1 Thessalonians: Authentic Church

We rightly want things in our lives to be authentic. Pretend and make believe are great escapes, but we don’t want to build our lives and set our hopes on anything that isn’t real, anything that isn’t lasting and true. Especially that has to be true of spiritual things: churches aren’t all the same, aren’t all equally good. In an era of fake news, and so many different opinions we don’t want to be hoodwinked or to believe lies. And we don’t want to play or pretend at church, just going through the motions, doing the externals. We’re not interested in fake-church!

1 Thessalonians will inspire and teach and encourage us to be an authentic church. Paul is hugely positive in what he says to them: ‘you became a model to all the believers’ (1:7) ‘your faith in God has become known everywhere’ (1:8) ‘about love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other’ (4:9).

As we discover more from their example let’s be praying that God works in us and amongst us to make us a church that pleases and honours him.