When learning something, new it is always great to have examples. I remember trying to learn algebra. My teacher would go over a few equations on the board to help us get the concepts. About the time I thought I was getting it, she would stop and assign class work. I’d open the book and naturally the examples were nothing like what we saw in the book. Her examples seemed so easy compared to what we actually had to do. While this may be true with most things in life, it is not true about the example of the church in Thessalonica. What they went through in order to be Christians was so much more difficult than what we had to do at the beginning of our faith. Yet, Paul praises them for their example.
In Acts chapter seventeen, Luke gives us the account of the beginning of the church in Thessalonica. As was Paul’s practice, he began speaking in the synagogue (Acts 17:1). There were many of the Jews, Greeks and leading women that joined Paul and Silas (Acts 17:4). Jealous of their popularity, the other Jews incited a mob in town and brought one of the members, Jason, before the town authorities (Acts 17:5-9). Paul and Silas had to be let out of the city by basket over the wall (Acts 17:10). With that tumultuous beginning of the church, there are very few among us who can say we experienced something similar at our conversion.
Now, in his letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul praises them. He mentions three things that he brings to God in prayer on their behalf. He specifically sites their work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope (1 Thess. 1:3). This sounds very similar to Paul’s letter to Corinth, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). Even though they were young in the faith, they were still hitting all the high points of what it means to be a Christian. He continues in their praise by saying, “You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:6). In all that they strove to do for their Lord, they were faced with opposition, but they pressed on.
The perseverance they showed became an example to the church in Macedonia and Achaia: “You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you… in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you” (1 Thess. 1:7-9). Here is a congregation that was a great example to us. Despite the opposition, they continued in their faith and service to God. Here we sit with little to no opposition, and what is said our work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope? May we ever strive to be imitators of Christ.