THOUGHTS

Now that I am slowly feeling better, 

I am going to attempt to continue to do my devotional blog on Thessalonians. 

July 3, 2020

So here is a reprint from the beginning back in July...

After Paul was confronted by a rioting mob and dragged before the leaders who accused him of treason against the Roman emperor, he escapes.  It always makes me wonder if all this violence in the name of Judaism brought echoes of his own past.  When Paul was called Saul, he was a zealot.  Before he was converted, Paul went around dragging Christ followers, men and women, out of their homes to be persecuted for their faith, some to their death.  He held the coats of those who stoned the disciple called Stephen. 

Now Paul is on the flip side.  He was assaulted and dragged away for preaching the gospel. After he fled, he at first sent young Timothy, then Timothy and Silas back to Thessalonica to take the pulse of the new church he began there.  He was pleased at their steadfastness.  Yet, he desired through his letters to instruct them to further their walk with God.  So he begins.

"Paul, Silvanus (Silas), and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 

Grace to you and peace from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Paul was feeling fatherly towards this baby church. Notice he did not write it to a synagogue.  It was no longer a Jewish thing.  Calling Christ followers a church was perhaps on the radical side.  But it was a reminder of who the church really belonged to, God the Father, Abba.   To a Jew, this lineage of belonging to God as the Father of the Hebrew children was important as sons of Abraham.  But Paul has radicalized it by including the converted Greek Macedonians as well as converted heathens.  Then in the next breath, he includes the Lord Jesus Christ.  The notes in my Bible says it emphasized that, "The deity of Christ is equal to the deity of the Father."

Paul, from his own violent past, knew he needed the next words for himself as well as for the Thessalonians: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."  Since he immediately repeats God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we can say it is of great importance, vital to his message.  This is the frame in which the rest of the letter is hung.

I don't know about you, but I need a little grace and a little peace.  As I think of tomorrow, the Fourth of July, I am awestruck at the great sacrifice that was made to make this great nation.  Almost all the signers of the Constitution suffered.  Some died, their families attacked and most had their property seized and destroyed.  Peace comes at great price.  Just ask Jesus.

I think of five of my great-great-great-great grandfathers and kin who fought in the battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Kings Mountain.   These were over-mountain rough pioneers, men with long guns who came over the mountain on foot through freezing rain and snow  because their lives and families and properties had been threatened by the puffed up British Major Patrick Ferguson. He  had boasted he would march over the mountains and burn their homes and hang the men in front of their wives and children in southern Virginia and Tennessee.

What most of us haven't been taught was that there were few British soldiers besides their leader on that mountain.  It was a battle of Patriots against Loyalists militias. In other words,  it was Americans vs Americans with a few British soldiers thrown in.  The Patriots surrounding the mountain where the enemy had chosen for a holdout.  It was a surprise attack.  The fighting did not last long, hardly an hour.  The Patriot army was 900 strong against the Loyalist who had 1,105.  The Patriots had 28 killed, with 62 wounded while the Loyalists had 290 killed, 163 wounded and 668 captured.  

These Loyalists, who were also called Tories, were fellow Americans who remained loyal to the British king.  In other words, the Patriots fought against their own countrymen.  The Tories were known for going through neighborhoods burning, looting and hanging Patriots who would not join them.  We were a divided country fighting for freedom from the tyranny of England.   Some called this battle, "the war's largest all-American fight."  It was a pivotal victory since the British recognized they weren't winning in the north and had set their sights on the south.  This battle showed them they would not succeed here as well.   This Patriot rag-tag army whopped the strongest army in the world.

By the way, some of the over-mountain men named their guns, like Sweet Lips and True Love.  George Washington was so impressed he named a couple of his dogs after these Patriots long guns. 

It sadly seems that today some liberals are pitted against conservative Christians, Americans against Americans.  Somehow Paul was not intimidated in keeping his beliefs quiet.  He was bold.  Yet he told fellow believers, "grace to you and peace."  I'd say this kind of peace is not the world's kind of peace:  Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." (John 14:27)