Engaging Scripture

Why and how we can choose joy in the midst of pain – 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, 25, Part 3

Editor’s Note: This week I welcome guest blogger, Debbie Marks. Debbie has a degree in social work, served for 30+ in pastoral ministry alongside her husband, is an educator, leads Bible studies, and has been a retreat speaker. I’m excited for her teaching this week.

From 2009-2013, our son, Alexander, began having many struggles—some physical issues, some mental health issues. He spent a lot of time at doctors’ appointments, some time in the hospital, and a week in an adolescent psychiatric hospital. Those years were very tough for our family, but none tougher than his death in 2013 at the age of 17. I don’t share my son’s story with you to shock you, but so you understand that the joy I experience has been formed in the fire of adversity.

Romans 12:12 says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

How can our joy abound no matter what? Because of the hope we have in Christ Jesus.

The certainty of the Christian’s hope is a cause for joy. We have a confident expectation and blessed assurance of God being present in our present circumstances and a future hope of our eternal life with Jesus based on God’s love for us.

Our joy will expand as our trust in God expands. Psalm 13:5 says, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” As we trust more and more in God’s faithfulness, our joy will grow as well. Our joy and trust are inseparable.

And joy can even come as we mourn. The psalmist says in Psalm 119:50, “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my joy.” The promise is the presence of God in the middle of the suffering. I’m convinced that God the Father mourns along with us in our suffering.

Psalm 56:8 says that “God holds our tears in a bottle.” This is a metaphor for God’s compassion. God is aware of our pain and suffering and remembers our tears. God values and remembers every sorrow experienced by His people because He deeply loves us.

So even as we mourn we can know joy because of God’s deep love that causes Him to mourn with us.

As we see, joy has nothing to do with happiness in our circumstances—some circumstances just stink. But when our joy is in Jesus, this joy gives us strength and actually can become a weapon against our despair, one we can use to fight in our less than desirable circumstances. Joy redirects our focus onto God who is our all in all. Nehemiah says that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (8:10).

So how do we fight back with joy?

We declare that the darkness will not win. John 1:5 says “The light (who is Jesus) shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.”

We embrace the deepest reality of our identity, which is that we are loved by the Creator of the universe. We are God’s beloved ones.

We declare that we are confident that God is with us and for us. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

We fight back with the assurance that we’re held in the tender arms of the One who is greater than us and the world.

We set our eyes on the eternal reality that awaits us that is more tangible what we’re enduring. Romans 8:18 states “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the immeasurable and everlasting glory that will be revealed IN us.”

We declare that we are deeply convinced that the battle has already been won through Christ. Jesus has conquered death, and for me the hope of life brings joy.

Joy is not just a theological exercise, something to aspire to, maybe. Joy is a choice, a choice that I made years ago that helped my life to flourish even amidst difficult circumstances.

Nothing about Alexander’s situation screamed of joy. It had all the earmarks of defeating me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But, as I mentioned earlier, joy is a mystery. Even in the midst of some of the darkest days, there was a settled assurance (which I don’t claim to understand) that God was in control, and ultimately He would make this right. How? I have NO idea! Please hear me—I’m NOT declaring I understand why this had to happen. Absolutely not!

But I have no doubt that God loves me, loves Alexander, and there’s a joy in that settled knowing. Even as we prepared for Alexander’s funeral service, I experienced joy as we celebrated what God had done in Alexander’s life, the person God created him to be, and the joy he brought into our lives, as well as many others, if only for 17 years.

Please understand, I still grieve Alexander. Every. Single. Day. But I do so while also holding joy with hope of being reunited with him. Joy and hope are inextricably connected.

One of my favorite authors is Kate Bowler, and she wrote this blessing for those holding joy and sorrow at the same time, and I think her words explain what I am trying to convey to you. I pray that these words may encourage you as you try to onto hold joy and sorrow.

“God, I can’t deny it, the way that sorrow catches up with me and forces me to pay attention. There is much to grieve, so much to lament in the world, in my life, in the lives of those I love. You have shown me again and again that I can look sorrow in the face. Take its hand and talk things over, because it shows me that I love. It tells me what I don’t want to lose. But now, God, I want to learn how to hold joy and sorrow at the same time. So bless us, God, we know that right when life gets heavy or hard or too much, we must carve a path to delight. To do something for no reason whatsoever but joy. Blessed are we who see the art in absurdity. Because life is unexpected and terrible and wonderful and absurd.”

Happiness is never guaranteed, but joy in the life of a Christian is not only possible, but needed. We need to choose joy!

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Three reasons for joy – 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, 25, Part 2

When I was a kid, growing up in church, there was a song we used to sing: “I got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.” Do you remember that song? As I got older, and more mature, I began asking myself of some of the people in my church, “How deep down is their joy? I think it’s lost.” They were miserable people. I think we all know people like this. Where was the joy? It seemed so deep down that it disappeared.

So let’s ask the question “What is joy?” In Margaret Feinberg’s book Fight Back with Joy (she wrote this book after being diagnosed with cancer) she says, “Joy is the hearty echo of God’s great love for us.” I love that definition! Whatever is going on in my life, your life, there can be an echo of joy that’s rooted in God’s love for us. In other words, God’s love is reflected in our lives no matter how good or bad it is at the moment. Kay Warren describes joy as “the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be made right, and the determined choice to praise God in (not for) all things.”

I think there are three basic reasons for our joy.

Because God fiercely loves us. Jeremiah 31:3, from The Message, says, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!” What a wonderful promise – God will never stop loving us! He promises that his love will always be there; it will never end. He “fiercely” loves us. I looked up some synonyms of “fiercely”: “wildly,” “passionately,” “recklessly.” God’s love is not cautious or conditional, but freely given and it endures forever. That’s a reason for joy!
Because God is present. Deuteronomy 31:8, from The Message, says, “God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.” God is ALWAYS with us. No matter what the situation or circumstance, He is there, right in the muck and mess of it all. He is with us THROUGH it, and that can bring joy because of knowing that God never leaves us to live life alone. He’s always got our back.
Because God is for me. Romans 8:31, 37-39 says, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? . . .In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” NOTHING can separate me from God. How can that not bring joy?

Another question I’d like to contemplate regarding joy is how do we hold onto both joy and suffering at the same time? If you remember the beginning of 1st Thessalonians, Paul writes that the Thessalonians have joy even in the midst of their suffering (1:6). How can that be?

It’s important to note that nowhere in the Bible are believers encouraged to deny that adversity brings sadness and grief, but there’s recognition that in the midst of the most agonizing situations the presence of God, through His Spirit, can infuse the soul with hope and the heart with joy. This joy is deeply rooted in the good news of Jesus—we can have a flourishing life here and a future, eternal life with Jesus.

Frederick Buechner says, “Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree.”

I’ve known this kind of joy, and it is a mystery to me. I only know that I experienced it because of my relationship with Jesus that nothing or no one could take from me. More on that in a post later this week.

Joy declares “But if God.” Sometimes God delivers us from, sometimes delivers us through, and sometimes there’s no deliverance, but God is ALWAYS present with us in the mess.

Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Adednego? As Nebuchadnezzer was getting ready to throw them into the fiery furnace for not bowing down to his golden statue, they responded in defiant joy: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your Majesty’s hand. But even if he doesn’t, we want you to know, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).

A side note: one of my favorite Christian songs from the 80’s was Russ Taff’s “Not Gonna Bow!” If you’ve never heard it before, I encourage you to listen to it – it’ll become a fight song for you.

How can our joy abound no matter what? Check back to the next post, and I’ll talk about that further.

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The Apostle Paul’s “Eat Pray Love”-like formula – 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, 25, Part 1

In 2006 Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a biographical memoir called Eat Pray Love. It was later made into a movie by the same name, starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert. Following a painful divorce, the book chronicles Gilbert’s journey around the world immersing herself in the pleasures of food in Italy, spiritual practices in India, and finding balance and love in Bali. She essentially used “eating” as a metaphor for indulging in life’s joys; “praying” for spiritual exploration; and “loving” for finding inner peace. It seems that “Eat Pray Love” was a formula for a flourishing life for Gilbert after her divorce.

We are currently in the last section of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, his final instructions to the Christians on how to live a flourishing life. He peppers them with short commands, and though they are simple commands, theyaren’t necessarily easy to follow. I call it the JOY PRAYER GRATITUDE way of life.

In 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18, 25, Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. . . Brothers and sisters, pray for us.”

We’re going to begin at verse 25, with Paul’s request for prayer from the church, for himself, and his associates: “Brothers and sisters, pray for us.” Paul doesn’t explain why prayer is requested, but there are two possibilities for this request I found.

Paul may have wanted them to pray for his mission, including his return visit to Thessalonica. We know Paul so wanted to return and see the people, the church, he had planted. He tells the church in this letter that he has an intense longing to see them again (see 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:5).
Paul may have wanted prayer for security and safety in the face of so much persecution. We know of the persecution Paul experienced while in Thessalonica, his reason for fleeing after just three weeks time. But in his second letter to the Thessalonians, he asks for prayer that the message would spread rapidly and “that they’d be delivered from wicked and evil people.” (2Thessalonians 3:1-2).

You’ll remember in chapter 1, verse 2 Paul says “we always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. . .” Paul always prayed for the believers at Thessalonica. I love that Paul’s relationship with the Thessalonians was reciprocal: “as I pray for you, you pray for me.”

Now let’s return to the first three verses that I read. In these verses Paul shares three habits that are to characterize a Christian’s relationship with God – JOY, PRAYER & GRATITUDE.

Paul begins in verse 16 with “Rejoice always.” I don’t know about you, but that seems like an impossibility, especially because sometimes life just isn’t joyful; it can downright stink.

Do I rejoice when: I have a car accident; I can’t pay the bills; I get a medical diagnosis; I lose my job; a loved one dies? NO! And I’m going to let you in on a secret: I tend to be suspicious of those Christians who always have a smile on their faces, always appearing happy or say some Christian platitude about being happy even though I know their day-to-day lives are in shambles. Their claim of blessing or joy just doesn’t ring true as it doesn’t acknowledge the mess.

So then, what is joy really and what does it look like?

So let’s talk about it.

I would like to think about three questions regarding joy:

What is joy?
Why can we have joy?
How does one hold both joy and suffering?

Join me back here for the next post, as we begin with WHAT IS JOY?

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When God doesn’t tell us what he wants us to do – 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, 25, Preview

Have you ever had a situation in life when you cried out to God, “Lord, I don’t know what to do. Can you please just tell me?”, and God seems silent? I encountered this when I was in high school in my church’s youth group. I distinctly remember one of the seniors wrestling with the decision about which college to go to. They had multiple excellent options, and they didn’t know how to decide. So they prayed and prayed, asking God to make the decision for them.

God never responded in any clear way.

In the end, that person chose a college. The process of making a conclusive decision was a very unsettling experience because they carried a lingering doubt: “What if I made the wrong choice?” That was 35 years ago, and things turned out just fine for them.

Yet, I suspect many of you sometimes find decision-making and the will of God to be a fraught concept. I have about ten books on my office bookshelves about the topic, and I prefer Garry Friesen’s book Decision-making and the Will of God. Friesen writes about the many wonderful biblical principles for wise decision-making. But still we come across those times in life when we wish God would just break out of the heavens and make it ultra-clear what he wants us to do.

This coming week on the blog will be one of those times. I’m serious. God is going to tell us his specific will for us. Think I’m joking? I’m not. In the passage that guest blogger Debbie Marks will be writing about, 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 and 25, we read the phrase, “…this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

The apostle Paul wrote that. What is Paul saying is God’s will? It is very specific and important. Read the passage ahead of time, and then join us next week as Debbie teaches it.

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Question-asking and kissing in the church – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 6

In our final post this week, Paul describes peace with each other in a church family like this in 1 Thessalonians verses 14-15, “encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

These last few sentences are striking in their otherness. To do what Paul teaches in verses 14-15, it requires us to have an outward looking, selfless approach. To encourage the disheartened, we first must be people who are looking beyond ourselves, looking for other people, and how they are doing. We are thinking about them. Caring about them.

I think about this every Sunday during worship services. Are there new people who are sitting alone? Give up the familiarity of your seat, step out of your comfort zone, push through the feelings of awkwardness, go to them, introduce yourself, and start asking questions to get to know them.

Apply the 60-40 rule of conversation. Ask questions of the other person 60 percent of the time, meaning that you allow them to do the majority of the talking. But 40 percent of the time, you talk. My seminary prof Dave Dorsey taught me this. We might think that selflessness would mandate that we ask questions 100% of the time, so that the focus is never on us. But that would be a very lopsided conversation. Actually that would not be a conversation. A person doing 100% of the talking is a monologue. Relationships are not built on monologues. In fact, if we are only ever asking questions of the other person, then we are teaching them that it is okay for them to monologue. That’s not okay in a conversation. Conversation is give and take. Talking and active listening through asking questions.

Pay attention to how much you are talking. Initiate the questions. If you read through the gospels, you will see Jesus is a master question-asker. He is constantly asking people questions.

When you come to worship services or church fellowship gatherings, look for the people who are sitting by themselves. Instead of sitting at your normal table, go to them, talk with them. Then follow up, and especially follow up outside of this building. Don’t wait for the next worship service or event. Reach out midweek. This is the beginning of living at peach with each other.

Finally, scan down to verse 26, “Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.” What in the world is Paul talking about? Seems weird that he would tell Christians to kiss each other. And what would make it “holy” versus just being a regular kiss?

The kind of kissing that Paul encourages is simply a cultural practice that is still observed in many cultures today. It’s the peck on the cheek, or on both cheeks, and maybe your lips never touch their cheek. It’s an air kiss really. But it symbolizes closeness and friendship and love in the church family.

It is sometimes called passing the peace. And it doesn’t need to be a literal kiss or air kiss. It could be a handshake. A hug. A fistbump. A wave. A greeting of any kind. The greeting itself does not matter. Your culture can determine what is appropriate. What is important is the heart behind it. It is intended to be the signifier of real deep peace-loving relationship in the church family.

In conclusion this week, what do you need to do about Paul’s teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15 and 26 about living at peace with each other in your church family? If you have been disruptive in the past, do you need to apologize? Is there a broken relationship you need to make right? Maybe even with someone who no longer attends Faith Church?

Or do you need to make more of an effort to deepen your relationships within the church family? Do you need to get involved in a group where you can pursue those deeper connections? What is your next step?

Live at peace with each other.

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We are to warn disruptive people in a church family – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 5

What living at peace with each other in a church family assumes that there should only be a very, very few non-negotiables in the church family. Non-negotiables? Let me explain what I mean by that.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love.”? There are three levels in that quote, and I encourage you to view it like a pyramid. At very top, the point of the pyramid, you have the smallest level. Those are essentials. Essentials are nonnegotiable Christian doctrine. What are those essentials?

Jesus is Christ the Lord who is 100% God and 100% man. Jesus rose again in the body. God is Father, Spirit, Son. God the Spirit fills all true followers of Jesus so together they can usher in Jesus’ Kingdom of righteousness and justice in the world.

Certainly, there are going to be differences of opinion even about what should be in that essential level. But I believe what I’ve written in the paragraph above is sufficient.

We have peace with each other in a church family, in unity, by saying there are a few, just a very few, essentials, and thus we can work together.

Notice, then, what I didn’t include in that top essential level. Think about how much can divide us. Catholic vs Protestant vs Orthodox. Does God choose us for salvation or do we choose him? What about baptism and the Lord’s supper? What about LGBTQ? What about the role of men and women in the church?

What so often happens is that these issues lead to division. People disagree and then they form a new denomination or church. It can be difficult to be in relationship with people who think differently from us, who choose differently from us. But that is a church family! We live at peace with each other, even though we might disagree.

I believe that all those doctrinal issues that divide us should go in the next level, the Non-essentials. The quote suggests that in the non-essentials we have liberty. Liberty means we allows others, including others in our same church family, freedom of will to decide what to believe, even if it differs from us. Freedom means we do not have permission to discard the Fruit of the Spirit and act terribly toward those we disagree with. Instead, we agree to disagree in love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.

I bring this up because in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 14 and 15, Paul writes, “Warn those who are idle and disruptive.” Idle means lazy, and I talked about that a few weeks ago here. So let’s focus on the word “disruptive.” If there are people in the church who are being disruptive, Paul says, we are to warn them. Living at peace with each other, therefore, means that we Christians in a church family are not disruptive.

Again, there will be opinions about what is disruptive or not. One person might say “I wasn’t being disruptive, I was just speaking the truth.” They might even say that they were speaking the truth in love. And the truth sometimes hurts. Even communicated lovingly, sometimes the truth hurts. “So,” they might say, “I wasn’t being disruptive, you just didn’t like the truth that I was speaking.”

That gets messy, though, doesn’t it? Just because one person thinks they have the corner on the truth does not mean that they actually have the corner on the truth. Remember how vital it is for disciples of Jesus to demonstrate humility and teachability. We do much better to be quick to say, “Here is my opinion, but I realize it is just my opinion, and I could be wrong. So can we discuss it together?” Invite a conversation, a true conversation, one that doesn’t assume authority or correctness, but is willing to second-guess oneself.

There have been times in the life of the church when those with very strong opinions, those who are not afraid to boldly proclaim their opinions, do so as if their opinion is not an opinion but it is the one certain way, as if everyone else is wrong. That utter confidence is disruptive and has no place in the life of the church family. Even if they are convinced that they are just speaking the truth in love, they are not humble and teachable, they are being disruptive, and they should be warned.

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Christians have been discipled by outrage culture – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 4

It is simply human nature that the people in a church family will not always agree with one another.

Hear what Paul has to say about that in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 14–15, “And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

It seems to me that what Paul suggests is particularly difficult for American Christians in 2025. Why? Our culture has gradually shifted to the extremes. We see this especially in cultural and political ideology. Our society once had a large middle group, where the majority of people, though they might have leaned one way or the other ideologically, they chose to have a more foundational perspective of welcoming different ideas. Even if in the end they disagreed with one another in the middle, they were willing to compromise, work together, have unity for the greater good.

But in the last 20-30 years, there has been a movement toward the polar opposites. To be considered a true proponent of an ideological side, you must hold to the extremes of that side. That extreme view includes viewing the other side as the enemy. “We are 100% right, and they are 100% wrong. In fact, they are not only 100% wrong, they are dangerous, enemies of the state, and thus we are justified in doing whatever it takes to marginalize them, disenfranchise them, and silence them.”

The outrage culture that is present in our society has also influenced Christians. We Christians have been discipled by our culture. We have been taught by our cultural leaders, and especially our political leaders, that it is not only okay, it is normal to be outraged at those who think differently from us.

Therefore, when we disagree in the church, we can be tempted to express ourselves with harsh outrage. I have seen nationally-known pastors and theologians express themselves with that kind of harsh bitterness. Just listen to the podcast The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill to see what I mean. That outrage, that lack of graciousness, that lack of gentleness and kindness is contrary to the Fruit of the Spirit. We Christians should be peaceable inside the church family and outside the church family. We should be gentle, humble, kind, patient, and loving in our own families, in our communities, and in our church family.

The practice of the Fruit of the Spirit gets tested, however, because there are all sorts of things we might disagree about. We are all normal human beings with opinions. Because we have been discipled by our culture to have strong opinions, it has become commonplace for people in a church family to have strong opinions and express them with outrage.

What media is appropriate? What substances are appropriate to put in our bodies? How should we spend money? How many or which church programs and events should the church family be at, and how often? As a pastor, that last one is often on my mind. Too often.

Whether we express it very loudly and publicly, or we express it very subtly and quietly, outrage is outrage.

But when we are discipled by Jesus, we do not give in to outrage culture. Yes, we can have opinions, but we share them for the purpose of living in peace with each other, and we will do so with the expectation of unity and expression ourselves with the Fruit of the Spirit of love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

When we are discipled by Jesus, we do not need to win. We welcome other opinions, always keeping the door open that our opinion might be wrong. That we might need a shift in our perspective or understanding. It is not wrong to have a strong opinion about something so long as we admit to ourselves, truly admit to ourselves and others, that we are open and willing to change our mind. That is a peaceful, humble, teachable attitude.

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Church family peace requires small groups – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 3

What we see is that in early church’s practice of living together, in their sacrificial generosity, they had unity. And that ties directly to the phrase in 1 Thessalonians 5:13, I skipped over in the previous posts. In those previous posts I emphasized “live…with each other.” Paul says, “Live in peace with each other.”

Peace. In the Hebrew, it is the concept of shalom. Harmony. Unity. Wholeness. Flourishing. Jesus said that he came that we might have life abundantly. (John 10:10) That is the kind of life when people are thriving. Not that life is perfect. There will always be hardships. But in the midst of whatever we are going through, abundant, flourishing life, shalom, is when we are thriving.

Paul says that it is in our relationships with each other in our church family that we experience this thriving, this peace. But let me share a caveat. Paul doesn’t mean that we need to have best friendships with everyone in the church family. That is impossible. Even for a tiny church with 10-15 people. Most people can only have best friendships with about 3-4 people.

Small groups of people in a church family, groups that spend more time with each other, are okay. The word “clique” gets used from time to time, describing groups of friends in a church. In my view, it is normal when some people spend more time with each other and become close friends.

Where a group can cross a line into poor behavior is when they are so exclusive they refuse to include others, do not welcome others, do not talk with others, and shun others.

In other words, it is possible to live in peace with everyone in the church family while at the same time having a closer friend group in that same church family.

This is why I encourage you to get connected to one of your church’s small groups. I encourage you to go deeper with the others in your group. It might be a prayer meeting, a men’s or women’s Bible study, or a Sunday School classes. These smaller groups help you enter into relationships and go deeper. To go deeper, though, you must ask the deeper questions. Then you follow-up. Consistently, persistently. This deep caring interest is how we live with each other.

Another aspect of living in peace with one another is the reality that we will not always agree with one another. We’ll learn what Paul has to say about church family disagreements in the next post.

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Christians are to “live…with each other” – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 2

Have you ever heard of the Ephrata Cloister? The Cloister was a group of Christians who practiced communal living from 1732–1934. They viewed themselves as a kind of monastic (celibate) community, with noncelibate “householders.”

Because I live about 20 minutes from the Cloister, I have toured it, and I find it an eerie experience, cult-like. Does Christian theology emphasize the idea of communal living?

This week on the blog, we’re studying 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, and in this post we’re looking at verse 13, where Paul teaches the Thessalonian Christians to “Live in peace with each other.”

I want to focus on the bookends of that phrase: “Live…with each other.” The phrase “live with each other” reflects the practice of the early of the church to view their faith as so much more than a worship service or religious rituals.

That phrase “live with each other,” tells us that we disciples of Jesus are part of a new family. Local churches are properly viewed as communities of people who are living together. Thus being a part of that community involves attending worship services for sure, but there is so much more as well.

Paul is not suggesting, however, that we need to live together in the same building. Christians could choose to live together in the same building. It is not wrong to start a commune. Some Christians through the ages have attempted communal living, and it has had mixed results.

My opinion is that the Ephrata Cloister, while somewhat successful, also veered away from Christian norms in significant ways. Some other communal Christians are the Bruderhoff and the Catholic Worker.

What do you think? Should Christians convert their church buildings into living spaces, sell our homes, and all move in together?

Let me repeat. Paul is not suggesting that Christians start communal living. Instead, he is primarily suggesting that a church family should see themselves as doing life together with each other. Paul’s is an expansive vision.

Paul’s expansive idea of a church family, doing life together, reveals that we can get the wrong idea about what church is intended to be, that it is mostly about what happens in this building from 9am to 11:30am on Sunday morning.

But let me ask, did Jesus call us to run worship production companies? No. It seems to me that a vast emphasis of what churches do is basically a worship production company. Holding worship services with quality music and preaching is not wrong. But if we put an overemphasis on it, it can become wrong, even idolatrous.

We can desire worship experiences that give us emotional charges. Maybe you have heard the phrase, “I want the preacher’s sermons to feed me.” And if a particular sermon is a dud in someone’s opinion, they might say, “I didn’t get fed today.” That is tiny, microscopic view of what a church family is supposed to be. There is so much more.

Think about how expansive the idea is that Christians are groups of people who “live with each other.” That means we care deeply about one another. That kind of deep caring requires that we go beyond just a worship production on Sunday morning. We go beyond reading each other’s social media posts, and maybe clicking “like.”

People who live with each other are spending time together in significant ways, including texting, phone calls, and in person. Being present with the person when they are struggling. Have deep, meaningful conversation, accountability, and sacrificing for one another. Then choose to check in, follow up, care for them, ask how they are doing, especially when they are in need. Which is treating others just like you God would treat them.

A community of Christians live with each other by opening our eyes, arms, and lives to include more and more people. Sacrificing our time and energy to welcome new people. This is seeking ways to regularly, consistently care deeply for one another. We can start by checking in for a minutes each Sunday morning, but we go deeper, beyond Sunday.

The early church is a wonderful example of this. They practiced a very different way of being a church family than what we are accustomed to in American Christianity. For example, read what are two of the earliest descriptions of the early church, Acts 2:42–47 and Acts 4:32–35, and you will see their sacrificial approach for relationships with each other, fueled by their passion for unity. These passages are perhaps the clearest depictions of what a church family should be. And where did they learn to be a church family like that? Did they arrive at that model after years and years and decades of failed experiments?

No. They learned it from the mouth and action of Jesus himself. These descriptions of the church are about people who had walked with Jesus. His disciples. His other followers. They learned from him how to live with each other. They had no buildings, no programs, no Sunday worship services with musicians and preachers.

They had worship for sure. They had preaching and teaching, for sure. But all of that was in the context of a whole life. It seems they lived in their own homes. But they shared life together. They went deep, sacrificially so.

I invite you to evaluate yourself. How deep are you going in your relationships in your church family? How can you go deeper? How often are you asking others in our church family how they doing? Are they struggling? Are they stressed out? Are they are okay? Ask them, then follow up with them. Then repeat over and over.

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How do you handle yourself when you disagree with someone? – 1 Thessalonians 5:13–15, 26, Part 1

This past week, there was an awkward moment during class discussion in a Bible class I teach for a local Christian college. We were discussing Hebrews 10:25 which says “Let us not give up meeting together.” That verse teaches Christians to be committed to gathering together regularly and consistently.

I asked the students if the Christian college was a church, and so therefore, they didn’t need to participate in local churches nearby. They pretty much agreed that while the college is Christian, and it has numerous aspects of church family life, the college is not a church. It is a temporary educational institution with the vast majority of its constituents mostly 18-22 years old. Churches, however, are multi-generational, hopefully lasting more than four years, and with the purpose of the mission of Jesus in the world.

So I asked them, because the local church is so different from the college, and so important, shouldn’t the college, as a Christian institution, require them to attend local churches each week? The college does require them to attend chapel services on campus, about once per week throughout the semester. But the students all agreed that it would be legalistic for the college to require them to go to church. Far better that students exercise their free will and participate in church because they want to.

So far, so good. Here’s where it got awkward.

We then talked about the fact that the college requires students to go to chapel. One student spoke up saying that they felt that chapel this semester had been boring, uninspiring, and they even named one of the speakers they didn’t like.

I want my classes to be places where open discussion and opinions can be shared, and where people can disagree with one another. That student’s opinion is valid. But I shut down that discussion, as I felt that the naming of names was not in keeping with the Fruit of the Spirit. I later emailed the student asking if they had ever shared their opinion directly with the speaker. Jesus taught us to go to the person we have a concern with. But so often that kind of reconciling, healing, restorative conversation doesn’t happen. Instead we get upset, we talk to other people, we leave.

We justify it to ourselves by saying that we don’t want to make waves with the person. But we are okay making waves behind their back to others. Or we keep quiet about our concern because we are afraid to actually talk with the person. And yet, what does Scripture have to say about this?

In the next section of 1 Thessalonians 5 we’re studying this week, the apostle Paul has some really important teaching for us that relates to how Christians can disagree with one another in a healthy way.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash