by Darrel Cline (darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)
Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 2 Study # 8 April 3, 2024 Broadlands, Louisiana (Download Audio)
I. The Overall Paragraph In Terms Of Its Focus.
A. Paul's prayers because of the response the Thessalonians gave to the message of the Gospel.
1. Began with "thanksgiving" expressed to God.
2. Moved from this gratitude to incessant, intercessory, prayer.
3. Focused upon the obvious changes that occurred when the Thessalonians heard and believed the Gospel.
a. Begins with what Paul called "the 'of you' work of The Faith".
b. Moves to what Paul called "the 'of you' labor of The Love".
c. Proceeds to what Paul called "the patience of the hope".
4. Rooted in "knowledge".
a. Of 16 references to "knowledge" in this letter, 12 of them are "you know" statements, but this first reference to "knowing" refers to something Paul "knows".
1) The kind of "knowing" to which Paul refers is "a large grasp" (covering significant territory) of the details of the thing(s) said to be "known".
a) It is also a "knowing" that has its roots in "logical thinking", not "experience".
b) Paul is claiming to have a generally large knowledge of something(s) that is rooted, not in "intimate knowledge" but in "rational deductions".
2) This puts us at the point of having to ask two questions.
a) What is he claiming "to know"?
b) Why is he telling his readers that he has this "knowledge"?
b. The "thing" of which he is "relatively confident" is called "your election".
1) The word so translated is only used in seven texts of the New Testament.
a) In Acts 9:15 we are told that "the Lord" told Ananias (a disciple who lived in Damascus) to go to the street that is called "Straight" and to the house of "Judas" and to ask for "Saul of Tarsus".
(1) To this instruction from the Lord, Ananias objected because he was afraid of "Saul of Tarsus" because of his rabid persecution of those who professed faith in "the Lord -- Jesus".
(2) The Lord's response was to tell Ananias to do as he was told because "Saul of Tarsus" was "a chosen vessel unto Me" who was to "bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."
(a) This "choice" was of a man who was to "suffer for My name's sake" a great number of serious difficulties."
(b) This "choice" was of the man writing this letter to the church in Thessalonica, who had, according to 2:2, already "suffered" and been "shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi."
(3) The "point" of this text in Acts 9 is that God deliberately and decisively confronted Saul of Tarsus and totally disrupted his thinking, his commitments, and his entire life as it was to develop: this is what it meant for Saul of Tarsus to be "a chosen vessel unto Me".
a) The "choice" was initially God's and it was made because God intended for the Gentiles, kings, the people of Israel to hear the Gospel of Jesus from the lips of a man who was, of all men, totally disqualified to be in possession of such a "faith-treasure" so that he wrote the majority of the letters of the New Testament and became the "go-to guy" for the Truth about Jesus of Nazareth (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
b) That Paul also made a "choice", after the fact of God's choice, to "believe" God regarding His plan, is clear, but is only of secondary significance in our text in 1 Thessalonians. (What were his 'options', having experienced the powerful confrontation on the road and his subsequent blindness?)
2. We will come back to the other six uses of "election" as we continue to attempt to understand Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.