“If God himself sets the example for our behavior, it is also God’s mercy towards us that motivates and empowers our reciprocation. In the cross of Christ, God carried out the greatest act of mercy towards the undeserving, and at the same time executed severe and uncompromising justice upon the sins of humanity. Now you might ask: How can I reciprocate the mercy of God? Which is a good question, since Christ will never be in need of your kindness, gentleness, patience, and especially not your mercy. But Jesus regularly directly linked the treatment of his body, the church, with the way that we are treating him : ‘...as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:40)

The way we treat the image bearers of Christ — no matter how poorly they reflect that image at times — is literally how we are treating the one who gave his life for us.”

“…Paul lays the responsibility for the whole community on the community itself. Each member, and not the leaders alone, must be aware of his or her responsibility for others and seek to help them. At no stage can the ordinary member lean back and say or think, ‘This is the task of the leaders alone.’ Paul knows nothing of an inert mass, the congregation, on which the ministry operates…In short, Paul is trying to develop in the entire congregation a sense of pastoral responsibility…”

“The peace that the apostle has in mind is not merely the absence of conflict… but the presence of positive, healthy relationships. These do not come as a result of superficial harmony, where we are nice to each other and coexist without open conflict, but genuine peace is the result of following the guidelines of Matthew 18:15 and going to those who sin or offend us in loving confrontation. We Canadians so highly value the kinds “niceness” and “politeness” that take us far afield from genuine kindness and peace which are fruits of the Spirit …People who do not “care enough to confront” are no more loving than leaders who will not admonish.”

“Believers are adopted into the family of God by grace alone, through the finished work and sacrifice of Christ, but their existence as children of the light, children of the day, has moral implications, The Thessalonian Christians did not need to be reminded of the facts, but they are being reminded here of the implications these facts held for their actions. They are already day people, but they are being reminded to live as such!”

“The goal of this whole passage is quite simple and clear, although it has unfortunately also been the source of a great deal of end times speculation that is quite unrelated to Paul’s own interests. Paul’s expressed goal is ‘that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope,’ or to state it positively, that our hope would be so grounded in the resurrection of Jesus, that our whole understanding of death, the future and the fate of all believers would be profoundly different from the world that does not have Christ.”

“It should be clear, both from the commands and example of Christ and his apostles, that living quietly and minding our own business does not mean that the church is to tone down its proclamation of the gospel. On the contrary, Paul consistently encouraged boldness in this regard. The church was not to live so quietly that they failed to function as witnesses of Christ both in word and deed. It is, rather, (as we often say here) that the only offense should be the gospel. Christians were not to become social revolutionaries. In fact, the apostles denied such charges several times when they were leveled against them. It was not Paul’s intent that the church disrupt society or overthrow governments. Rather, he encouraged Christians to be good citizens and exemplary members of their families and of their society but to do so in a manner consistent with the teachings of Christ. Only in this sense was the Gospel intended to change society. It set out to change the individuals who made up society while awaiting that climactic event when the power of God would truly change the world forever…”

“It is God’s work among us that creates sanctification, that makes us obey. But at the same time, moral effort is in no way antithetical to faith. It is, rather, the outworking and expression of true faith. In response to God’s gift and initiative, believers have a responsibility to let the power of Grace come to expression in our lives. Full dependence on God is wholly compatible with human exertions. The Christian is not passive, but fully cooperates with God for achieving his divine purpose…this is how God has willed that it will take place: your sanctification will take place as you strive.”

“Today, there is a tendency to fall into one of two ditches when it comes to understanding the work of Satan: either we fail to recognize at all that we have an adversary who is constantly seeking to destroy us, or we give him far too much credit and assume he has far more power than is attributed to him in the Bible—as directly responsible for everything that goes wrong in our lives…The truth lies somewhere between these poles. Paul seldom attributes human fallenness to the work of Satan, while on the other hand, he is quite ready to see Satan at work in the kind of persecution that would thwart the furtherance of the gospel. The plain reality, which Paul knew well, was that the Thessalonian believers were being constantly harassed by their ‘fellow citizens’ (2:14). But from another perspective this harassment was being directed by Satan himself. Paul simply assumed that such ‘trials’ or affliction for the sake of Jesus and the gospel would be part of the common experience of Christians.”

“There are many ways to avoid persecution and suffering for the gospel. We can avoid confrontation and church discipline, compromise with those who call themselves Christians but are not. We can avoid teaching unpopular doctrines of Scripture, such as this one on suffering, so as to keep people comfortable. We can compromise our purity from the world, so we don’t stick out like a sore thumb and gain the ire of those around us. We can assimilate, refuse to confront sin in the church, and refuse to draw attention to ourselves. And we can avoid sharing the gospel with the condemned and dying world around us. We can become like the enemies of Christ and his people who were unwilling to suffer for the sake of others. Like the opponents Paul condemns here, we end up being the enemies of mankind; those who possess the saving message but fail to share it, which would become evidence of our own condemnation. But this, church, is not what God has in store for genuine disciples.”