4/17/2024 Banding Together Essay on Loyalty & Risk

Loyalty is powerfully erosive unless you make high risk transformative choices

1 Thessalonians 2:11–12 (NET): As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his own children, 2:12 exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.

Loyalty is powerfully erosive unless you make high risk transformative choices.

“…insisting that you live in a way worthy of God….” “Insisting.” The Greek word is martyromai, which shares the Greek word root that we get martyr from.

What a huge, huge expectation Paul placed on the Thessalonian believers. To place the 1 Thessalonian letter in their hands was to invite these believers to be “cancelled” through loss of reputation, beatings, loss of businesses, loss of relationships, even loss of life. This letter speaks of the “kingdom” of God and of Jesus as “Lord.” There could be no more dangerous words to Thessaloniki than these!

Thessaloniki had rebelled against Rome 3 times before. Each time attempting to place a king over themselves. Each time the Roman legions came east along the Via Ignatia, or the Ignatian Way, the massive military road from Rome to Thessaloniki that could bring legions to Thessaloniki quickly and efficiently. With each legion trip Thessaloniki lost. Thessaloniki lost badly. In one loss, the legions plundered Thessaloniki and all its surrounding fields, mines, pastures so thoroughly that the citizens of Rome, the city, enjoyed a tax holiday for 100 years. The legions were so thorough in order to completely impoverish Thessaloniki and its environs so that no future revolt by a new king would be possible. Yet, the third revolt did happen.

After this revolt was crushed, the wealthy members of Thessaloniki accepted the Roman system of government, which was based on patronage not democracy. Rome was the biggest good old boy netwok to possibly ever exist. There was no significant Roman government bureaucracy. No. Everything was done via pipelines of successive patron-client relationships.

Functioning in this imposed Roman society was determined by who your patron was, who your patron was a client of and what you did for your patron that benefitted your patron’s patron. Your success or failure flowed up the patron-pipeline and benefits or consequences flowed down. Thessaloniki had learned its lesson. They applied it well.

Thessaloniki’s ultimate patron was the greatest patron possible. The Roman emperor himself who chose Thessaloniki as a client. This made Thessaloniki wealthy and powerful. Money, prestige, political power, social standing flowed down the patron-client pipeline so that Thessaloniki could extend the Emporer’s power eastward to where the Persians (precursors to the modern Iranians), these ancient enemies of Rome and the Greeks, lived just across a sea.

To send a letter about a new “kingdom” to people living in the city was to throw a lit match into a room filled with nitroglycerin, natural gas and gasoline. Jason of Thessaloniki is one person who paid a price.

“…insisting that you live in a way worthy of God….” was to insist every Christian carry this lit match around in a public way. Why? Why?

To prove loyalty to Rome, all Thessaloniki persons must offer public sacrifices to the Roman Emperor as a deity. To not do this was tantamount to a fourth open rebellion. To additionally declare worship of a reportedly risen Lord, a lord who died with the Roman legal charge over his head of “King of the Jews?” This was to invite a fourth destruction of Thessaloniki. Fear is a powerful motivator to non-believers who lack “the peace that passes understanding.” For the believers in Thessaloniki? “Insisting” and “worthy” were words with profound burdens, profound risks and the biggest expectations possible.

To do what Paul insisted on would unmake their lives if the particular believer had any wealth, any rank, any powerful patron. Loyalty was now a huge decision. Are you a Thessalonian or a Christian. Being both was virtually politically impossible. Your patron was someone’s client. Someone more powerful. Someone one step closer to the Emperor. Someone deriving wealth, power, prestige by being that one step closer to the Roman emperor. The known and revered patron of Thessaloniki. What would the politics be if I declare my faith in Christ even passively by avoiding the sacrifice to the Emperor? Just how bad would my canceling be? To do what Paul insisted on meant I became a personal and political threat to everyone around me. Loyalty to Christ could easily mean a true cross if I moved from passive to active loyalty.

What and who am I loyal to? Do I sacrifice to the Emperor or refuse, declare my loyalty to an invisible kingdom and place my city at risk, my family at risk, my life at risk? Or? Or, do I play politics?

Are the stakes in America that different now? They are different, but only in intensity not, not in kind. How do we respond to “…insisting that you live in a way worthy of God….?” This insisting is much more than about morality and ethics in our lives. It is about genuine, decisive loyalty. It is about an ekballo moment - a moment of YHWH forcing change in our state of being.

After all, loyalty is powerfully erosive for you unless you make high risk transformative choices presented to you over your lifetime by YHWH; the only God of history. The only God of your history. Choices you must make when presented, especially if you are actually to “…live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.”

Emperors and other power brokers demand their kingdom, their glory and react badly when glory is denied or the kingship challenged. They do not react well when these are put at risk. Unless YHWH’s personal history for this person is to make them a believer.

From the Essayist:

I would encourage you to read 1 Thess 2:13 - 16 from the human impact and difficulty of YHWH’s call points of view inherent in this essay. Decide to reject or accept my point of view on the text. I do not create doctrine essays. I create perspectives on the text in essay form to prompt transformation in line with what YHWH required of the original recipients.