⁹For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. ¹⁰ You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; ¹¹ just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, ¹² so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. (1Thes2:9-12)

Just a reminder that these posts are not intended to be comprehensive commentaries, rather I am selecting passages from each chapter of the New Testament that have a bearing on the broader benign providence I am presenting – either because the text clearly supports it or alternatively because the way it is normally interpreted appears to suggest the narrower binary position usually taken. Unusually, in the second chapter of 1Thessaloneans there is not a great deal in that context to comment on. I have just selected and highlighted (above) a few verses from the chapter which perhaps provide a new slant on some points I have previously made.

 Firstly, Paul’s description of the Gospel being (literally) “the Good News of God” (v9), a term he also used twice in Romans (1:1 & 15:6). This has a certain irony from my perspective, remembering my time as a Calvinist.  For sure, Jesus was “good news” both in terms of His gracious character and especially what He had done for me and others by dying on the cross. But I effectively understood that Sacrifice to be primarily to “save me from His Father” – the awesome Creator who required people to keep laws that as a result of the Fall they were incapable of keeping, even to punish human beings because they failed  to match His own glory! (Rom3:23).

Of course, I never presented God in such a way in my witnessing or during my brief time as a Baptist Pastor. Rather, our God was “ineffable” – incomprehensible to human reason. But it was OK because Jesus had pacified His Father’s impossible demands by dying on the Cross. Now I see it so differently: God the Father is Good News, both in terms of His character and how He deals with humanity. Interpreting the bible as I do now portrays the Creator God to be Love personified – just as the Apostle John affirmed Him to be (1Jn4:8).

As recent posts have been demonstrating (regarding election/predestination) He is just and fair to all. Not in the sense that we all get exactly what is due to us, rather that all shall receive vastly better than we deserve – in view of His wondrous grace and magnanimity. In terms of Father God’s character, it can now be shown to be intelligibly good in every respect – a mirror image of our Lord Jesus Christ’s, or rather, vice versa. The Father’s ways and methods are less intelligible, but that is what I’m seeking to throw light on as far as I have been enabled.

Secondly, a brief reference to how Paul regards himself and his fellow workers: “how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers” (v10). Paul, the chief of sinners? I think not. That statement had been written in the context of Paul’s pre-conversion life. Two verses prior to that he wrote “I, who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1Tim1:13). He was “chief of sinners” because as Saul of Tarsus he had been the chief persecutor of the infant Church. But as a Christian and Apostle he wrote “our exalting is in the testimony of our conscience that in godly sincerity and purity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we have conducted ourselves in the world” (2Cor1:12). That is the Paul to be imitated, just as he imitated his Lord and Saviour (1Cor11:1).

That in turn is how to live a life “worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” (v12). The Christian has been summoned to a destiny beyond anything this world can offer or even imagine: “an heir of God and fellow heir WITH Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom8:17). That, as I am endeavouring to explicate, is the true context of gospel salvation.

The LITTLE BOOK OF PROVIDENCE: a seven-part synopsis of the bible: – available as a paperback from Amazon or FREELY as a PDF file HERE.

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