1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 - How to Preach the Gospel - For Everybody

For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

Target Date: Sunday, 15 May 2022

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Flattery – κολακεία – false praise

Hapax legomenon in the Bible (LXX and NT)

This is a method to endear the speaker to the audience – and they didn’t do it.

Pretext – πρόφασις – a show, a pretend

Can also mean “motive”, so it can be straightforward in its meaning here.

The best translation is simply to let πρόφασις have the meaning “actual motive” and then to render the clause: “We did not act with a motive of greed.”

Greed – πλεονεξία – covetousness, wanting more

The Thessalonians may have been guilty of that:

that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. – 1 Thessalonians 4:6

In speaking of false teachers, Peter says this:

in their greed they will exploit you with false words - 2 Peter 2:3

Seek – ζητέω – to desire earnestly, to crave

Can also mean “require”, which would better explain the second half of the verse.

Another possibility, however, suits the context better. ζητεῖν may by extension mean “demand” or “require,” and this offers a better translation in v. 6: “neither requiring honor from people, neither from you nor from anyone.”

Glory – δόξα – opinion, reputation

When applied to God, this noun become altogether different, with the truth of His nature overwhelming the senses and opinions of men.

Thoughts on the Passage:

5 – This is the fourth way the gospel could have been discredited if they had practiced it wrongly:

1. Error

2. Inpurity - syncretic

3. Deception

4. Flattery – insincerity

5. Greed

6. Glory - fame

5 – It is not enough to want to belong to an assembly of believers. That has been the mistake of the church for a very long time. If what attracts you to a church is its programs, music, fellowship, or friendliness, you are going for the wrong reason.

The Word of God is preached.

The Word of God is followed.

5 – words of flattery – he calls them to witness that the apostles did not try to praise them – as you know.

The κόλαξ, “the flatterer,” a stock character in the literature of ethics and manners, habitually employs flattery to gain some advantage for himself. He trades on the fact that people naturally like to hear things which set them in a favorable light, and by telling them such things he expects to gain a following. According to Aristotle, “the man who joins in gratifying people … for the sake of getting something for himself in the way of money or money’s worth is a flatterer” (Eth. Nic. 4.6.9). “Flattery,” says Theophrastus, “might be regarded as converse (ὁμιλία) which is base, but advantageous to the flatterer” (Characters, 2). Dio Chrysostom (Oration 32) condemns the use of flattery in public speech. La Fontaine sums the situation up in a well-known couplet:

Learn that every flatterer

Lives at the flattered listener’s cost.

Eupolis gives voice to the flatterer’s intentions, saying, “And when I catch sight of a man who is rich and thick, I at once get my hooks into him. If this moneybags happens to say anything, I praise him vehemently and express my amazement, pretending to find delight in his words.”

One of the biggest failings of the church in the last 50 years is in the area of youth ministry, where the “crisis of self-esteem” among teenagers led youth workers to declare for years that their youth should feel better about themselves, trust themselves, and be the winner they are.

Joel Osteen - “Don’t just accept whatever comes your way in life. You were born to win; you were born for greatness; you were created to be a champion in life.”

Positive feelings are no substitute for an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ.

There are millions who will feel very good about themselves up until that moment when the righteous Judge of mankind declares to them “Depart from Me!”

5 – pretext for greed – the Thessalonians could not judge their hearts in this matter, so he calls God as his witness to that.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” – Mark 7:21-23

Joel Osteen - Consequently—and I say this humbly—I’ve come to expect to be treated differently. I’ve learned to expect people to want to help me. My attitude is: I’m a child of the Most High God. My Father created the whole universe. He has crowned me with favor, therefore, I can expect preferential treatment. I can expect people to go out of their way to want to help me.

6 – Glory - When applied to a person, this becomes much more of a high opinion or a good reputation, being well-thought-of by people.

This is not to say that they were kind – it is to say that the esteem of people was NEVER their goal in faithfully preaching the gospel.

And lest the church think that it was THEIR esteem the apostles wanted, he makes very clear that was also not the case – whether from you or others.

Epictetus railed against the sophists who sought glory at the expense of their disciples, saying, “And so it’s for this, is it, that young men are to travel from home, and leave their parents, their friends, their relatives, and their bit of property, merely to cry ‘Bravo!’ as you recite your clever little mottoes?”

Application – we like demonstrations. We justify our lust for glory by baptizing that lust. Athletes pray for victory because it will make God look good if His follower wins. People buy houses, pools, bass boats – whatever – saying that they will use them for “God’s glory”. Politicians play the religion card when they need support from churchgoers. But in all these things, we don’t seek God’s ACTUAL glory – we seek our own glory, and we will give him a tithe or a tip for giving it to us.

Does a larger attendance make the church more faithful to God?

Do a greater number of instruments or entertainers make worship more authentic?

Does a great orator make any change to the Word of God for the better?

6 – Demands – they could have required attention, particularly from the Jews in the synagogue of Thessalonica.

What form would these demands have taken?

Miracles, signs, undeniable events.

He spoke and a man went blind. He spoke and a demon fled a girl.

It would not have been beyond their ability – they were apostles, uniquely gifted for these signs.

6 – Burden – Could have brought weight to bear.

v. 7a may well refer to their decision not to be a financial burden to the church. However, over and again in ancient texts the term burden speaks of the weight of authority of a city or a person due to their character or importance. Although the financial interpretation of burden is attractive, in vv. 6–8 the argument does not revolve around their financial relationships with the church. This point is not taken up until v. 9. Here the thought is that Paul and his associates did not come to town seeking glory (v. 6), although they could have wielded their apostolic authority (v. 7a).

It brings up the question – why didn’t they use their authority to overcome the opposition?

After all, it would have made their lives easier.

It would have made the lives in the church easier.

And it might be argued that if they had simply stood in the square and performed signs, more people might have been converted, particularly the Jews.

But he says that even though they COULD, they DIDN’T exercise those powers.

They were not there to win the debate.

They were not there to cajole everyone to believe in Jesus Christ.

They were not there to make everybody live by His tenets.

They weren’t even there to make everyone accountable – God’s witness was already apparent.

They were there to find the lost sheep of Christ and bring them in.

And as will see in more detail next week, God-willing, they did so gently,

Lovingly,

Regardless of their own discomfort, they nourished this church in its infancy.

And their methods were not demonstrations, protests, or even debates:

They preached.

The preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They preached to everyone who would hear them so God’s people would come in.

Even when he spoke in the synagogue, he, for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, - Acts 17:2

These were not acrimonious – they were discussions, dialogues.

And you will recall that the Jews did not become hostile in Thessalonica until Paul and Silas began converting Gentiles:

some of them [the Jews] were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. 5 But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; - Acts 17:4-5

Sermon Text:

We continue our study in the second chapter of the first epistle to the church of the Thessalonians.

This week, we will be focusing on verses 5 and 6:

For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.

The last time we looked at this larger passage, you may recall that I suggested to you that these things Paul and Silas are dealing with here are ways the Thessalonian believers can imitate them.

That is the great theme of this epistle – to imitate the godly examples they had seen in following Jesus Christ.

“Imitate” has a bad connotation, though.

When we think of “imitating” someone or something, we think about pretending to be something we are not.

It is like acting, where someone pretends to be something else entirely.

And, if someone is doing that consistently – merely pretending to follow our Lord – that person is a hypocrite, a pretender.

And we know that no one will fool God by their imitation of a follower of Jesus Christ. As we saw in verse 4 last time: it is God who tests our hearts.

But that is not what Paul means at all. He is not telling the disciples in Thessalonica to “fake it until they make it.”

When he speaks of imitation, he is talking about seeing how authentic trust in Jesus Christ acts and speaks, and building that into your life.

For most of the most fundamental things in our lives, we are taught by example, meaning we learn by imitation.

When a child learns to speak, it is because he has heard words being spoken from before he was born. He imitates those sounds and learns communication.

We see it when a baby starts moving around, or eating by herself, or walking. She is imitating what she has seen her whole life and putting it into practice in hers.

And although we will not get to it this week, we do see in verse 7 that Paul compares their teaching of the Thessalonian church with bringing up an infant.

But you might also think back to how you were taught your alphabet or to multiply numbers.

I’m not talking about any new math with drawing dots and lines;

I’m talking about multiplication tables. 7 x 6 = 42 and all that.

Perhaps I am dating myself, but we learned that by rote memory – repeating these math sentences until they were more familiar than the lyrics of most songs.

If your class was like mine, the teacher stood at the front of the room when the time came to practice and said, “Class, repeat after me – two times two is four…”

Often music is learned by imitation, seeing how the teacher plays a certain way and copying it.

Many people, I am told, watch people golf to understand the mechanics of their swing so they can improve their game.

Imitation, then, is not about pretending, but about seeing what someone does well or correctly and building it into our own lives.

And it is in this spirit that Paul congratulates the Thessalonian believers for being imitators of the apostles, the church, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They had seen, studied, and heard of godly examples of authentic faith, and they applied themselves, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to make those traits theirs as well.

So when we see the examples Paul lists in our text today, he has two reasons to give them these reminders of the apostles’ conduct:

1. The obvious reason is to encourage the Thessalonian believers to follow their example still further.

Perhaps he saw areas of concern in the believers there, and wanted to address them before they became a bigger problem.

Or perhaps he knew the tendency of believers in other churches and wanted, if possible, to prevent those same errors in this church.

In either case, we do have some direct teaching in this and the second epistle that relates closely with the examples he gives here.

2. But if this was the only reason he included these reminders, why didn’t he just give them a list of things to follow?

I think because the second reason he gives these examples is to help the Thessalonian believers more easily recognize who is a true teacher and who is a false teacher.

The characteristics we will see in verses 5 and 6 today would be quite evident in false teachers, revealing their hidden motives.

There were many travelling teachers in those days, some from the philosophy school of the Cynics, and some, as we see in the second chapter of Galatians, claiming to be from within the church itself.

These were the Judaizers, who would have all believers maintain all the aspects of the Mosaic Law, including the rites of circumcision and food laws, as their “Christian” duty.

So in helping the Thessalonian church to recall the example of these men of God, he is accomplishing both things:

To help them correct themselves with regard to their Christian walk, and

To help them recognize the tools of those who would lure them from the truth.

And both of those things lead to the same truth:

It is not good enough to have correct doctrine when you are entrusted with the gospel;

You must follow God’s methods also – as commanded and demonstrated in the Scripture

and as exemplified by our Lord.

So Paul reminds them in verse 5 – we never came with words of flattery.

We all know what flattery is, I think – it is praise of someone meant to make them feel good about you.

Often, it is hollow, meaning we are telling the person what they want to hear about themselves.

But in every case, it is meant to ultimately put the hearer into the flatterer’s debt.

As one French poet put it:

Learn that every flatterer/ Lives at the flattered listener’s cost.

And the flatterer was a stock character in dramas of the day, including theatres the Thessalonians were familiar with.

The Greek playwright Eupolis gives voice to the flatterer’s intentions, saying, “And when I catch sight of a man who is rich and thick, I at once get my hooks into him. If this moneybags happens to say anything, I praise him vehemently and express my amazement, pretending to find delight in his words.”

We are warned in many places in Scripture:

A lying tongue hates those it crushes, And a flattering mouth works ruin. – Proverbs 26:28

He who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor Than he who flatters with the tongue. – Proverbs 28:23

A man who flatters his neighbor Is spreading a net for his steps. – Proverbs 29:5

They speak falsehood to one another; With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. 3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaks great things; - Psalm 12:2-3

But it is not just flattery among each other we are warned about. When Paul is describing the false teachers who might seek to lead the faithful astray, he warns the Romans:

keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. 18 For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. – Romans 16:17-18

We are warned about flattery because it is REALLY hard to resist its lure.

We all like to hear good things about ourself. How smart we are, how good looking, how admired we are.

But it makes us vulnerable to pride and so many other sins:

How many extra-marital affairs are begun with a flattering word?

How many hearts are turned from God by the attention of someone?

And no matter how we may see through the flattery and know the flatterer is playing us, we often find ourselves paralyzed by the praise, unable to run away when we should.

Often we tend to surround ourselves with those who speak well of us, forgetting that:

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. – Proverbs 27:6

So you may be asking – what is so wrong with using flattery when preaching the gospel?

If it is such an effective tactic, why would we not use it?

First: Jesus didn’t use flattery. And that should be sufficient reason.

Even when the Herodians were trying to set Jesus up, they recognized that truth about Him:

“Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to [flatter] no one; for You are not partial to any. – Matthew 22:16

Second: It compromises the gospel by lifting up man instead of Jesus Christ.

When the gospel is mixed with flattery, it changes the entire message of the gospel.

It creates a false and unstable foundation because it leads the hearer to believe that they are good, they are powerful, or the gospel is about them.

It turns evangelists into scouts, looking for only the best to fill out the ranks of God’s kingdom.

You can see it in the writings of very successful false teachers like Joel Osteen and others who push their brand of positive thinking:

“Don’t just accept whatever comes your way in life. You were born to win; you were born for greatness; you were created to be a champion in life.”

Flattery has no business being a part of the gospel or in our dealings with one another.

Because flattery is ALWAYS selfish.

It is always seeking its own.

Now, the opposite of flattery is not being a jerk either.

The opposite of flattery is speaking the truth in love.

We will see that contrast in a couple of weeks, God willing, when we get to the beautiful 7th and 8th verses of this chapter.

When we see the apostles’ affection for these believers.

I would argue that to speak about the Lord Jesus Christ to anyone we don’t deeply care for is not proper evangelism.

If we speak the truth without love, we become the reluctant prophet, like Jonah.

God may still use our words to convict, but we will not be commended in the transaction.

But not just flattery will compromise our presentation of the gospel: greed will also.

Paul declares to them: nor with the pretext for greed did they preach.

If you look at commentaries on this passage, there will be lengthy, meaningless discussions on how to properly translate this phrase. All the translators we read have done just fine.

Because whether you see it as “a covering for greed” or “a motive of greed”, it comes out to be the same thing – we didn’t preach out of covetousness.

We didn’t preach because we wanted something from you.

The minute we look at someone as “having something we need” in order to give them the gospel, we have erred dangerously.

And the Thessalonians may have had a problem with some members in this way.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:6, Paul corrects them, saying:

that no man transgress and defraud [the same root as greed] his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

This wasn’t just about wanting money or material things from others – it was about wanting anything they had:

Power, fame, pull, influence, possessions, reputation, etc.

We like the idea of being on the “winning team” – and every big name we can bring in increases the church’s influence.

There are extremely large congregations today that have adopted that very strategy – endorsements from powerful people.

Greed goes hand-in-hand with the flattery we just discussed because both are asking what can the listener do for me or us?

How can they help us be bigger or more powerful?

It is no wonder that Paul tells the Colossians:

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come - Colossians 3:5-6

And in Ephesians 5:5:

no immoral or impure person or covetous [greedy] man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

If we seek growth in any aspect based on what a PERSON can bring, we are wrong.

God causes the growth.

God is the One who will lead us.

I think it will be best to save verse 6 for the next time we meet to look at this passage.

There is much to look at there that will also speak to us today, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much at one time.

Let’s then conclude here, taking the examples Paul and Silas have provided us in the Holy Spirit:

Let your life be a clear example of Christ as you carry His word to the people around you:

Speak the truth in love, not flattering people and not seeking what you can get from them.

Give the gospel, free and clearly, offering to each the message of Jesus Christ – repent from your sin and trust Jesus Christ for your salvation.