back to index2 Thess 11-4
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Alright, as we start our introduction to 2 Thessalonians, the inductive Bible study, 00:00:14.240 |
you probably already have done your homework, you had your discussion, and so I wanted to 00:00:19.880 |
clarify that the Bible study going forward, this recording will not be the Bible study. 00:00:27.520 |
This recording is just going to be highlighting, maybe giving some pointers, just kind of help 00:00:33.760 |
wrap things up, but if you rely on this to do your Bible study, you're not going to be 00:00:39.960 |
able to participate in what's happening in the home groups or the small groups. 00:00:45.560 |
We want the church to be able to be truly Bereans, not Berean as members, obviously 00:00:50.400 |
we're talking about Acts 17 and 11 where they examined everything to see if they were from 00:00:59.800 |
And so in order to do that, we can't just accept doctrine and say what's biblical and 00:01:05.160 |
not biblical because it makes sense to us or doesn't make sense to us, or you trust 00:01:11.940 |
Our confidence really needs to be from God's Word, and the only way to ensure that is if 00:01:17.520 |
every Christian knows what the Word of God says. 00:01:21.320 |
And so we want everyone to come to Bible study, committed to do inductive Bible study, not 00:01:27.080 |
to attend Bible study, but to committed to study and to be able to dig and ask questions. 00:01:32.760 |
So again, it may be a little bit more tedious, it may require a little bit more work on your 00:01:37.520 |
part, but again, God has invested and ordained His very breath, according to God's Word, 00:01:47.600 |
So it is not possible to know God without committing to know His Word. 00:01:53.640 |
There's so much you can learn from sermons, from experience, when you don't fully grasp 00:02:05.300 |
And so again, all of this is to just encourage you. 00:02:08.720 |
So if you're in the habit of just attending Bible study, to really commit to do the inductive 00:02:16.840 |
So let's look at first, just again as a wrap up, and I'm not going to be pointing to every 00:02:23.320 |
single part of the text, but just kind of give you a highlight. 00:02:27.440 |
You know, we talked about in 1 Thessalonians, it's good to know the background behind Silvanus 00:02:36.020 |
So don't skim over the introduction, because there's a lot in there that kind of helps 00:02:40.920 |
you to understand the mindset of what's going on. 00:02:44.000 |
So knowing Paul, Silvanus, Timothy, their relationship, who they are, how old are they, 00:02:51.080 |
Silvanus joined for the second missionary journey along with Timothy, but Timothy was 00:02:59.760 |
And Silvanus was a peer of Paul that was sent with him to give the letter to the Gentile 00:03:06.960 |
churches that they didn't have to be circumcised to become Christians. 00:03:12.680 |
And then the greetings, "Grace to you and peace." 00:03:15.520 |
Again, we learned last time that the term "grace" was a common greeting from the Greek 00:03:19.680 |
world, and "peace," "shalom," was a common greeting from the Jewish world. 00:03:27.480 |
So Apostle Paul has created a unique greeting with a combination of the Gentile world and 00:03:36.680 |
But along with that, even the greeting in itself contains the gospel message, because 00:03:44.640 |
the Jews were constantly looking for peace, for "shalom" from God, and the only way 00:03:51.640 |
And so even in the very introduction, "grace and peace to you," is pretty much a simple 00:04:00.360 |
In verse 1 and 2, asking a lot of questions is helpful. 00:04:08.360 |
What I highlighted here is the preposition "in" and "from." 00:04:12.960 |
This is something that I noticed that even as I was preparing this video, I looked at 00:04:18.400 |
this text so many times throughout the years. 00:04:20.600 |
I've probably done inductive bio-study in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians probably over a 00:04:27.320 |
But for whatever reason, I've always asked the question, "to the church of the Thessalonians, 00:04:32.480 |
in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." 00:04:34.040 |
And then he says the same thing again, "grace to you and peace from God the Father and the 00:04:40.000 |
And why is it here, "in God the Father" and here, "from God the Father?" 00:04:46.320 |
And I realized that what he was saying here is not Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, who 00:04:54.160 |
is "in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." 00:04:56.560 |
He was actually saying, "to the church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the 00:05:02.160 |
So again, I don't know if you missed this, but I definitely did. 00:05:07.200 |
That he's basically saying that the Thessalonians who are "in God the Father," and then he's 00:05:12.320 |
saying "we're bringing grace to you from God the Father." 00:05:16.320 |
So even in the introduction, Apostle Paul basically is acknowledging that all of this 00:05:22.560 |
is because of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:05:25.960 |
He's sending greetings from God the Father to the church who is "in God the Father." 00:05:32.480 |
And this sovereignty of God, that all of this is happening because of what God is doing 00:05:39.440 |
And that's why it leads to the second part of it, where he's compelled to give thanks. 00:05:43.400 |
So again, it may be a simple introduction, but even in the simple introduction, it kind 00:05:48.640 |
of gives us the theological mindset of the author and how that affects his perspective 00:05:57.160 |
All right, in verse 3 and 4, I did the sentence structure for you. 00:06:05.160 |
And again, get in the habit of dividing each verse into main parts of the speech and what 00:06:15.320 |
And it'll kind of help you to focus in on the study. 00:06:17.960 |
So if you look at verse 3, it says "we ought always to give thanks," which is the main 00:06:26.240 |
Because if your faith is being enlarged and love for each one of you grows ever greater. 00:06:33.000 |
So you could make this sentence without these fillers, right? 00:06:38.600 |
Where like, who are you giving thanks to God? 00:06:40.960 |
Because it's fitting and because of faith, love toward one another. 00:06:46.080 |
So you can see the main parts of the speech, right? 00:06:49.760 |
And then focus on these as supporting what he's saying. 00:06:53.640 |
So giving thanks because of their faith and because of love. 00:06:57.920 |
And same thing with verse 4, it says "we speak proudly of you for their perseverance and 00:07:06.680 |
And so here it describes their perseverance and faith in the midst of persecution and 00:07:13.280 |
Here it says "we speak proudly of you to the other churches." 00:07:18.160 |
So after you've done that, it's easier to focus your attention and ask good questions 00:07:25.640 |
because the verse kind of like, instead of seeing one big blob of two, three verses, 00:07:30.960 |
you can see it in the sentence structure of what's going on. 00:07:34.040 |
So here, you know, we talked about, at least in our Homegroup Leaders group, "ought always 00:07:41.040 |
And again, it's good to be in a habit of having several translations open. 00:07:47.840 |
So you can see that there's something going on in the text, and that's kind of like your 00:07:51.720 |
first line after you've done the sentence structure to see what's going on. 00:07:55.000 |
The word "ought" here talks about, has an idea of being compelled or obligated to give 00:08:01.960 |
And he's compelled and obligated to give thanks to God because it's only fitting. 00:08:10.440 |
And you know, we can say it's easier to do that because Thessalonians was a model church, 00:08:16.720 |
And he says he's giving thanks for two reasons, because of their faith being enlarged and 00:08:27.640 |
But if you look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 4, Apostle Paul also has a couple of verses 00:08:35.400 |
where he gives the same kind of phrase here about the Corinthians. 00:08:40.040 |
And so if you know anything about the Corinthians, it was, Corinthians is probably one of the 00:08:50.940 |
And I think this idea is related to what he says in verse 1 and 2 in the beginning, when 00:08:54.920 |
he recognizes that the Thessalonians are in God the Father, that he is being sent from 00:09:02.520 |
And so he sees God who's working behind the scenes, even when there is struggle, persecution 00:09:09.080 |
and affliction going on, that his thankfulness is not necessarily just because he sees that 00:09:15.320 |
they're responding well, but he sees evidence of God's grace and his love in them. 00:09:21.440 |
And that's why he feels compelled and it's only fitting for a Christian to have a thankful 00:09:25.680 |
heart because Thanksgiving obviously is directly related to our ability to worship. 00:09:30.440 |
An individual who is not thankful is an individual who cannot worship, right? 00:09:35.280 |
So here he says he's obligated to give thanks. 00:09:38.200 |
And it's only fitting to do that because the faith is greatly enlarged, that it's growing, 00:09:44.080 |
They didn't just have faith and have the same faith for 30, 40 years, but faith can, if 00:09:48.160 |
it can grow, it can probably decrease, right? 00:09:55.280 |
So he says their faith is being enlarged, right? 00:09:59.320 |
And their love for one another is also growing. 00:10:01.380 |
So there's progress from the first Thessalonians that when he writes, right, he was very thankful 00:10:08.140 |
But when he writes second Thessalonians, he says he's compelled to give thanks because 00:10:14.380 |
Even though they were a model church, they were growing continually. 00:10:19.020 |
And he speaks proudly of them among the other churches, right? 00:10:22.160 |
So his Thanksgiving wasn't just like obligation only. 00:10:26.900 |
He was being forced to say something they didn't really mean. 00:10:30.140 |
Or else he wouldn't be speaking proudly of them in other churches. 00:10:33.340 |
Now we've already done an overview of second Thessalonians and we know that there were 00:10:41.940 |
Some people were not living disciplined lives and so they need to be disciplined. 00:10:48.460 |
There's concerns about the persecution and encouragement to persevere. 00:10:56.360 |
And so it wasn't like the second Thessalonians didn't have problems. 00:11:00.060 |
But Apostle Paul was able to fix his eyes on God's sovereign plan that he has them completed 00:11:10.540 |
And remember that when he was writing this, he was in Corinth. 00:11:14.220 |
So if you know anything about Paul in Corinth, he was beaten up. 00:11:21.060 |
And Jesus actually had to tell him to continue to do the ministry. 00:11:24.660 |
And that's why he kind of stayed in Corinth for a long period of time because it was sort 00:11:31.540 |
And so he was not in the best of condition in Corinth. 00:11:34.480 |
So when he is writing this letter, humanly speaking, you would think that there's a lot 00:11:39.340 |
of frustrations and things being poured out in these letters. 00:11:42.140 |
But again, Paul is genuinely thankful because he sees God's sovereign hand in what's going 00:11:48.640 |
And then so again, here, just like in verse three, he gives thanks because of their faith 00:11:56.380 |
And here he says, I'm proudly speaking of you, bragging of you to the other churches 00:12:00.980 |
because of their perseverance and the evidence of their faith in the midst of persecution 00:12:08.340 |
So again, there's a lot more stuff going on in here. 00:12:10.580 |
But I think just to kind of give you an idea of how to break down the verse, and I know 00:12:16.980 |
you've already had the discussion and this is more for, you know, hopefully going forward, 00:12:21.780 |
you would apply this to the next passage in verses five through ten. 00:12:26.160 |
So I kind of wanted to give a summary of what's going on here in the next slide. 00:12:33.780 |
It's good to get in the habit after you've done your studies, you've asked questions, 00:12:38.860 |
observations, and cross-references and application, you know, to kind of wrap up the study into 00:12:52.300 |
The relationship between Paul and Silvanus and Timothy as co-workers of the gospel. 00:12:56.940 |
That was, again, something that we paid attention to in verse one. 00:13:01.100 |
Paul's view of God's sovereignty in his work and in the work of Thessalonians, where I 00:13:05.740 |
talked about in and then from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and how that perspective 00:13:11.980 |
really resonates in everything else that he sees and what he's thankful for. 00:13:16.940 |
Thanksgiving that is compelled by what he sees God doing in their midst. 00:13:19.940 |
So not necessarily because of human work, but he's thankful to God for what he's doing 00:13:26.180 |
And then fourthly, growing faith, evidence by perseverance and through affliction, an 00:13:35.020 |
And so basically, these are the four main points and application in my life should really 00:13:44.180 |
So the fact that Apostle Paul always had companions working, who are my co-workers and what is 00:13:54.700 |
Am I absolutely convinced of his sovereignty? 00:13:56.740 |
Is this just a doctrinal statement or does that actually affect the way I perceive everything, 00:14:02.720 |
When it's hard, when it's easy, do I actually believe that God is fully in control? 00:14:09.180 |
And does that show in the way that I talk, in the way that I view things, the way I hope 00:14:18.740 |
How does God's sovereignty affect all of that? 00:14:24.180 |
Is my life and my speech being compelled by Thanksgiving because I believe that God is 00:14:34.140 |
And then the evidence of faith, like, am I persevering in affliction? 00:14:39.620 |
Am I just putting up with it or do I genuinely see God's sovereign hand in the affliction 00:14:49.540 |
Not just to tolerate difficult situations or difficult people, but is there an urging 00:14:56.580 |
or compelling or movement toward greater love in my life? 00:15:01.220 |
And so those are things that for application, once we've done the study, like, how do we 00:15:09.340 |
So again, like I've always said, right, application without interpretation is abortion. 00:15:23.860 |
Interpretation without application is abortion because then you haven't completed your study. 00:15:29.540 |
And then application without interpretation will be a miscarriage. 00:15:36.580 |
And so that's what my professor would always say in our hermeneutics class. 00:15:40.940 |
And so we want to make sure that every study is concluded by application. 00:15:45.500 |
So this is something that I strongly encourage you to do for every study. 00:15:50.940 |
I just wanted to give you a quick guide for the study of verses 5 through 10 for the coming 00:16:00.460 |
It's a little bit lengthier than most other verses that you're going to be looking at 00:16:06.380 |
So whenever you do a large chunk like this, it's helpful to, again, to break it down into 00:16:20.020 |
And make sure that once you outline it like that, it'll give you a clear direction of 00:16:25.640 |
So one of the main things that I encourage you to do is to get a good summary of this 00:16:34.300 |
What are the major points and what are the sub points? 00:16:36.460 |
And then once you've identified that, then you can go back from verse to verse and then 00:16:40.980 |
ask the question, do the observations cross references. 00:16:43.900 |
But when you have a larger text that you're dealing with, before you do verse by verse, 00:16:49.980 |
make sure you get the complete thought flow that's going on in this text. 00:16:53.780 |
So again, once you've identified that, I think the other study that you will do in more detail 00:17:01.440 |
So that's the first thing that I encourage you to do. 00:17:05.280 |
And no matter what you do, you can't speed up your devotion. 00:17:13.220 |
You can't just look at this text and sit in front of it for 10 minutes and hoping that 00:17:19.740 |
So especially in the Bible study, the more time you put into digging and meditating on 00:17:28.940 |
And I encourage you to do this early on because sometimes you'll read through it and then 00:17:35.740 |
And then as you're driving, you'll have a thought that's connected to something that 00:17:40.900 |
And it'll make a lot more sense the more you take time to meditate on it. 00:17:44.220 |
So I encourage you to start this sentence structure and get the main overview and do 00:17:50.180 |
it early so that you'll be able to get as much out of this text as you can. 00:17:54.980 |
Because this has so many good things in this text and I don't want you to miss out on it