NOTES for Th1 1:2-3

Recalling the birth of the Thessalonian church, Paul speaks of the nearness of the Kingdom and the action of God's breath experienced by everyone involved. Judging by the apostle's words, God's presence made itself felt with particular vividness then, both in the lives of individual new converts and in the life of the community taking shape as a whole. Now Paul urges his Thessalonian brothers not to forget or lose what they were given.

Here the apostle touches on an important spiritual problem that both individuals and whole communities inevitably encounter in their spiritual lives. It concerns the relationship between two elements of spiritual life which, in the language of contemporary Christianity, we might call the charismatic and the ascetic. Asceticism here means not mortification of the flesh, of course, but the process of spiritually ordering oneself and one's life around the spiritual axis normally formed by the relationship that binds a person to God.

The point is that a full spiritual life is simply impossible without God's direct intervention—at least if we mean spiritual life as the Bible understands it. Every relationship with God begins with God making His presence known in the life of an individual, and sometimes of a whole community. This presence is usually experienced very vividly: God's breath, breaking into a person's life, generally takes hold of them completely, and subjectively they experience it as a swift and profound conversion.

But if everything is confined to this experience, the upsurge soon gives way to a decline. This is hardly surprising: God's breath is not everything; it matters to recognise the presence of God's will behind that breath, and such recognition requires a far greater degree of involvement in the relationship with God than conversion does. Conversion requires only a readiness to experience something unusual; recognising God's will requires an active, purposeful effort of the human will, possible only when a person understands what they want and what they are striving for, and is ready for sustained work.

These purposeful efforts, which include gathering oneself inwardly, a kind of mobilisation needed to accomplish the task at hand, are ascetic efforts in the proper sense. Paul reminds the recipients of his letter of such efforts, observing that so far they have succeeded in them: otherwise it is difficult to understand his words about the ‘work of faith’ and the ‘labour of love’. It was this combination that enabled the Thessalonian church to live a full spiritual life.

Thus faith, brotherly love, and perseverance are growing in the community at Thessalonica. Wonderful! Surely Paul will praise the faithful? But no. Yes, he acknowledges that all is well in the community. Yet the believers themselves deserve relatively little credit for this. Above all, Paul considers it necessary to thank God; indeed, he emphasizes that this is only just. Thus, when we forget to thank Him and attribute all the credit to ourselves, or even to someone else—to a human being rather than to God—we act unjustly.

As Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonian church, he mentions the witness for which, judging by his words, this church was known throughout mainland Greece, which consisted of two regions: Achaia and Macedonia (vv. 6-10). At the same time, almost in passing, the apostle also describes the mechanism that makes such witness and the spread of the good news possible. He recalls his own witness to the Thessalonians when they were still newly converted, as well as the witness of his coworkers, which Paul describes as a witness not only in word, but also in the power of the Spirit of God (v. 5). And in that witness the newly converted received not only words, but also the Spirit, who opened the Kingdom to them. Then they, in turn, became able to carry the witness they had received further, continuing the work begun by the apostle.

The situation Paul describes is a characteristic example of how the good news spreads in the world. The Church is not a religious organization, but a community of people living in the Kingdom. Its main task is to make the Kingdom, with its life and its laws, which differ fundamentally from the laws of our world that has not yet been transformed, present in the world so that the world may be transformed and everyone seeking the Kingdom may share in the new life. But then it becomes clear that the preaching of Christianity can and must be not an account of a new religion that the preacher offers to those seeking the truth, but a witness to this Kingdom and to the One who brought it into the world.

Witness of this kind will, of course, be received as empty talk if the witness cannot offer proof that the Kingdom he speaks about is not an invention or a dream, but true reality. And in this case the proof can only be one's own example. Everyone listening to the preacher must see in the preacher himself signs of belonging to the Kingdom, just as everyone seeking the Kingdom must see a visible example of the life of the Kingdom when coming to the assembly of the community of the faithful. The Kingdom cannot be proved by any arguments; the only argument here can be the personal experience of one who has shared in it. And Paul thanks God for his Thessalonian brothers, who, as is clear, helped many of those who were seeking the Kingdom experience it.