1 Thessalonians 3:5 - Homilies By W.f. Adeney

St. Paul has just referred to the external hindrance to his journeying that Satan was able to throw across his path ( 1 Thessalonians 2:18 ). He now writes of a much more serious Satanic opposition in the temptation of his converts to unfaithfulness. He is anxious lest during his absence the fierce enmity of the Jews, either by some more violent attack on the Church or by the harassing of incessant petty persecution, may at length have broken down the fidelity of the Christians at Thessalonica. And he shows his anxiety by sending to inquire of the state of the Thessalonian Church. The danger in which these Greek Christians lay besets the people of God in all ages, though the form in which it presents itself varies considerably.

I. THE TEMPTER RAISES UP TEMPTATIONS IN ORDER TO FRUSTRATE THE WORK OF THE GOSPEL .

1. The tempter furnishes temptations . A temptation implies two things:

2. These temptations tend to frustrate the work of the gospel . All is undone if the Church proves unfaithful. High knowledge may be acquired, elaborate organization may be perfected, busy work may be accomplished, and yet, if the purity of the spiritual life is invaded, or the faithfulness that should mark the soldier of Christ corrupted, the labor that led to the happiest results is all in vain.

II. THE TEMPTER CAN ONLY FRUSTRATE THE WORK OF THE GOSPEL WHEN THE TEMPTED YIELD TO TEMPTATION .

1. The power of the tempter is limited to temptation . He can persuade; he cannot compel. He may use threats, or he may use cajolery. But he cannot use force. For the violence that is done to the body of the martyr is no violence to his soul, but only a powerful persuasive influence. Satan goes about like a roaring lion. He has a deep throat, but blunt fangs.

2. We are free to resist temptation . Temptation cannot destroy free-will. The tempter simply tries to induce us to choose the evil. If we do not choose it, he is powerless. And the decision lies entirely with ourselves.

3. The grace of God will help us to resist temptation effectually . We are not left alone to battle with the tempter. If Satan is against us, God is for us. Stronger and greater influences for good are provided for counteracting the evil influences. But these are equally outside our liberty of choice—good persuasion as against bad persuasion. It is for us to lend ourselves to the helpful grace of God in Christ if we are to be strong to resist temptation and to prevent the work of the gospel from being frustrated in us.—W.F.A.

1 Thessalonians 3:8 - St. Paul's devotion to his converts.

I. A PICTURE OF CHRISTIAN LOVE . St. Paul is intensely devoted to his converts. Their prosperity is his life, their unfaithfulness his death. Love of the brethren is a conspicuous feature in the early Christian character—more conspicuous than, alas! it is in the modern Church. An apostle felt more than a brotherly love for the Churches he had planted. His affection was that of a father for his children.

1. Christianity promotes care for others . It is directly opposed to a self-seeking exclusiveness as much in spiritual as in worldly affairs. As it bids a man not simply care for the enriching of himself with material wealth, so it equally forbids him to seek only for the saving of his own soul. The Church of Christ is always required to have in view the object which Ignatius Loyola propounded as the great end of the society of the Jesuits when he wrote, "The end of this society is not only, with the grace of God, to devote ourselves to the salvation and perfection of our own souls, but also, with the same Divine grace, to labor most earnestly for the salvation and perfection of our neighbor."

2. Christianity binds Christians together in close bonds of affection . This is its aim, and this is what it does when unhindered by culpable selfishness and coldness. The gospel introduces a new experience into the world. Christian love is quite unlike pagan friendship, being

II. AN INDUCEMENT TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY .

1. The inducement is first direct and personal . St. Paul urges the Thessalonians to be steadfast because he feels his own life to be wrapped up in their fidelity. For his sake, if not for their own, he desires them to resist the temptations that are trying them. No doubt so devoted and affectionate a man as St. Paul would be able to bring great weight of persuasion to bear on his converts by this appeal to their consideration for their spiritual father. A similar influence may be helpful now. If we know one who has labored, prayed, and watched for our soul, surely the desire not to grieve him at the last by proving all his toil to have been in vain should be a motive for profiting by it. The scholar should feel thus towards his teacher, the child towards his Christian mother; above all, every one of us towards Christ, that his work may not be in vain—that, after all he has suffered for us, he should not be made to suffer by us.

2. Further, the inducement is general and inferential . If the steadfastness of the Thessalonians was a matter of such profound concern to St. Paul, it must have been of great importance in itself. Here is a strong reason for not thinking lightly of Christian fidelity. An apostle feels that he lives in the faithfulness of his converts. How supremely necessary must that faithfulness be for them! how supremely necessary must it ever be for the Church!

III. AN EXAMPLE FOR CHRISTIAN WORK . The Church at Thessalonica was faithful. St. Paul was not disappointed in his friends. The secret of this steadfastness may be seen in the spirit of the apostle. He was no perfunctory preacher. Not only was his heart in his work; his heart was with the people to whom he ministered. Their faithfulness and failure were questions of life and death to him. The servant of Christ has here an example of supreme interest. Learning, eloquence, holiness, zeal, all fail without love. The preacher who identifies himself with his people is the most successful in winning them for Christ.—W.F.A.

1 Thessalonians 3:12 - The increase of love.

I. THE INCREASE OF LOVE IS THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS . St. Paul sets it first and by itself as the root and secret of the blameless holiness before God which he regards as the great consummation of perfection. The Church has too often disregarded this primary note of progress, preferring growth in knowledge, enlarged activity, and more extended influence in the world. But it needs to be seen that the one measure of spiritual prosperity is the degree in which love abounds. The reasons for this honoring of Christian love are apparent.

1. Love is the most like God of all human experiences . We are nearest to God when we love one another most.

2. Love is the most fruitful grace . It does most good to the world and inspires the best service of God.

3. Love is the foundation of all other graces . It opens the eyes of knowledge, and kindles the ardor of zeal, and inspires the life of faith, and breathes holiness into the soul.

II. THIS INCREASE OF LOVE MUST BE IN EXTENT AS WELL AS IN INTENSITY . It is not enough that we have a very warm, passionate devotion if this is confined to a narrow circle. One of the most important features of Christian love, in contradistinction to the natural kindness of persons of an affectionate disposition, is its breadth. It is not led by fancy and confined to the arbitrary selection of a merely human love.

1. It begins with Christ . Though St. Paul does not here express this truth, he implies it. For he is writing to a Christian Church, not to a mixed crowd of men of the world. He assumes devotion to Christ, and seeks for the fruits of it. Now, it is part of the glory of Christianity that it reveals man in his most attractive character when it shows Christ to us. Thus the enthusiasm of humanity is possible, because, first seeing man in Christ, we afterwards learn to see Christ in every man.

2. It expands into love for all Christians . The special characteristic of the brotherly love, so much enforced in the New Testament, is that it flows out to Christians as such, irrespective of personal attractiveness or the reverse. Of course we must have our natural affinities and special friendships. Christ had as much. But we must not confine Christian love to such cases. Indeed, the specially Christian character of love is not seen until this love is bestowed upon those who would not have received it had they not been united to us through Christ.

3. It must extend to all men . Christian love is not confined to the Christian community. The disciple of Christ is the true philanthropist. It is not simply that in the spirit of Christian universalism we are to endeavor to draw all men within the fold of Christ; we are also to love them while they remain outside it. We are to love them as men. From this we may infer that religious exclusiveness is a sin, that Christian people should take interest in all things human—in the science, art, business, politics, and social and domestic affairs of the world. The progress of our Christian life may be measured by the cheerful sympathy, breadth, and generosity of our humanity.

III. THE INCREASE OF LOVE IS A FRUIT OF DIVINE GRACE . St. Paul prays that the Lord may make the Thessalonians increase and abound in love.

1. Love is only possible where the hard heart of selfishness has been softened . It is the work of God's Spirit within us to make this change. God also casts out the impurities which deaden genuine love and the aversions which limit it.

2. Love springs up in us by contact with the Divine love . That love must be revealed and " shed abroad in our hearts" in order that our love may be stimulated.

3. Nevertheless human influences help the development of Christian love . The apostle referred to his own example: "Even as we do towards you." Christian love is contagious. The study of the lives of men of large-hearted charity is helpful in the overthrowing of our narrow prejudices and the arousing of a broad, strong spirit of loving-kindness.—W.F.A.

1 Thessalonians 3:13 - Divine culture.

God is carrying on a process of culture with his people, training, educating, and forming them according to his own ideal of humanity. To ignore this process while admitting the merciful kindness of God in other respects is to take a low view both of providence and of Christianity. To recognize it is to do much towards lightening the burdens and the mystery of all this unintelligible life. For pain, temptation, and disappointment can be better borne when we know that the end of God's dealings with us is not our enjoyment of present ease, but our education in character.

I. THE SUBJECT OF DIVINE CULTURE . "Your hearts." The education that secures good habits is a shallow training if it leaves the source and spring of conduct untouched. It may drill; it cannot discipline. Neither is the mere infusion of knowledge, nor even this with the addition of the cultivation of taste and the development of mental energy, the great requisite in God's culture. He aims at renewing and purifying the heart. He is not satisfied with decorous conduct as a mask for a corrupt heart. But, having secured purity of heart, he knows that right conduct will follow. Moreover, if the external act may appear to men questionable, God, reading the heart, accounts his people blameless when the motive is good.

II. THE CHARACTER MOULDED UNDER DIVINE CULTURE . " Unblamable in holiness."

1. It is holiness . God does not satisfy himself with the forgiveness of the past; we should not be satisfied with that. He aims at the real and positive holiness of his people. Holiness is more than dutifulness, more than virtue. It includes these human types of goodness, but it goes beyond them. It goes down to thought, affection, and conduct, seeking clean hands and a pure heart. It rises to the character of God himself. Holiness is godlike goodness, as virtue is human goodness.

2. This holiness is to be unblamable . It is to be perfect. It is to stand the test of a searching scrutiny. Yet it is not a barren negative purity. For we may be blamed for sins of omission as much as for sins of transgression. It is the unprofitable servant who is cast into the outer darkness. To be unblamable we must faithfully discharge our trust.

III. THE STANDARD AIMED AT IN DIVINE CULTURE . The holiness is to be unblamable before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

1. God is satisfied with no less holiness than such as is pure in Ms own sight . Our standard is low because our conscience is corrupt. The height of God's aim is only to be measured by the loftiness of his own character, Nevertheless, be it remembered God will expect no more of us than is humanly possible. The gardener aims at producing a perfect flower up to his own ideal, but still only up to his own ideal of what a flower should be; he does not seek in it the properties of animal or man.

2. The test is to be applied at the coming of Christ with his saints . They come to judge the world.

IV. THE STABILITY SECURED BY DIVINE CULTURE . " Stablish your hearts." High culture often produces a result which is brief in proportion to its excellence. The forced hot-house flower soon fades. Knowledge acquired simply to meet an examination is quickly forgotten. This is not education. God aims at more than the momentary elevation of rare seasons of grace. He will have a firm and lasting character—a spiritual life which is also an eternal life.

V. THE MEANS EMPLOYED FOR DIVINE CULTURE . 1 Thessalonians 3:12 describes this. It is an increasing and abounding love. Holiness springs from love. They greatly err who seek it in the lonely and chill altitudes of an inhuman saintliness. By mutual Christian love, and by a broad, practical love of mankind, we are trained in the purity which may be at last quite blameless, even in the sight of God.—W.F.A.