Quenching and Grieving

History of Thessalonica and Application

There is a consistent them that derives out of the writings of Paul. One should suggest that Christian living is and should be a prioritized topic for churches considering how much time Paul spends illustrating how we should live. Chapter 4 and 5 of I Thessalonians could be outlined as Chapter 4 dealing directly with the exhortation to Christian Living. Chapter 4 begins with a general effort to encourage us to walk according to the directions of God, “instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God that you excel still more”. As we move forward in this text Paul expounds on Christian Living as it pertains to sexual purity, brotherly love, and even earning an honest living.

Nonetheless our pastoral efforts would be of no value except for the longing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore we see Paul deal with believers who died before the coming the Christ, as well as those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, the current world we live in as it pertains to the coming of Christ and the encouragement that we all need in effort to keep focus and continue striving to live holy and acceptable lives unto God.

As Paul prescribes encouragement and exhortation we have to infer that discouragement and stagnation was a part of the culture as well. This church had a peculiar makeup demographically.

This church was predominately Gentile as stated in For they themselves report about us what kind of reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God.

This church is also referenced in where it states “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. It continues to let us know that Paul went in and reasoned with them from the scriptures. Nonetheless it depicts the make up of the church in verse 4 “and some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

A Diverse Spiritual Make Up

When the church is diverse, it presents a number of varying gifts, skill sets, and desires. This is why encouragement is very important.

Understand the power of encouragement prior to verse 19.

We urge you brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with everyone.

Our issue is instead of admonishing the unruly we ignore them, instead of encouraging the fainthearted we dismiss them, instead of helping the weak we enable them and we become impatient with the people we should the most patient with.

Spiritually we should be motivated that we do not seek revenge, and we rejoice no matter the circumstance.

Then we see “do not quench the Spirit” in this context it literally means to suppress. For all of my English majors it is synonomous with the word despise in the following verse. “Do not despise prophetic utterances.”

The only reason we despise the gift of communicating and enforcing revealed truth is because it brings us face to face with our lack of faith and lack of rejoicing in the God we serve.

The verb to quench, also meaning to put out means to smolder. The dangerous nature of quenching the spirit is it debunks the adage where there is smoke there is fire. It turns that statement to “where there is smoke there was fire” but someone covered it because they did not like the fire that was burning. Think about it from the perspective of a candle as long as the fire is burning the candle emits a pleasantry to the room, but when it is blown out the smoke is quite unpleasant as it compares to the fire that was previously burning.

Understand that the “fire” or the zeal of the spirit brings about comfort and warmth to the Christian life.

It is possible to quench the Spirit or grieve God by being despondent, idle, or even immoral.

Understand that vision is not age specific, or tenured specific. The spirit works in the young and old alike. Understand the idea behind quenching the spirit, meaning to put out or even despise the gift and motivation of someone called by God.

The church should be a safe haven for people to use what God has blessed them with to bring people to Christ. We have to move from a place of governing church from a place of fear in regard to traditions to being open minded to do whatever it takes to help the community see Jesus.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

We can quench the spirit by feeling contempt for someone or something because it is thought to be bad, nonetheless it could be something as trivial as preference.

We should never be in a place in which we hinder someone truly trying to work for God. We have to stop putting laws on liberties and liberties on legislation.

Refraining from Grieving the Spirit

states do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

The verse following explains how one might grieve the holy spirit through efforts of bitterness and wrath, we reinforce the spirit by being kind to each other as prescribed in verse 32.

Do not bring about emotional suffering with the use of negative words. The word grieve in this text actually means to cause severe mental and emotional sorrow.

We have to understand the power of our discouragement. Our disdain can have tumultuous effects on Christians. This is why Paul follows this text up with the notion that we should be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving to one another.

When we grieve the Holy Spirit or quench the Spirit it seen as a measure of rebellion. But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit: Therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy, He fought against them.

We ask ourselves why God is not providing an increase? Why would God provide an increase in a place that suppresses every gift.

“By whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”

When you are sealed, it means that you can be identified as such. Some of us are guilty of identity theft. We want to identify with Christ but our actions say different. That seal is a stamp of approval marking us as God’s purchased possession.

We grieve the spirit when our actions do not match our seal. We grieve the spirit when our speech does not match our identity.

Understand that your seal, that stamp of approval is what saves you from his wrath. Similar to Ezekiel when he marked the foreheads of all the people who were not on board with the abominations going on in that land. That seal protected them from experiencing the wrath of God.

Who is going to stand up for those in need. We see people suppressed and discouraged right out of the church and some of us stand by and say nothing.

How long will your position mean more than my persecution? How long will your preference get in the way of progress? Do we believe in a future or are we just concerned with maintaining a status quo right now?