Self-Pity, or Self in Proportion?
From 1 Thessalonians 2 – 2 But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated in Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the Gospel of God in much conflict. 3 for our exhortation did not come from error of uncleanness, nor was it in deceit.
4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing been but God tests our hearts.
I think it was in The Kid, although Google is failing in its customary function of backstopping my erratic memory. Bruce Willis is a successful consultant. Although he can adapt to help clients in a variety of fields, we quickly find that his fallback counsel is similar regardless of setting. Do you know what the number one killer is of, he will ask, filling in the demographic blank of his audience? His answer is as blunt as it is universally applicable. "Self-pity."
In this case, Bruno's voice sounds a lot like the voice of the Holy Spirit behind Paul's rehearsal of the bond between his team and the believers in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 2:2-4. In our stop on the tour before yours, Paul recounts, it didn't go well. We were spitefully treated. There's a personal element in the rejection of the indwelling of Christ in His messenger and his message that Paul refuses, refreshingly, to discount.
Not only does this intrepid apostle convey that rejection DID hurt while in the environs of Philippi, he shows that Christ's instructions to shake the dust off our feet from an unsuccessful encounter don't mean we never think or speak of it again. The, "as you know," tucked into verse two speaks volumes softly. The bruises on the souls, and maybe on the bodies, of the Pauline team we look back on with something too near veneration were not healed just because they changed ZIP Codes.
The group's response, apparently, in preference to summoned stoicism, was to incorporate the reality of rejection into the Gospel story they told. This hurts, Thessalonica, and Christ is STILL on his throne. Honest vulnerability without Bruce Willis's lethal self-pity. I'll take that by the case.
Yet, since I don't find such sponginess of the soul readily accessible, I want to attribute it to something distinctive in Paul's men or Paul's times. Add another verse to our self-pity song, we warble wistfully and call it worship. We were born too late. By the time we got to drink of the Spirit's juice, it was watered down.
We are left to look back on the "Bible days," and forward to the "Bible days," of eschatology's fulfillment. How convenient, and yet how sad, that we so easily slip out of the responsibility of an opportunity to walk in the Spirit's same power of which Paul writes to these, his soul's real friends!
If we don't adapt easily to the idea that his strength is our strength, Christians, we can at least summon the fortitude to stuff disillusionment long enough to keep reading to the next two verses. If entrepreneurship, as Peter Thiel wrote in Zero To One, is putting one dumb foot in front of the other while the world throws bricks at your head, Paul narrates spiritual entrepreneurship with similar honesty.
Making the message more palatable and less demanding was an option that could have given us more courage for the next encounter, Paul says in verse three. We didn't do that. They dodged the brick at the head, the distractions from their message and mission. We note cautiously that the addictions life offers to temporarily obscure the wounds and inflicts are not all categorized by the DEA. Sulking with and spouting a less demanding gospel is as close as our next disappointment.
If we keep reading as Team Paul kept plugging, we arrive at not How but Who. If we resolve the question of identity, prioritizes pastor Matthew Sink, subordinate questions of tactics will take care of themselves.
Paul digs in here in verse four. We brought you the message as it has played out in our lives, bad Yelp reviews from Philippi and all, because we know who we are. We have been, he trumpets to open that verse, approved by the only Source that matters. We've been approved by God. Check. We been entrusted with His Gospel message. Check. Our ears are tuned to hearing, "Well done," from His lips. Check.
Getting there is marvel enough. Getting there without cheekiness, brusqueness, aloofness, pride masquerading as lofty religion makes me circle back to the human-to human relationships that opened our little section. Since Paul and his guys are not desperate for the approval from Thessalonica they didn't get in Philippi, the friendships they formed there are not tainted by manipulation or coercion.
Conversation about hurts and disappointments can be initiated from both sides, as both the evangelists and the evangelized guide one another to perseverating, insistent hope in Christ. With that alternative, sips from septic self-pity won't be missed.
4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing been but God tests our hearts.
I think it was in The Kid, although Google is failing in its customary function of backstopping my erratic memory. Bruce Willis is a successful consultant. Although he can adapt to help clients in a variety of fields, we quickly find that his fallback counsel is similar regardless of setting. Do you know what the number one killer is of, he will ask, filling in the demographic blank of his audience? His answer is as blunt as it is universally applicable. "Self-pity."
In this case, Bruno's voice sounds a lot like the voice of the Holy Spirit behind Paul's rehearsal of the bond between his team and the believers in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 2:2-4. In our stop on the tour before yours, Paul recounts, it didn't go well. We were spitefully treated. There's a personal element in the rejection of the indwelling of Christ in His messenger and his message that Paul refuses, refreshingly, to discount.
Not only does this intrepid apostle convey that rejection DID hurt while in the environs of Philippi, he shows that Christ's instructions to shake the dust off our feet from an unsuccessful encounter don't mean we never think or speak of it again. The, "as you know," tucked into verse two speaks volumes softly. The bruises on the souls, and maybe on the bodies, of the Pauline team we look back on with something too near veneration were not healed just because they changed ZIP Codes.
The group's response, apparently, in preference to summoned stoicism, was to incorporate the reality of rejection into the Gospel story they told. This hurts, Thessalonica, and Christ is STILL on his throne. Honest vulnerability without Bruce Willis's lethal self-pity. I'll take that by the case.
Yet, since I don't find such sponginess of the soul readily accessible, I want to attribute it to something distinctive in Paul's men or Paul's times. Add another verse to our self-pity song, we warble wistfully and call it worship. We were born too late. By the time we got to drink of the Spirit's juice, it was watered down.
We are left to look back on the "Bible days," and forward to the "Bible days," of eschatology's fulfillment. How convenient, and yet how sad, that we so easily slip out of the responsibility of an opportunity to walk in the Spirit's same power of which Paul writes to these, his soul's real friends!
If we don't adapt easily to the idea that his strength is our strength, Christians, we can at least summon the fortitude to stuff disillusionment long enough to keep reading to the next two verses. If entrepreneurship, as Peter Thiel wrote in Zero To One, is putting one dumb foot in front of the other while the world throws bricks at your head, Paul narrates spiritual entrepreneurship with similar honesty.
Making the message more palatable and less demanding was an option that could have given us more courage for the next encounter, Paul says in verse three. We didn't do that. They dodged the brick at the head, the distractions from their message and mission. We note cautiously that the addictions life offers to temporarily obscure the wounds and inflicts are not all categorized by the DEA. Sulking with and spouting a less demanding gospel is as close as our next disappointment.
If we keep reading as Team Paul kept plugging, we arrive at not How but Who. If we resolve the question of identity, prioritizes pastor Matthew Sink, subordinate questions of tactics will take care of themselves.
Paul digs in here in verse four. We brought you the message as it has played out in our lives, bad Yelp reviews from Philippi and all, because we know who we are. We have been, he trumpets to open that verse, approved by the only Source that matters. We've been approved by God. Check. We been entrusted with His Gospel message. Check. Our ears are tuned to hearing, "Well done," from His lips. Check.
Getting there is marvel enough. Getting there without cheekiness, brusqueness, aloofness, pride masquerading as lofty religion makes me circle back to the human-to human relationships that opened our little section. Since Paul and his guys are not desperate for the approval from Thessalonica they didn't get in Philippi, the friendships they formed there are not tainted by manipulation or coercion.
Conversation about hurts and disappointments can be initiated from both sides, as both the evangelists and the evangelized guide one another to perseverating, insistent hope in Christ. With that alternative, sips from septic self-pity won't be missed.
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