“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 ESV
Reflection: which offers us more of a blessing – an encouragement or a correction?
Not sure what you think about this, but it is hard to be corrected by others. Whether it is at work, at home, or even by a Christian brother or sister, a correction doesn’t feel very good. It somehow hurts our “pride”, our self image. And, it is easy to take the position of self righteousness, thinking “what gives you the right to correct me?”, or “you are not so perfect yourself” of the person correcting us. We might get defensive and upset at the person, and finally choose to reject the correction. But, what about when we are down, and someone gives us an encouragement, just what we needed to hear at that time? That can feel really good. We might even turn to God and give Him the glory, thanking Him for nudging that person to come along our side, saying the right thing to us. But what if God also sent the person to correct us?
In the end of this first letter to the believers in Thessaloniki, Paul gives a long list of instructions for Christian living. Notice that all of these are for the congregation; not just a few. Not just the leaders. It is for everyone who follow Christ. And the first section deals with how to treat those in the church that are in various positions . “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 ESV. Don’t you find it interesting that he specifically points to those who “admonish” us, meaning those who teach and correct us? To respect them, to esteem them highly in love. Not so easy.
And then he goes on, giving basically a list of instructions on how to live a Christian life. These are not commandments, but rather instructions on Christian living. So we will look at these as a list. Notice that he starts the list from a plead, urging them to follow his instructions, “And we urge you, brothers,
- admonish the idle,
- encourage the fainthearted,
- help the weak,
- be patient with them all.
- See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
- Rejoice always,
- pray without ceasing,
- give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
- Do not quench the Spirit.
- Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
- Abstain from every form of evil.”
1 Thessalonians 5:14-22 ESV. Wow. There is a lot here, so I recommend reading this list several times over.. But, did you notice what he started out with? A call to “admonish” the idle. The word translated to “idle” here really means more than just not doing anything. It is also means to be lazy and unruly, even calling out those who do not have any order and structure in their lives. Not taking care of their own lives, their families, homes, and even doing their part among the believers. To get structure and order was clearly very important, as Paul mentions this first. And it makes sense, because we all know that we cannot achieve much without order and structure. And Paul is giving this instruction within the church, that those people need to be admonished, or corrected. And then the second instruction is to encourage the fainthearted, the feeble minded, the weak in spirit. Almost two polar opposite behaviors and instructions right off the bat. We see that this list of instructions is very practical, applies to life, not necessarily easy to receive, nor to give.
The truth is that we need both corrections and encouragements to stay on the right path,
We see these instructions also apply to us as individual Christians, to work on our own faith. To choose to in a way “partner with God” in our own sanctification, “and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”Colossians 3:10 ESV. So we have come to end of this amazing letter, and to the focus verse today, the ending paragraph of purpose. Paul writes why all of this is important, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ESV. It is God who calls us, but we have to respond, to allow Him do His work in us. How can God bless us if we reject His instructions to us? So let’s commit to this list for ourselves, but also to help our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with both correction and encouragement.
