Leaders Write a Significant Letter and It Starts With the Most Amazing Graciously Loving Greetings
It is a letter but is it more than just a letter? It certainly is and it was compiled by leaders who at the time were totally unaware of how serious the document they were writing would be regarded by others.
I am referring to the first letter to the Thessalonians, and it is a letter from Paul and Silas, or Silvanus, and Timothy, and it is sent to the Church of Jesus Christ, and the wording is most specific and precise.
It is some title.
God and Christ are mentioned quite categorically.
God without Christ can give rise to a question and Christ without God is nothing but heresy, but God and Christ is power and these people knew the power of God the Holy Spirit.
There is a double emphasis here.
The Church belongs to Christ and to God.
When we belong to God we belong to Christ and when we belong to Christ we belong to Almighty God.
There is another double emphasis from these leaders.
Grace and peace to you from God and from Jesus Christ, and we know that this speaks of the unity between the Father and the Son, and of course the Holy Spirit.
There is perfect unity and perfect harmony and perfect agreement.
From that unity flows grace and peace.
Grace and peace flow from a source which knows no disunity or disharmony.
If only the world could understand this! No matter what shortages there are on earth, there will never be a shortage of grace and peace.
The Church is universal, but this letter is to a church in a particular place.
Thessalonica was named after the sister of Alexander the Great.
It was on the main road from Rome to India, west to east, and we know it was governed by a democratically elected Assembly, and we think this is the first such place with such democracy to which the Christian faith had come.
What happened in this city could be transported and take root elsewhere.
This was another strategically important area for a different reason, from the Roman colony of Philippi.
Alexander the Great came to conquer for Greece.
Paul and his anointed team came in a different direction to conquer for Jesus Christ the King, and with very different methods.
Everywhere Alexander of Macedonia went the people spoke Greek, and as Paul preached in Greek, the Gospel of Jesus Christ swept through the Greek and now Roman Empire.
Although we regard this letter as one of Paul's, do note that there are three names in the opening greetings.
Take time to read and even study the letter.
It becomes part of the Word of God.
Sandy Shaw
I am referring to the first letter to the Thessalonians, and it is a letter from Paul and Silas, or Silvanus, and Timothy, and it is sent to the Church of Jesus Christ, and the wording is most specific and precise.
It is some title.
God and Christ are mentioned quite categorically.
God without Christ can give rise to a question and Christ without God is nothing but heresy, but God and Christ is power and these people knew the power of God the Holy Spirit.
There is a double emphasis here.
The Church belongs to Christ and to God.
When we belong to God we belong to Christ and when we belong to Christ we belong to Almighty God.
There is another double emphasis from these leaders.
Grace and peace to you from God and from Jesus Christ, and we know that this speaks of the unity between the Father and the Son, and of course the Holy Spirit.
There is perfect unity and perfect harmony and perfect agreement.
From that unity flows grace and peace.
Grace and peace flow from a source which knows no disunity or disharmony.
If only the world could understand this! No matter what shortages there are on earth, there will never be a shortage of grace and peace.
The Church is universal, but this letter is to a church in a particular place.
Thessalonica was named after the sister of Alexander the Great.
It was on the main road from Rome to India, west to east, and we know it was governed by a democratically elected Assembly, and we think this is the first such place with such democracy to which the Christian faith had come.
What happened in this city could be transported and take root elsewhere.
This was another strategically important area for a different reason, from the Roman colony of Philippi.
Alexander the Great came to conquer for Greece.
Paul and his anointed team came in a different direction to conquer for Jesus Christ the King, and with very different methods.
Everywhere Alexander of Macedonia went the people spoke Greek, and as Paul preached in Greek, the Gospel of Jesus Christ swept through the Greek and now Roman Empire.
Although we regard this letter as one of Paul's, do note that there are three names in the opening greetings.
Take time to read and even study the letter.
It becomes part of the Word of God.
Sandy Shaw