Introduction
We
all know people who will say and do whatever they have to in order to be liked
and accepted. We also know people who will say or do anything in order to avoid
a conflict. If you’re in school, you’ve had classmates do this to you when they
act like your best friend and biggest supporter one day and then the next day
they are running you down behind your back. You deal with this at work when
your coworker thinks the boss is treating you unfairly and then you find that
same coworker conspiring with the boss in a way that makes your job even
harder. A wife endures this at home with a husband who is an abusive drunk yet
she refuse to hold him accountable for his behavior because she doesn’t want to
upset him and tells family, friends, and neighbors what a wonderful husband he
is. You know what these people are called? People
Pleasers. It can be painful when we fall victim to People Pleasers in our personal and professional lives. But it can
kill our souls when we ourselves become People
Pleasers.
Unfortunately, our
churches too often give in to the temptation of becoming People Pleasers as well. For example, many have given in to the
militant homosexual movement that insists same sex marriages shouldn’t be
treated any differently than a traditional marriage between and man and woman.
Where at one time all orthodox Christian churches denounced homosexuality in
general to say nothing of homosexual marriages, many of those same orthodox
Christian churches now embrace homosexuality in the fullest sense because they
don’t want to be seen as rigidly exclusive and certainly don’t want to be
labeled as judgmental. Being obedient to God; pleasing God, has given way to
being People Pleasers instead.
In another example,
The Presbyterian Church USA (“PCUSA”) recently decided to ally itself with the
Palestinians in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by withdrawing all of it’s
investments in businesses supporting Israeli. The governing body of the PCUSA
listened to the voices of Palestinian apologists whose government is now
unified with the terrorist organization Hamas and turned a deaf ear to Israel’s
desire to survive as a free and sovereign nation. There has been a concerted
effort underway in many liberal universities, in America anyway, to isolate
Israel politically, financially, and militarily in support of the Hamas backed
Palestinians (that would be the same Hamas that has vowed to wipe Israel from
the face of the earth). Pro-Palestinian voices in America have been shrill with
arguments bordering on anti-semitism. And now the PCUSA, a Christian church no
less, has joined those voices, through their actions, in contradiction to the
Bible that clear states that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those
who curse her will be cursed (Gen 12:3). The PCUSA would argue that they are
not cursing Israel but instead don’t want to be seen as supporting either side
in a conflict where anyone, including Palestinians, might get hurt—they are not
God pleasers, they are People Pleasers.
I’ll be the first
to admit that it is hard to do what is right and true all the time. Growing up
in a home with an abusive alcoholic father, love isn’t “true” under the sting
of a belt or the blunt force of a fist. What is “right” becomes whatever it
takes to be loved and accepted. It took a long time for me to figure out that
what is right and true was given to us by God through His Word and pleasing Him
should be our primary objective. The problem is that in our fallen state, we
often and easily fall back into the need to please those around us regardless
of whether it is right or true. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with
pleasing others as we serve them provided we have only their best interest at
heart. However, we cross the line of trouble when we seek to please others
because of what might be in it for us. Unfortunately, pastors are not immune
from crossing that line. In traditional church settings, especially here in
America, pastors can become obsessed with budgets and growth. Consequently, it
can be tempting to avoid controversial topics and especially topics that might
be in opposition to the surrounding secular culture. As a result, the clear
line of what is right and what is true according to the Bible becomes blurred
as protecting the ongoing financial and operational viability of the
institutional church becomes the overriding focus. Perhaps this is why God has
called me to pastor a ministry that is untraditional in the sense that I know
very few of the hundreds who are being taught every week and a ministry that
accepts no financial contributions. I suspect God knew just how susceptible I
might be to the narcotic of applause from people and the false security and
prestige of money. No doubt God knew that through the various circumstances of
my life I have a very real tendency to become just like all the other People Pleasers. The goal for this
ministry and for the rest of my life is to focus on pleasing God not people.
This was Paul’s objective as well and it was the reason he was able to stay
focused on the message of the Gospel in spite of the opposition he constantly
endured. Paul didn’t get tangled up in the need to please people or the need to
protect the financial viability of his ministry and he was very clear about
that as he interacted with the churches he planted.
Subject Text
1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
1You
know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2We had previously suffered and been
insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God
we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. 3For
the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor
are we trying to trick you. 4On the contrary, we speak
as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are
not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. 5You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a
mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. 6We
were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone
else. As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for
her little children. 8We loved you so much that we
were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but
our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9Surely
you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night
and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached
the gospel of God to you. 10You are witnesses, and so
is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we
were among you who believed. 11For you know that we dealt with each
of you as a father deals with his own children, 12encouraging,
comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
Context
Paul’s
letter to the Thessalonians is one of his earliest letters. Paul established
the church in Thessalonica during his second missionary journey to the region.
Our Subject Text is too early in
Paul’s letter to try and understand the circumstances by looking at the text
that precedes it. Instead, we must look at the text that follows our Subject Text and we can even look at
Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians that was written just a few months
after this first letter. We can infer from Paul’s letters that the church in
Thessalonica was wrestling with the hard truths of the Gospel as they give
instruction for holy living. There also seemed to be some confusion surrounding
Jesus’ second coming. The believers in Thessalonica were enduring persecution
and were confused when their fellow believers died because they thought Jesus
would first return. Instead, Paul corrects their understanding about Jesus’
return and how they should live in the interim in order to please God. However,
there were clearly some who didn’t like what Paul was preaching so they
attempted to plant the seed in the minds of the believers there that Paul’s
motives were impure and self-centered. Well Paul wasn’t about let his true
motives be impugned or allow the truth of the gospel message to be corrupted by
lies.
Text Analysis
When
Paul refers to his “visit” to the Thessalonians in v. 1, he is talking about
his first visit there with Silas that you can read about in Acts 17:1-9. Then too,
Paul faced opposition particularly from the Jews who simply could not accept
the message of a suffering Messiah who died on the cross and rose from the
dead. Paul and Silas were labeled as troublemakers so some of the Jews
assembled their best henchmen to arrest Paul and Silas and spread the word that
the two were defying Caesar’s decree by proclaiming the Jesus was the true
King. Nevertheless, a number of Jews joined Paul and many “God-fearing” Greeks
and prominent women became believers. Paul’s credibility was greatly enhanced
during his previous visit to Thessalonica according to v. 2 because the people
there knew that Paul had just come from Philippi where he was imprisoned for
preaching the Gospel. It spoke volumes to the Thessalonians that Paul would
once again risk his freedom, to say nothing of the risks to his personal safety
from those who openly opposed him, to preach the Gospel to the Thessalonians
after having just been released from prison in Philippi. For Paul, preaching
the Gospel of the salvation offered by Jesus Christ was worth any risks Paul
would have to face—verbal abuse, physical abuse, imprisonment, pain, suffering,
and even death. “‘The gospel does not merely bear witness to salvation history;
it is itself salvation history.’…Wherever it is proclaimed, this gospel is
charged with power. It creates faith, brings salvation, life and also judgment.
It reveals God’s righteousness, brings the fulfillment of hope, intervenes in
the lives of men, and creates churches…The gospel is no invention of man, but
rather God or Christ himself speaking through his messengers.”[1]
Paul wants
to make clear in v. 3 that all he said and did were a product of pure motives.
Paul had it made before he was called by Christ to take the Gospel message to
the Gentiles. Here’s how Paul describes himself and his credentials prior to
becoming a follower of Christ:
“If anyone else thinks he has
reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on
the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting
the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless (Phil 3:4b-6).”
Before Paul encountered Christ on
the road to Damascus, Paul’s life must have seemed perfect. Paul had the fame
and fortune most people during his time could only dream about. There was
absolutely nothing in it for Paul to proclaim the salvation message of Christ
wherever he travelled. Paul was regularly abused and imprisoned for preaching
the Gospel. This is where people so often stumble. If Paul and those like him
weren’t interested in public approval for their efforts, what could have
motivated them to keep preaching the Gospel? The very real possibility of
persecution and even death hardly seems like good motivation to keep doing the
same thing from town to town. What motivated Paul and the countless many
faithful who came after him is the same thing that motivated Christ—to do God’s
will; to please God. Paul didn’t care if the people wanted to hear what he had
to say, he was simply compelled to tell them the truth and that’s all it took
to turn people against him. “Gaining the approval of others will distract
believers from pleasing God. As they do God’s will, they must resist the desire
to please people. The clarifying question of the believer should always be,
‘Who am I really serving?’ If the answer is ‘people,’ then the believer will be
tossed back and forth by conflicting demands and expectations. But if the
answer is consistently ‘Christ,’ the believer will only have one person to
please and not have to worry about how much or how little he or she is pleasing
others.”[2]
Paul
reminded the Thessalonians in vv. 5-8 that he didn’t sweet-talk them with the
Gospel. He simply told them the truth of God’s Word and then demonstrated that
truth through his actions of love toward them. Paul gave them nothing to
convince them and asked for nothing in return. The truth of Paul’s words
supported by his actions revolutionized their lives. Almost 1,900 years later,
author George Orwell wrote: “Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is
a revolutionary act.” Orwell’s words seem almost Pauline in nature. “Flattery” from
v. 5 is defined as excessive and insincere praise usually for a self-serving purpose.
In the context of these particular verses, Paul is saying that he didn’t go out
of his way to tell the people what they wanted to hear in order to make them
feel good about themselves and their sinful lifestyles. He told them the truth
and that truth confronted their sin and dealt with their sin. Like a good doctor,
Paul didn’t sugar-coat their illness—they were sick and Jesus was the cure.
Nothing demonstrated Paul’s love for them more than telling them the truth
about themselves. Paul wasn’t hiding who he was or what he wanted; he wasn’t
pretending to be something or someone he wasn’t. Paul desperately wanted to
share with them what they needed and he asked for nothing in return. When Paul
speaks of not being a burden to them, he could be speaking about a financial
burden and that interpretation wouldn’t be completely unreasonable since the
matter of financial burden is addressed later in the text. Here, however, it
may be more appropriate to understand Paul’s reference to burden as an
authoritative burden. During Paul’s time, recognized religious leaders had a
greater or lesser degree of authority over the people who followed them. That
could be why Paul uses parental imagery to describe the way he related to the
Thessalonians. Paul uses the image of a caring mother to illustrate the depth
and sincerity of his care for them. It is a beautiful image because even though
a mother has authority over her child, she doesn’t burden her child with that
authority for authority’s sake. Instead, she wants only the best for her child
even though there is nothing specifically in it for her. In fact, what mother
wouldn’t trade her own life for the life of her child? Paul gave them
everything they needed to live lives that were holy and pleasing to God and he
was happily willing to risk his own life in the process. “The language Paul
uses to speak of their love for the congregation is not found elsewhere in the
NT, and is even rare in the literature of the era…The messengers’ affectionate
disposition toward the Thessalonians was an earnest longing for them, as a
parent would long for an absent child. Because of this attitude toward the
Thessalonians, Paul states that they decided to commit to them not only the
gospel but themselves…They decided to share what they had with them, which was,
in the first instance, the gospel of God
himself. But unlike those orators who would swing into town to declaim and gain
praise for themselves, these messengers gave both the message and themselves to
their hearers…Paul and his coworkers had decided to give to the Thessalonians
everything they were, and the Thessalonians responded to them in the same way.”[3]
There
is no greater witness to the purity and sincerity of Paul’s motive than what he
says in v. 9. Money, sex, and power had the same allure in Paul’s day as it has
in our own. In this particular case, Paul is talking about money. This is the
other “burden” that Paul spared them from. Paul reminds them that while he and
those with him lived among them, they worked to provide for themselves. It was
not unreasonable for teachers and religious leaders to receive some form of
compensation for their teaching and preaching efforts. However, in all times
throughout history, money has had the dubious distinction of casting a cloud of
suspicion over the message of even the most sincere messenger. Paul understood
this as I understand it. The salvation message of Jesus Christ is far too
valuable to allow it to be obscured in any way by a cloud of suspicion that may
grow in an atmosphere where the messenger is compensated for the message. This
is not to say that the messenger doesn’t deserve compensation and as I’ve
taught previously, ministry professionals deserve to be paid. However, no
amount of compensation is worth it if the sincerity and motives of the
messenger can be questioned because of that compensation. “Since [Paul’s]
primary obligation as an apostle is the preaching of the gospel, he cannot
boast about his preaching or the apostolic authority the gospel confers upon
him. But he is under no obligation to receive financial support for his
preaching. In fact, by refusing financial support he is able to proclaim the
gospel even more effectively. This is the reward he seeks. When he preaches the
gospel ‘free of charge’ he is a living example of the message he preaches—that
God’s grace is freely offered to all in Christ…When the truth of the gospel is
at stake, Paul is able to boast that he serves only the gospel, not his own
financial interest.”[4]
You’ve
heard it said that actions speak louder than words. It doesn’t necessarily mean
that the words shouldn’t be spoken, it means the words are only meaningful to
the extent they are reflected in appropriate actions. In. v. 10 Paul reminds
them that he lived with integrity among and he expected them to live with
integrity in a manner that he goes on to detail in chapter 4 of his letter. “Integrity
is not something that happens by accident. It involves the hard work of
discerning what is right and of learning right from wrong, and then living out—consistently—what
has been discerned. It is, to phrase it differently, not just a matter of
ethical insight or instruction, but of discipline as well…In seeking to live
with integrity, we confront ‘the challenge of the disciplined life.’ And that
my be why, apart from a personal unwillingness to pay the costs sometimes
associated with integrity, so many of us find integrity a hard thing to
achieve: We lack the discipline to do what we say. We find it much easier to
talk a good game than to walk one. The difficulty of living with integrity may
explain why we as a society tend to downplay its importance…[some] assert that
in contemporary culture…‘it is less important for something to be true than for
it to seem to be true.’ Such an approach may work in the short run, but over
the long haul it is an approach destined for failure. In real life it is
difficult (as Paul well knew) to separate the message from the messenger. If we
do not trust the messenger, we are unlikely to believe the message. Paul’s
example reminds us of the fundamental importance of integrity on the part of
all of us who have been entrusted by God with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”[5]
Paul
returns to his parental imagery in vv. 11-12 when reminds the people that he
and his companions dealt with them like a father deals with his own children.
This imagery is particularly close to my heart as a father of two daughters. I
have committed my life to encouraging them when they feel like giving up,
comforting them when they’ve been wounded, and urging them to live their lives
according to God’s calling for them. My greatest joy has always been to help
them aim their lives toward the glory of God’s kingdom. There’s nothing in it
for me. It is my duty as their father because it pleases their heavenly Father.
This was Paul’s attitude as well toward the Thessalonian believers. He loved
them and cared for them for their benefit alone and because it pleased God for
him to do so. “A Christian leader following Paul’s example will show
gentleness, a commitment to nurturing the community of faith, a giving of
himself or herself for the building up of others in the church. The images of
[mother] and father are important here, for the authority of the leader must
always be enacted with the selfless love of the nurturing parent. As Paul
recalls with highly personal language the emotional bonds and nurturing
relationships that he formed with the believers, he reminds us of the love for
each individual in our charge that must permeate and energize our ministry.”[6]
Application
I watched a film recently about a
scientist who was developing a serum that could help repair the wounds suffered
by soldiers in war—traumatic injuries healed including the regrowth of missing
limbs. However, research requires significant financial resources that this
scientist didn’t possess. Consequently, she joined forces with an organization
that was willing to fund the continued research and development of the serum.
Unfortunately the founder of that organization had less noble intentions for
the serum. He wanted to use it to create an army of super-soldiers. At a
certain level the scientist knew what the founder was doing but she turned a
blind eye to it because she needed the money for her research and loved all the
attention her science garnered. At one point she realized that she compromised
her scientific ideal because the money and the fame became more important.
Here’s what she said: “See we all begin wide-eyed, pure science. And then the
ego steps in, the obsession. And you look up, you’re a long way from shore.” This
is exactly what it’s like for pastors and other ministry workers and some
Christians as well. It starts out being all about Jesus; it’s rarely about the
money or the applause. But then something happens along the way—people start to
come; then pretty soon more people come; then comes the applause—oh how
intoxicating the applause can be; and then finally comes the money—one of
Satan’s most powerful drugs—and then suddenly you’re a long way from shore and
what began as wide-eyed, pure commitment to following Jesus and preaching the
gospel becomes a daily exercise of keeping the people happy so they keep
coming; keep bringing their friends; keep applauding, and most importantly keep
putting their money in the offering basket. In the end, these pastors
relinquish their privilege of being something special—purveyors of the hard
truths that can transform lives; revolutionaries demonstrating and demanding
lives of holiness and righteousness; ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Pastors specifically and Christians more generally can so easily forget that
their primary purpose is to please God and instead become everyday People Pleasers.
[1] Colin
Brown, gen. ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), p. 111.
[2] Bruce
Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 898.
[3] Gene L.
Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians—The
Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 128-129.
[4] Gerald
F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 296.
[5] Michael
W. Holmes, 1 & 2 Thessalonians—The
NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), pp. 76-77.
[6] David A.
deSilva, An Introduction to the New
Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 551.
No comments:
Post a Comment