First Thessalonians 2:1-4 The message of the Gospel was not in vain
1 Thessalonians 2:1-4 · Andrew Molloy · Feb 21, 2021
Thessalonians, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261921516403

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we are in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, just beginning the chapter. The message of the gospel was not in vain, is what this is entitled. And I have that hymn over there, that's the, how beauteous are the feet of those who bring the gospel. I just thought that was appropriate to put on the title page for you. for you to look at for today. So here's our verses, one through four of chapter two. For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain.

But after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness of our God to speak to you the gospel amid much opposition. For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just that, going on here with Paul and Silas and Timothy and even Dr. Luke is on this trip. He's on his second missionary journey and we begin with the first highlighted area in Lustre and Derby.

That's where they pick up Timothy, don't they? They meet this young man named Timothy and they want to take him along. Right there in Galatia, they pick up Timothy, they travel on to the Antioch of this Asia Minor, Galatia region. They go up and they want to go into Bithynia.

They want to go up north and I have the arrows saying, they didn't really try to go up there, but just for illustrative purposes, I have those arrows, they wanted to go up there, but the Holy Spirit said, no, you can't go up to Bithynia, up in the Black Sea region, and Thrace region up there. So they didn't. So they just went to Troas, and they just hung out there for a little bit. Didn't know what to do until Paul received the Macedonian call. And there it is in green. And that was a dream of a man saying, hey, come over here to Macedonia. There on your left.

And the peninsula of Greece, northern Greece. with all our cities that we all know and love. Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, they're all over there. So he said, oh, that's where we have to go. So they got on a ship, they went to Samothrace, there's that little island, and then they went to Neapolis. And then they, just the next day, they went right on to Philippi. And that's where we'll kind of begin our, that's in our study today. So we'll look at that. After they go to Philippi, they blow through Amphiopolis and Apollonia or let's see, how would I say, Apollonia, I guess, and then go on to Thessalonica, and then they go on to Berea, and then, as you know, they get kicked out of there.

Paul goes down to Athens and speaks to the, the people of Athens, about all their gods and their square, they have all these idols to every god. And he said, oh, what is this unknown god? Let me tell you about this unknown god. And that's what he does in Athens. So they're not too receptive in Athens. He goes on to Corinth. And then he really stays in Corinth, doesn't he? He stays there for a while. He. makes tents with some friends of his, Oculos and Prisha or Priscilla, and he's dealing, it's kind of neat because he's dealing, he's in Corinth and he's, we're studying Corinthians in the other class, so that's what he's going through while he's checking on Thessalonica, Thessalonica, and he gets word back from Timothy about their status, and he's very happy about that.

So that's just our review of where we're at, and that's in Acts 16, 17, 18 region there. So our first verse this morning is, for you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. and the subject of our class this morning from verse 1 of chapter 2 of 1 Thessalonians. I have this note on my last week's presentation. We will look more into Paul's reception in next week's lesson, chapter 2, 1 through 4. And so here we are, as promised. We are going to look at that because it's in our verse. This reception of Paul, and you remember from last week, the word reception from verse 10 of last week, chapter one, was receiving.

How Paul was received, that's eisodos. It's the opposite of exodos. It's a way in. And so, if you look up at verse one, where it says, Paul says, that are coming to you was not in vain, that are coming to you, that's eisodos again, that's another usage of that eisodos Greek word. So, not in vain means and I don't have the Greek word, I think it's kenos, K-E-N-O-S, but it means it wasn't a fruitless endeavor, nor was it done aimlessly, you know, without any plan.

And we'll look at a lot of that today. I'll kind of tease that out a lot today. If I were to write a commentary myself, the Andrew Molloy commentary, in three volumes for $14.99 available at Amazon booksellers. I'll buy it, Andrew. I'll buy it. Well, and for you guys, I'd give you $5 off, so you pay $9.99. But would you autograph it? Yes, I would. That'll cost you an extra five bucks, Carolyn.

So if I were to do that, I would say that Paul is an expeditionary missionary. Expeditionary is a military term. the Lord Jesus Christ had sent him to Europe to get the gospel to Europe. It's a military-like goal. I remember my brother, Matt, in 2001, 2002, he was stationed in Japan at Kadena, not Japan, Okinawa, at Kadena Air Force Base with his fighter squadron, the 67th Fighter Squadron. And I think he was commanding that fighter squadron. But then the Iraq war broke out, or it was about to break out, so they had to send his squadron over to Saudi Arabia to sit there in the desert and to take on dust and just sit there and learn how to fly the planes in the dust and patrol the southern no-fly zone back and forth, back every day, 24-7. And so when he did that, the 67th Fighter Squadron changed its name to the Expeditionary 67th Fighter Squadron, and it takes on this official expeditionary term.

And that's how I just thought of Paul. in his approach to spreading the gospel. As we know, Paul was on the run from the Philippian Jewish officials when he got to Thessalonica. They most likely, the Philippians most likely sent some, guys down, some spies, to get into the church at Thessalonica and say, hey, this Paul, he's a bad guy. He's preaching a gospel that's contrary to the Jewish customs. So he was on the run. He came into Thessalonica kind of, well, he came beaten and sores from being whipped and things like that, so he didn't look so good. And his reputation preceded him. After he leaves Thessalonica, he isn't necessarily booted, but Jason and the other believers there send him away down to Berea.

The Jews hired the city's ne'er-do-wells to riot in Thessalonica and to stir up unrest and to frame Paul for, and I don't know if it was in, I think it was in Philippi, they said, hey, he's also teaching contrary to the king of Rome. So he's saying there's another king besides the Caesar. I think that was up in, Philippi other than Thessalonica, but they would use whatever they could get to frame Paul. They even took a hostage, if you recall from Acts in Thessalonica, and his name was Jason.

Paul was staying with Jason, and so the believers hid Paul away from these authorities, but they found Jason, and Jason welcomed them in, and they then took Jason as security, so that if Paul ever returned, they would re-arrest Jason and probably beat him, throw him in jail. So Paul, he didn't want to go too far to have people suffer, so he ended up leaving Thessalonica.

And I put, again, if this was my commentary, this is all in God's hands, right? And I just wonder aloud whether Paul's The gospel message and how it was received by the Jews in a negative manner, was that part of God's plan to keep Paul moving on to new cities?

So he would get arrested, he would get beaten. I think it was. So he kept moving, you know, after Thessalonica he only stayed there three weeks or a month or up to six weeks and then he was gone. That might be in God's plan instead of being, oh, Paul was always beaten, you know. So that's just an observation I'm putting out there.

Paul had a systematic way in which he introduced the gospel to a new city. And it was the same, I think, in every city he went to. First, he would go to the synagogue and start with the gospel to the Jews. So he'd find the synagogue. The places that didn't have a synagogue, he would skip, the smaller cities. Ron Merriman said that one time, Actually, before Paul went to the synagogue, he would find the local jail.

He'd go to the local jail, and he would valet his suitcase there, because he'd know he'd end up in jail, so might as well just throw his stuff there. So I thought that was funny. That could be true. So that's in Merriman's commentary, which is funny.

Paul's method, the systematic way in which he preached the Gospel, starting out with the Jews, is described in Acts 17, 2 and 3. And that is the chapter on Thessalonica, right? It says, and according to Paul's custom, he went to them, the Thessalonians, and stayed with them, as we know, three sabbaths, and reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, this Jesus, who I'm proclaiming to you, is the Christ. So, That's exactly what you do.

And what do we do, point three here, is Jean had this cool little 1970s teaching guide, really old from the 70s, and printed in Denver. And she really liked it. This was like a year ago she was reading this thing on Thessalonians. And then she said I should read it.

So I did, and one of the, elements that I took out of this is point three here. It's very. I didn't know this and I found it very interesting. The way Paul did this is in three parts, by reasoning, opening, and alleging. So reasoning is engaging in dialogue and debating and employing dialectics, which are formal arguments.

And he put forth propositions. And then any blowback, he'd refute the arguments coming back to him. And they would do this in the synagogue. Point two of how, I guess this is the Socratic method too, this is how the Greeks would argue, and this is developed in Greece. Point two, he would open the scriptures and explain and expound in the Old Testament scriptures to the Jews. And then three, he would allege, alleging is putting forth solutions to problems, maybe doctrinal problems or problems with the world. And he gave his hearers a body of doctrine. So this is what he would do. He would get to a new city, go to the synagogue, and it was this, I think it was the same every time. He used the same methodology each time. Oh, the passages that he used Paul to reason open and allege in the synagogue were in two parts.

First of all, the first part he would present to him is that he would show them in Psalm 16, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53 that the Messiah must suffer and he must die. you know, this promised Messiah in the future. And here's Psalm 16, just a snippet of it. And you know that wording in Psalm 16, for you will not abandon my soul to shield, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. And that's something we're familiar with even in the New Testament.

Psalm 22, is familiar for the words because Jesus spoke these words on the cross himself. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I cry by day, you do not answer, and by night I have no rest.

So he would present these things to these Jews to get them to open their minds to, hey, the Messiah has to suffer. And then one really important passage of scripture, of course, is Isaiah 53. And we all know that. For he grew up like a tender shoot, and he'd shoot out of the parched ground.

He had no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him. He wasn't attractive. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hid their face. He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore." So there's the picture of his suffering on the cross that Paul would present to the Jews.

The second part of what Paul did is, He would say, this man, Jesus Christ, who was in Jerusalem, I don't know now. 20 years ago, I guess it was. 17 years, we're in AD 50. Christ died in AD 33, let's say. This man, who I didn't know, but I know 12 men who saw him after he rose from the dead, this is the Messiah.

So that was how Paul would go about it. That was Paul's systematic way in which he would preach the gospel. Verse 2 of Thessalonians chapter 2, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel amid much opposition.

So now we're going from Thessalonica, and then because the verse takes us here, it takes us back to Philippi. We'll just look at that. It's just a little historical kind of discussion here. No doctrine, but just for the history of it. So Paul and Silas and Timothy arrive in Philippi after docking in Neapolis.

And they go to a river bank because they figured there'd be a place of prayer there. And there's some women gathered there, so they start preaching to the women. As you remember, Lydia came to Christ. She's the first European convert to Christ. So because they would consider Greece or the area where they are kind of a Europe here.

A slave girl was following around Paul in Philippi and she was possessed by a demon. And this demon would say, they'd yell out and say, these men are preaching the way of salvation, these men are from God, or something to that effect. It was true, but this girl, this demon would follow him for several days, and finally Paul, you know, Paul can lose his temper, so he lost it and he commanded the demon to leave the little girl. which it did, and then the masters, the ones who owned the slave girl, were very angry that their money-making, fortune-telling little girl slave had no powers now, so she was just a regular girl. How were they gonna feed their 401k with her gone?

So they whip up, you know, kind of set the city into a commotion and they drag Paul in front of city magistrates saying he and Silas are throwing Philippi, which is a Roman city, into confusion. And basically they said that they're, Paul and Silas are encouraging Roman citizens to sedition, you know, so they get thrown in jail. Paul and Silas are beaten with rods and thrown into prison. And you get that in this verse two above. You get a feel for what happened because he mentions it in being suffered and being mistreated in Philippi. So this is what happened. Their feet were put in stocks.

They, that night, though, in jail, as you remember, they gave a, they were singing hymns, so Ironside said they gave the first gospel concert that night, he and Silas, to the other prisoners, and it brought down the house, literally. That's Ironside's humor.

Of course, we know that there was an earthquake, and Paul and Silas were able to leave, but they didn't leave. They stayed behind on the count of the Philippine jailer, who was about to kill himself. The Philippine jailer was saved, and they went to his house. The next day, the jailers came in to release Paul and Silas quietly and under the radar. But Paul, I think, if I, again, in my commentary, if I wrote a commentary, I would say that Paul had a good, you know, a good, healthy, righteous temper, and he was incensed at the treatment of him here in Philippi. And it comes through in the verse above, in verse 2.

But what he would do often is he'd pull out his Roman citizenship card, and he's done this from time to time. Paul is a proud Roman citizen. He's a Roman citizen by birth, whereas other Roman citizens often had to buy their citizenship, and it cost a lot of money, but somehow Paul's parents at least one of them was a Roman citizen, making Paul a Roman citizen by birth.

So he says, Paul said to them, they have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, that's us, and they have thrown us into prison, and now they are sending us away secretly? No indeed, but come let themselves bring us out. So he wants the magistrates, the chief magistrates, to come and formally release them, and publicly, you know, and put a little pomp and circumstance to it. Because he's a Roman, and you can know that he uses this Roman citizenship thing to put that out there to so that jailers and these magistrates, they had jobs, they didn't want this to go above this level and they would get in trouble. So Paul would use this very effectively. Ironside says that they want to be released from this jail publicly and formally so that no dishonor might be connected with the gospel message.

So do you agree with that, Andrew? I don't know. I couldn't figure out, to tell you the truth, why he wanted it public. What do you think, Bob? Well, I don't know. I just was thinking you were leading us into a path of how we use our U.S. citizenship maybe to spread the gospel in some way. Oh yeah, right. I don't, I don't really, I don't argue with this, I mean it is what it is. Yeah. I'm interested in how, does this relate to us today or is this something special to be possible, Paul, at the time. I don't know. Oh, right, right, yeah.

And this purpose is just to go through the Axe account, but I just thought that was, I wanted that answered, you know, why did he make it public and why did he uh... uses roman citizenship to to make it public and i i couldn't find a uh... really good react i mean why did you just say all the reason is today great go on our way but there was a there was a reason for you know everything in scripture has a reason so it it might it must be a strategic thing that he was doing and i think ironsides uh... reasoning there is probably correct. And I wanted to bring out that he also in Acts chapter 22, he pulled out his Roman citizenship card and said, to get out of a beating, we're gonna beat him. And then in Acts 25, he didn't wanna be tried in Jerusalem, so he appealed to Caesar. So it's very interesting, Paul was, you know, He's a Roman citizen, and he was a Jew. So he could, when he taught the gospel, he could, and he would reason from this Greek reasoning, this opening alleging, opening alleging, what's the third one that I had up there in the other slide?

You know, there's nothing immoral about this. I mean, yeah, no. And you know, the Lord gives us all a brain, right? Yeah. And we hopefully use the brain to his glory, but we use it strategically in terms of where we're at and what we're doing. And this was circumstantial, but I find it. Well, think of it, if you were a missionary in Russia or Chechnya or wherever, maybe a little dangerous place, and you got arrested, I think I would pull out my citizenship card and try and get to the American consulate and say, hey, do you know who you're dealing with here? I'm an American citizen. And, you know, yeah. And there's nothing sinful about it, I'm sure.

But I want to point M here is I want to just kind of have you think about Paul's stanima and how he could go to Philippi, you know, get beaten, and then leave and go to Thessalonica, kind of rinse, wash, rinse, and repeat, wash, rinse, and repeat, wash, rinse, repeat, get beaten, get thrown in prison, have all these trials and tribulations associated with preaching the gospel, yet he He always got up and did it again. And he endured all this severe mistreatment in a lot of cases. And I just, and in going through the study, I'm really, I have a lot more respect for Paul, not that I didn't, but I mean, what a, what a, what a trooper he was, you know? Okay, verse three of chapter two here.

For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit. And his motivation for preaching gospel and his apologetic for that motivation. So it works out that these Jews would say, oh, Paul is just trying to get money. He's got a shtick. fleece you guys and then he's going to move on to the next town. So Paul has to give an apology, as Macaulay says, to these Thessalonican believers to counteract the malicious lies that the Jews are spreading against he and Silas and Timothy, right? After he leaves Thessalonica, he goes to Berea, as we all know, and they treat him well, he has success there. But the Thessalonican Jewish officials followed him there, too, and they agitated the crowds, just like, you know, the Philippians did.

And so I had this thought come to my mind, I remembered this little phrase in this essay that I read. These Jews were like, and I've quoted it here, like small malignant spirits set to dogs Paul's tracks from city to city. And I like that. I think it really describes his, the negative following he's getting. Little malignant spirits who were always following him, dogging his tracks. So I just thought that was, in my commentary, that would be in there, just as a descriptive way to tell you what Paul was going through.

The word exhortation is paraklesis. And I have always pronounced it paraklesis or paraclete, and that is one who is called alongside or bid alongside someone to help them and encourage them, is the thought there, and that's what Paul is doing. In John, I think it's 14, John 14, Christ gives the description of the person of the Holy Spirit as a paraclete too. I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper. That word helper is from that word proclesis or a paraclete and It's also described as someone who has summoned Paul to one side, especially someone coming to one's aid, and that is really what Paul was doing on all these missionary trips.

Continuing on, verse 3, Paul's motivation, because, and we're talking about his motivation here a lot because Chester Macaulay has a lot of that in his outline, you know, what was Paul's motivation and how was it received by the Thessalonians. So that was a lot of what he was dealing with and his outline. So that's where I'm going with this too. That's why I have a lot of this motivation. motivational morning here, this morning. It's best said in his own words here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 1 through 5, and it's neat that this portion right here, Thessalonians, is dovetailing with what Roger and Mike are giving us in 1 Corinthians. It dovetails very nice, I thought.

And Paul says, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of spirit and of power. And I remember that from chapter one, verse five, the word came to the Thessalonians by the spirit and in power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Boy, if that's not the new nature we have in Christ Jesus.

Yeah, oh yeah, right. And I would imagine that these Thessalonians These new believers were seeing some of the Holy Spirit's power, I mean, real power, too. I mean, seeing some healings. Paul probably, you know, he was preaching in that upper room and that little boy fell out of the window, right, three stories? And he was restored to life. That's power. So yeah, they were seeing some of this power.

The second apologetic that Paul gives for that, the purity of his doctrine and the purity of his motives is from 2 Corinthians 11 here, seven through nine. Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached the gospel to you without charge? I robbed other churches by taking wages from them to serve you, and when I was present with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone. For when the brethren came from Macedonia, they fully supplied my need, and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and I will continue to do so. So that's just, it just answers all the questions we have as to his motivation and his, he wasn't beguiling or anything like that.

Okay, verse four, and I think this is wrapping it up here. Verse four, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. That word approved up there in the first part of the verse is documento, And we here at Holly Hills know that word well. It's to be examined, tested like a metal through fire, and then to be approved. So it's a trial by fire, but with a view towards approval. The word is a passive too, so Paul was dakimatsu'd by God. He was tested by God and approved, and it's a perfect passive. So it's God did it one time in the past and it has lasting results.

You never have to go back and do it again, is the thought there. After the call on the road to Damascus that Paul had, he had, someone said it's about an eight year period of this approval process, including three years with the Lord in the Arabian desert, spent personally with the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul never uses cajolery or flattering speech to preach the gospel. I was just thinking, Andrew, if you spent three years for the Lord in the desert, wouldn't you want to tell people about that?

Yeah. Yeah. And imagine how much, yeah, the full picture you'd know. And I think, yeah, that's where he, I think that's where he got all of his power and his endurance and his dynamo. Because he, he was there. It's really amazing. He did it free of charge, as we learned in the other class in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Even though he could have accepted, had people support his ministry, he didn't. He gave it free of charge.

He didn't ingratiate himself on his hearers. it's interesting that that there's two documentos here in this verse. There's the one in the first part of the verse, the approval process by God, and there's another one in the part D part of the verse, and it's, but God who examines our hearts, and that's also documento. So it says that God at one time approved Paul, passive, perfect in the past, but he's also ongoing testing Paul and keeping him on the up and up and honest. God examining his heart here in the verse is a present active participle. So God is doing it, God is doing the doing and he's doing it actively in the present as Paul goes along from city to city.

And Paul's stewardship of the gospel was the stewardship given to him. And that's, this is an interesting thing, that word entrusted is pisteuo, and it's the same word for our faith, right? Faith, trust, confidence. So God is placing, entrusting Paul with his gospel. So Paul has a fiduciary responsibility to God to preach the gospel accurately and fully and to fully convey God's message of salvation to both the Jew and the Greek. It's passive. God did it and Paul received it. And We learned again in the other class with Roger and Mike that, I think Mike did this particular verse, but Paul was compelled to preach the gospel.

As you see there in verse nine, for I am under compulsion and woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. But if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward. But if against my will, I still have to do it because there he says he has a stewardship that's entrusted to me by God.

And I've never seen that, just thinking about it. I don't know where else in scripture it'd be an interesting study to say, God has faith in something. God places Pestero in, because you don't think of that, you think of it the other way around, us placing faith in God. So I just thought that was interesting and I'm just, I'll let it sit there for a while and maybe someday I'll figure that out, but I just thought that was interesting that God can place trust and confidence in someone like Paul.

So there you go, I think that's our lesson for today. Yeah, Andrew, if you think about it, God is, His wonderful message of salvation has been given to men. It's amazing that He trusts us to, you know, and we have His spirit and His life, but still in an essence, that verse that you quoted from First Corinthians 9 is pretty amazing that he entrusts, even though men are saved, they still have a sin nature and they can be prone to go off on tangents and not, but he still has entrusted it to us. It's amazing. Yeah. And I just found it, I was surprised, but at that word that's in there is pisteuo, you know, the word for faith.

I was having another thought about that, you know. question comes up here in terms of, but if against my will, that makes you think that maybe at times the flesh did enter in some. I mean, the fact that we all still have the old nature, the sin nature in us, I mean, at times he said, gee, you know, I have the stewardship But, you know, I don't really want to do this. I mean, I think it really relates to his humanness, doesn't it?

I mean, Paul is like us. Right. Because one time during those beatings, and he was stripped, and he must have, he must have, that part that against his will, but just knowing that he had that stewardship, probably kept him going, you know? I don't like this, I hate that, and I think he, it seems like what I found is he would, was temperamental, he would threaten people with some Roman punishment if they molested him any more than they were, you know?

Andrew? Yeah. Well, I have a thought. Yeah. About, you know, God putting faith in in paul or or any person um god is the one who empowers yeah so really god knows that he's doing it so yeah so much the person that he's putting the faith in as as in just knowing that he god has has the power to accomplish yeah what's that verse uh he'll have you do his will to do for will to do what's that good pleasure right yeah yeah yeah that's the one i'm thinking of will and to do uh yes yes so he'll he'll make it happen too um he'll he'll do the doing if as long as we're in fellowship and uh walking yeah so um as far as it being astounding that paul kept going he was being empowered Yeah, and especially by the word that he got word that the Thessalonians were doing great, and that probably gave him a boost of energy and renewed energy. But I just think, oh boy, if I were beaten, once I could probably go on, but twice or three times, I might hang up my boots, I don't know. I'm weak, but, you know, it just makes you think, ooh, Paul was a, well, he just really had it. Well, it just gives testament to the power of God.

Yeah, yeah. He supported him and got him through it. And this man who could argue with, in the Greek way, but then go into a synagogue and argue with Jews. And he would say, well, first, he was a Roman citizen. Second, he was a Jew of the Jews. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. His teacher was Gamaliel. He was the top dog in the Jewish world too. So he was a, I think he was a weapon, you know, a weapon that God wielded and all God's power, but yeah, really interesting stuff.

Okay. Thank you. So I'll close in prayer. How are we doing? Yeah, I'll close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the study and we thank you for reviewing these things and the Philippian account and the Thessalonican account of your power and your word flowing through Paul, and may it be with us too as we go about our days and spread the gospel. that you'll give us power and grace in doing that. And we thank you that we can gather here each week and be with us in the next hour. In Jesus' name, amen.