What matters more than what you put in or on your body – 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, Part 1

What kinds of substances is God okay with you putting in your body? 

What kinds of clothing does God want you to wear on your body? 

Or rather, how much of your body is God okay with your leaving uncovered by clothing? 

What kinds of images can you look at? 

What words can you say? 

So many questions that Christians have differing opinions about. 

How can we answer those questions?

This week, I return to our study through 1 Thessalonians, and we are at chapter 4, verses 1–8.

Paul was worried about the Christians in Thessalonica, so he sent Timothy to check on them. Timothy found that they were still following Jesus.  Paul had taught them how to live in order to please God, and they were doing it, as Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 1.  The Christians in Thessalonica faced pressure and persecution which was designed to get them to stop following Jesus.  But Paul writes here in verse 1 that the Thessalonian Christians had remained faithful.

He, Paul, had taught them how to live as followers of Jesus, or as he describes it in verse 1, “how to live in order to please God,” and he says, “in fact you are living that way.”  Paul is affirming them. Encouraging them.  Saying to them, “You are doing it!  You are living as followers of Jesus in the middle of a culture that is highly motivated to get you stop living as a follower of Jesus.” 

Does that sound familiar?  What this verse reminds us is that living as a follower of Jesus has not always been easy or popular.  In fact, living to please God has brought Christians to position of being at odds with their culture. 

We Christians are to live a particular way.  Following Jesus is that particular way of life that is pleasing to God.  Why? Because living a life pleasing to God is to live in line with the heart of God, in line with the way that Jesus himself lived.  What’s more, God’s way is best for us, for our communities, for the world.

But what does it specifically look like to live a life that is pleasing to God?  Christians through the ages, and still to this day, have disagreements about what that looks like.  Look again at the questions I mentioned above. I suspect that you have heard Christians debate the questions and answers.

Nearly all of that debate, though, misses something important.  The heart.  Jesus taught, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)  If you want to speak life-giving words, even in those moments of intensity when life-degrading words seem appropriate and are begging to fly out of your mouth, then something needs to be happening inwardly, so that what flows out of you is living giving.  If your heart is being transformed by Jesus, then you will naturally live a life in line with the heart of God, which is for your good, and for the good of others.

As we continue studying 1st Thessalonians 4:1–8 the rest of the week, we will build on that foundation, that Jesus desires to transform our hearts.

Check back to the next post tomorrow.

Photo by Sander Dalhuisen on Unsplash