1 Thess. 1:3-10; Heb. 10:22-24, Increasing in Maturity

We have considered three marks of maturity in 1 Th. 1:3.  Paul knew these things were present in this young church because he could see clear evidence.

·        Faith produces work (remember, faith without works is dead, Jas. 2:20).

·        Love produces labor (acc. to Thayer’s Lexicon, intense labor united with trouble and toil).

·        Hope produces patience (endurance, steadfastness).  This patience is waiting for the coming of Christ (in our Lord Jesus Christ).  This patience (and perhaps all the qualities) is lived out before God (in the sight of our God and Father); it is not what others think or how we compare to others but what God thinks about our performance.

We have been asking, and we ask again, “how did this young church come to exhibit these mature qualities?”  The immediate context gives us a great answer to that question (v4-5).  They were, of course, chosen by God.  “how did this young church come to exhibit these mature qualities?”  The immediate context gives us a great answer to that question (v4-5).  They were, of course, chosen by God and we need to remember that good things happen only when God is at work.

But election by God is an unseen fact that can be known only by “evidence.”  Thus v5 is critical, giving both the evidence of their election but the answer to the question of a young but mature church.  The gospel had come, but not only in word, through the preaching and reasoning of Paul and his team.  It also came in power, in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance.  Paul knew this because he knew what they saw in him and his partners (v5, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake); and Paul knew this because of what he saw in the Thessalonians themselves (v6-10, you became followers of us and of the Lord).  When properly received the gospel changes people.  A. W. Tozer pointed this out (The Divine Conquest, p39f):

The Christian message rightly understood means this: The God who by the word of the gospel proclaims men free, but the power of the gospel actually makes them free.  To accept less than this is to know the gospel in word only, without its power.

Let me suggest another way to answer the question as to how this maturity showed up in the Thessalonians church.  It is clear that they were practicing Biblical body life as explained in Heb. 10:22-24.  They were drawing near to God in the full assurance of faith (i.e. walking by faith, ministering by faith).  They were holding to the hope they professed (there was no wavering as they encountered persecution from the early days of their existence as a church).  They were spurring one another to love and good works.  Often in our churches we lack these things because we don’t act like bodies but like a collection of independent entities.  It is quite possible that the persecution the early church experienced and that we don’t experience today in the United States helped to lead them together as a body so that there was produces faith, love and hope.