SPIRITIUAL DIARY FOR 4/15/2014 9:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Thessalonians Reception of God’s Word
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 Thess.
2:13
Message of the
verse: “13 For this reason we also
constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as
the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you
who believe.“13 And now we look back on all this and thank God, an artesian
well of thanks! When you got the Message of God we preached, you didn’t pass it
off as just one more human opinion, but you took it to heart as God’s true word
to you, which it is, God himself at work in you believers! (The Message)”
We are looking at this verse for the second day as I
wanted to use much of Warren Wiersbe’s commentary in looking at it yesterday,
and now today we will look as some of the things that John MacArthur has to say
about this verse, a verse that is very important to all who name the name of
Christ as their Savior and Lord. The
reason being is that it speaks about the Word of God!
The Thessalonians willingly “received” the Word of God
that was spoken to them by Paul, Silas, and also Timothy. MacArthur points out that the word received
in the Greek is “Paralabontes.” “This refers to an objective reception of a
particular message, in this case the gospel.”
He goes on to talk about the phrase “the Word of God
which you heard from us. “Literally
reads ‘A word heard from us out from God.’
The missionaries spoke the words, but those words came from God.” Remember that Paul has used the phrase “The
Gospel of God,” and this is one of the reasons that he used that term as on
many occasions it is referred to as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have talked about how Paul was being talked about
badly by some of those in Thessalonica who were saying that Paul was doing all
that he was doing for himself but of course this was not true. The people who were accusing him of this
could only use human terms as we spoke about in yesterdays SD where we quoted
from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. Paul was not
using human wisdom in talking to the Thessalonians, but he was preaching Jesus
Christ crucified which was nonsense to those who were accusing him, but the
Thessalonians received it with joy and thus became believers. Let’s look at the word accepted as John
MacArthur explains it: “Edexasthe (accepted) connotes an inward
welcome of the message, a
transference from the mind to the heart. Such an eager embracing of what
the Thessalonians had heard indicated that God had granted them faith and
regeneration.” This can be seen from the
text in Acts 17:4 written by the beloved physician Luke. Paul writes in Romans how this happens “10
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the
mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 17 So faith comes from hearing, and
hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:10, 17).”
We also see in this verse that Paul makes sure that it
was not the word of men that they received, but the Word of God, and again we
want to look at 1 Corinthians 15:1, 3-4 to see what it was that they had
received for in these verses we see what the gospel is: “1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the
gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you
stand, 3
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was
raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” This is the Gospel explained in a nutshell
and this is the Word of God that the Thessalonians received and excepted and
not only them but every person who has ever been saved has received and
accepted.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: In my prayer time
each day I pray that God will direct my path and this comes from Proverbs
3:5-6. By doing this I want to have the
wisdom of God directing my life and not human wisdom, for human wisdom is not
what I want to follow.
I desire to put to memory a
verse in Galatians: “20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and
it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now
live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20) This verse shows me that I was crucified with
Christ and so my old nature is dead even though many times it does not act like
it.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “His back parts” (Exodus
33:23).
Today’s Bible
question: “We are laborers together with
whom?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/15/2014 10:01 AM
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