1 Thessalonians 2:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Thessalonians 2:3

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The apostle Paul actually has in this single verse here virtually an entire course on pastoral theology. ‘For our exhortation’, our preaching he means. Our imploring of you, our appeal, ‘was not of deceit.’ The Greek literally means something like this – not fraudulent. Our appeal was not by fraud. The idea is of substituting the true for something false. A tradesman does not want to, say, give a pure article in exchange for money. He wants to adulterate it, dilute it, give less of it, and so he cheats. This is what the apostles were accused of. The Judaizers said, these men are not teaching orthodox truth. They are teaching a substitute, something fraudulent. This is about the matter of his preaching.‘Nor of uncleanness.’ The Greek means impurity of motive. The accusation was, ‘Oh, these Christian preachers – they are just doing it for money. They are like one hundred and one other charlatans, crooks and rogues.’ No, says the apostle, there was no impurity in our motive. So you have got matter that we preach, substance; the motive, the spirit in which we do it was pure, it was not adulterated, it was not unclean. And then the last word, ‘Nor in guile’, which is really a translation of a word for trickery. The Jews, when they were attacking the Christian preachers, said it is all by trickery. ‘They are no better than the pagans. These are all fables that they have made up, and they enchant you with their fables.’ This is about method.

Application

Just sometimes you hear preaching today, and it does not sound like an appeal at all. There is no tenderness in it, there is no desire. Sometimes you hear, it seems like an attack. The preacher seems to have got the idea that the power of the Spirit, well it comes in the form of fury, and antagonism, and accusation, and charges, and the gospel is hurled at you through gritted teeth. Power, they think, comes in aggression and seeming hostility and fierceness and shouting at the top of your voice. And the louder you can shout they, and sometimes foolish Christians hearers, say, Oh, there is the power of the Spirit. Nothing of the sort. The apostle Paul is just about the opposite. ‘Our exhortation’, and he uses a word which literally means our imploring of you, our appeal to you, our persuasion of you. There is sympathy in it. Yes, sin has to be spoken of, the Holy Spirit will bring people under conviction of sin. You have to lay down the fact that we are sinners and desperate sinners against God, but you do not do it in hostility, because you must show the mercy and the tenderness of the Lord.

I was shocked a couple of years ago to be shown some interesting piece of information that one of our celebrity preachers in the Reformed camp in the United States was drawing in terms of income about $800,000 a year, twice as much as the pay of the American president. I was astonished and shocked. And I thought, how could one ever respect such a man again, for whatever reputation he might have for preaching truth? Christian preachers are not supposed to be enriching themselves and walking straight into a trap and laying themselves open to the charge of being phonies.

There is a lot of trickery today. This whole contemporary Christian worship movement – what is it? It is a means of saying to people: you can have Christ, and you can have salvation, and you can have forgiveness of sin, and you can have a Christian walk, and you can have heaven – and you can have the world at the same time.

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Introduction

1 Thessalonians 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study