Missional People: 1 Thess 1

1 Thess Context

As Brad told us last week. Thessalonica is a wealthy city; it’s the capital of Macedonia and it’s strategically placed geographically where there is lots of trade and commerce.

From Acts 17, we heard last week that Paul had success preaching in the Synagogue at Thessalonica as well as the

Many of the synagogues in Asia and Europe were far enough removed from Jerusalem that they have become “syncretistic” - they are merging local gods and practices with some semblance of Jewish religion.

Faith, Love, Hope

+Steadfastness of Hope (Hipomonet)

-bearing up under the burden; patiently enduring.

-What is this hope? It’s not a blind optimism -

-sometimes we see words like “in our Lord Jesus Christ” or “Gospel” and they’ve become trite so we think they are filler.

Hebrews -

we fear death; we

Suffering and Affliction

Gospel & Ringing out

The Miracle of the conversion of the people.

Contrast the people who are persecuting them

Make note that they are still young in their faith but their labor, faithfulness, and hope are “ringing out”

serving the living and true God

later in Acts 17 when Paul is in Athens, we see that he goes first to the synagogue, and then to the marketplace. We would assume that is the same place as

Turned from Idols

We’ve lost our cultural understanding of idolatry.

There are the obvious idols -

The Resurrection from the dead