “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” or “Christian Scientists” but they are anything but.  Besides their aberrant or extra-biblical writings, these “faiths” will, in one form or another, preach a salvation based, at least in part, on human works (in contrast to the truth that salvation is not of ourselves but it is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9)), and they will deny the deity of Christ.  Of such teachers the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, warns us with these words: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-9). 

So why would anyone teach such a gospel? What exactly is their motive?  Well, you can be sure that if that motive is not a love of God (for it certainly is not if it is a distortion of His holy Word), then it is a love of something else – most likely money, or perhaps power or some other ungodly lust.  Paul went to great lengths to work hard among the Thessalonian church to earn money by working with his own hands as a tentmaker.  He reminded them that “For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:9).  In contrast to those ministers today whose churches are filled with people to whom they teach soothing messages that flatter them and tell them that if they just plant their “seed”, meaning money, they will be blessed with lots of money themselves, Paul preached hard truths about sin, and the need to repent and turn from that sin. 

Paul’s life was marked by righteousness, not greed and wickedness.  He lived among those to whom he ministered and his life was open to examination by them.  In contrast, when the lives of many so-called “ministers” are examined today, we see all forms of sexual sin, including sexual predation on little children, and a preoccupation with money.  Just listen to most TV preachers today. Within five minutes (or less) of tuning in their message will focus on money.  If you examine their lives, you’ll see they live in multi-million-dollar homes and fly around in private jets. Be careful of such people, for they definitely do not follow the example of either Paul or the Lord Jesus Christ.    

And just as we need to be wary of the motives of those who claim to teach the truth, we need to also examine our own lives. Does our motivation for ministry indicate any of those things that Paul stated was not a part of his ministry, namely “error or impurity or any attempt to deceive?”  Are you a student of the Word of God, and does your life line up with the tests of true faith found in the Bible?  Or do you call yourself a believer yet your live a life of those things that the Bible plainly calls sin?  Do you know what the Bible says or are you depending on others to tell you? Are you like the Berean Christians that were commended because “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11)?  And are you deceived about your own faith or are you one who obeys the Bible’s command to “examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5), with an examination that is based on the Truth of God’s Word and nothing else? 

May God help us to examine the lives of the teachers we listen to, the messages they teach, and the things we believe by the one and only true test of these things, the pure and perfect Word of God, for it is only by hearing and believing the words of this book that any true faith ever came to anyone.