1 Thessalonians 2

For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you.
1 Thessalonians 2:3 (NIV)

Some time ago I was invited into a meeting with the executive leader of an organization which I served. What quickly became clear in the meeting was that my motives had been called into question by certain individuals. My colleague simply desired to clarify my desires and wants as it related to my service and position within the organization. I quickly answered the questions posed to me and clearly stated my motives for serving and leading. The meeting quickly ended.

In yesterday’s post I discussed my need to continually and personally define my own motivations for the things I do and say. Along my life journey I’ve found this to be a critical step in understanding myself and making healthy decisions about my time, task list, resources, and relationships. But there’s a corollary importance to understanding my motivations, and that’s the reality that others are watching my actions, listening to my words, observing my relationships, and weighing my decisions. Others will question and make their own conclusions about my motives.

Paul spent the introduction of his letter to the believers in Thessalonica complimenting the pure motives of their accomplishments, toil, and perseverance in the faith. In today’s chapter Paul shifts focus to shine the spotlight on his own motivations in relationship to the believers with whom he’d had little time to spend.

One of the constant threats to the small communities of early believers was outside voices who could distract and even destroy their faith. There were angry Jewish zealots branding Paul as a crazy heretic, and demanding that followers of Jesus must obey all Jewish customs. There were traveling charlatans claiming to be preachers of the faith, but who quickly demanded that the local believers pay them for their service and provide for all their personal needs. Then there were local tradesman and trade unions whose livelihoods were centered in casting likenesses of all the pagan idols and deities. They saw Paul and his anti-pagan message as a threat to their pocketbooks and attempted to protect their livelihoods by accusing Paul and his companions of being a threat to Rome itself.

I thought that today’s chapter read like a resume as Paul attempts to make his personal motivations perfectly clear to his friends. He’s preemptively providing the believers with reminders they will need as others will most certainly try to cast doubts into their minds regarding Paul and his motives:

We proclaimed the Message despite persecutions and threats to our own lives. (vs. 2)
We weren’t trying to trick you, our motives were pure. (vs. 3)
We weren’t flattering you like salesmen or covering up some secret motivation of greed to get money or resources from you. (vs. 5). In fact, I used my tent making skills to provide for myself so that you wouldn’t have to provide for me. (vs. 9)
We treated you like a loving father (vs. 11) caring for you, and as a nursing mother cares for her baby. (vs. 7)
We didn’t abandon you and move on for any other reason than we were forced to do so. We desperately want to come back and see you but have been prevented from doing so. (vss. 17-18)

This morning I’m reminded that I can’t control what other people think or say. I do, however, control what I do and say. Sometimes it’s important to be mindful of how my motives might be misinterpreted. It’s wise, at times, to anticipate how misconceptions regarding my own motives might thwart the good I am trying to do. Paul’s example has me thinking about the fact that it is sometimes judicious to make motives clear and head off the misconceptions that experience teaches me may arise.

Have a great day and a wonderful weekend, my friend. The first snowflakes of winter fell on us yesterday. Stay warm.

Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.
1 Thessalonians 2:8 (NIV)

Before Jesus ascended into heaven He told His followers: “You will be my witnesses.” (Acts 1:8) Growing up in the church, I heard a lot about being a “witness” and what being a “witness” means. Along this life journey my understanding of being a witness has evolved greatly.

Looking back, the concept of witnessing taught by my church when I was younger was largely a modified sales strategy. I would learn a standard sales pitch from a workshop or class in church. There were a handful of standard ones that usually involved a series of Bible verses marked in a small Bible or a little booklet you could use as a visual aid when telling people about being a follower of Jesus. I was then encouraged to go out in public, knock on doors, and speak to anyone and everyone in an effort to pitch them on receiving Jesus as Lord.

I’m not knocking the process completely. I admit that learning how to simply explain the message of Jesus was a good thing for me. I knew people who were incredibly successful at engaging complete strangers and pitching them on Jesus. I know many people who became followers of Jesus because some stranger took the time to share the message in this way. I, however, confess to being a complete failure as it relates to “witnessing” by the sales pitch strangers technique, and I carried this sense of failure with me for many years.

As I’ve progressed in my journey I’ve come to understand that being a “witness” carries as many different facets as there are personality types and spiritual gifts. I’m reminded this morning of the description Calvin Miller wrote of a faith healer in his tongue-in-cheek parody epistle, The Philippian Fragment:

Sister Helen opened a great crusade in Philippi on Thursday, and is the sensation of the leper colony. She rarely does anything one could call a miracle. Last week she laid hands on a little crippled boy and was not able to heal him, but she gave him a new pair of crutches and promised to take him for a walk in the park here in Philippi.

Yesterday with my own eyes I saw her pass an amputee selling styluses. She touched his legs and cried, “Grow back! Grow back! . . . In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, grow back!” Well, Clement, I so wanted to see the legs grow back, but they did not. Poor Helen. What’s a faith healer to do with an amputee that refuses to grow legs on command?

She sat down with the little man, crossed her legs on the cold pavement, and began selling styluses herself. Soon she was talking to him, and before very long they were both laughing together. For an hour they laughed together, and by nightfall they were having an uproariously good time. When it was time to go, Helen’s legs were so stiff from disuse, they refused to move. Her legless, stylus-selling friend cried in jest, “Grow strong!. . . Grow strong! . . . Grow strong!”

Helen only smiled and staggered upward on her unsteady legs. She looked down at her lowly friend and said, “I offer you healing, you will see. It is only one world away. Someday . . . ,” she stopped and smiled, “you will enter a new life and you will hear our Savior say to your legless stumps, ‘Grow long! . . . Grow long!‘ Then you will know that glory which Sister Helen only dreamed for you.”

Miller, Calvin. The Philippian Fragment (Kindle Locations 147-159). NOVO Ink. Kindle Edition.

I am to witnessing as Sister Helen is to healing.

I love what Paul said to the believers in Thessalonica in today’s chapter. Paul and his buddy Silas didn’t enter the Greek seaport to be strangers with a sales pitch. They “shared their lives as well.” They built relationship and they worked and lived among the people. They became like family. Paul even uses family as a metaphor for their relationships with the Thessalonians.

I’ve come to understand that “sharing life,” as Paul described it, is the style of “witness” I’m better suited for. Let’s walk together, live together, laugh together, and work together. God is love, so let me try and bear witness of that love in my imperfect human efforts to love you through laughter and tragedies, harmony and discord, successes and failures, daily tasks and long conversations over dinner.