1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

As I began to work through this short passage I was struck by a handful of things, not the least of which was the trio of phrases, “work produced by faith…labor prompted by love…endurance inspired by hope.”

First of all, however, I think we should take notice again of Paul’s thanksgiving. He notes that every time he is reminded of the Thessalonians he is thankful for them. It might be hard for us to imagine the kind of encouragement this was for the young church. The were not that old in their faith, Paul and his group had by now all left them, and they were suffering “severe persecution.” In the midst of that, their founder writes and tells them that he is extremely thankful for them! We do not often think of thanksgiving as a spiritual discipline, but it is. It is a practice we find all over the Scriptures, and it is one of those exercises which makes us more like Christ and less like our own sinful nature. Being thankful makes us humble and less self-centered; and being thankful encourages others. We might have thanked God for something recently, but when was the last time you did what Paul does in our passage? When was the last time you told someone you were deeply thankful for them and why?

Practice thankfulness and thanksgiving!

Concerning this trio of ideas, we have a familiar list produced by Paul-faith, love and hope. We likely know of this same list in 1 Corinthians 13:13, but it appears a few more times together like this. Another is in Colossians 1:3-5. Each time it appears together like this it seems to put across a kind of short-hand for, “you are functioning the way you should be functioning.” Paul, then, is commending the Thessalonians in large part because the word he had preached had its intended result. They were more faithful, loving and hopeful.

In the Bible Study itself, we delved a little more into the specifics of faith, hope and love, but here I want to ask a question that I think is posed by the text of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. One thing we will discover is that though there appeared to be a large segment of the church which had responded well to the Gospel (and specifically the doctrine of the End), there seems to be a significant group which did not. We find one group characterized by faith, hope and love, and the second group characterized by anxiety, fear and sloth.

How does that happen? How is it that the same group of people hears the same message at the same time from the same person and is split into diametrically opposed reactions?

What I think we find in the text is that the difference begins and ends in the life of the believer’s mind. When Paul addressed those who were fearful and slothful, he not only dealt with their inappropriate behavior, he tried to correct their thinking about the doctrine. The reason we have a lot of end-times doctrine in these two books is because so many people were behaving badly.

Maladjusted thinking leads to maladjusted behavior. To readjust behavior, you must begin by readjusting thinking.

The first crowd was responding correctly to the doctrine because they grasped it well. So Paul only needed to commend them and encourage them to continue. The second group needed to have their behavior dealt with, so Paul condemned the behavior and tried to re-teach them.

The recent trend in evangelicalism of neglecting the life of the mind is leading to disastrous consequences. Many well known surveys make the point that the behavior between believers and non-believers is indistinguishable. Why? At least part of the reason is that most American Christians have quit letting the doctrines of God flood their minds and souls. They really don’t know or understand God, so how can we expect their behavior to be Godly? If Paul corrected thinking about doctrine in order to address poor behavior, I think that strategy is good enough for us as well.

1 Thessalonians 1:1

I. Background

It is profitable, and I think exciting, to take a big-picture look at Acts 15, 16, 17 and 18 as we begin this study. These chapters contain parts of Paul’s second missionary journey beginning with the conclusion of the Counsel at Jerusalem in Acts 15. From there Paul and his new partner Silas return to Asia Minor and begin to retrace Paul’s steps. Along the way they pick up a young man named Timothy, and the narration changes from “he” to “we.” For the next few chapters the group that is along for the missionary journey is comprised of (at least) Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke.

By the time Paul reaches Corinth, he has suffered persecution in Thessalonica and Berea, and frustration in Athens and Corinth. We get a glimpse of his mindset in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 where he tells the Corinthians that by the time he got there he was resolved to speak nothing but Christ and Him crucified. He had decided that no matter what he did it would bring difficulty in his path, so he might as well preach Christ alone.

While he is in Corinth, Paul receives word from Timothy about the state of the church in Thessalonica. Apparently the word was relatively good. When Paul opens the epistle to the Thessalonians, he is thankful for their steadfastness and their faith. We can imagine Paul breathing a little fresh air as he hears that the last trip through all the persecution and difficulty had been worth it for the Thessalonican church.

II. Dating

Dealing with the dating of a book in the Bible is often tedious and boring work, but 1 Thessalonians has a certain payoff. Given some of the dating we are able to line up with secular history (as a result of Acts 18 and Paul’s trip to Corinth), many have concluded that 1 Thessalonians was written about 50 AD. What is interesting about that number is that, along with Galatians, 1 Thessalonians is likely the earliest written record we have of Christianity.

Look at it this way. In the Gospels we have the life and words of Christ. In the epistles what we have are the records of the apostles and the early church struggling to interpret and apply the life and words of Christ. When we read 1 Thessalonians, we are reading this process in its rawest of forms. In essence, the apostles were working with the same issues we are. We want to know what it means to be a Christian in our world-how does being a Christian make me different? That is exactly the issue Paul and the other apostles were addressing when they wrote to people who were pagan Greeks or Orthodox Jews just months before.

What makes me a Christian, and what does being a Christian make me?

III. 1:1

In this small verse we should pause and pay attention to what we might call Paul’s “assumptions” about the church. The first I want to mention is that he labeled the church as being “in God the Father.” The word “in” carries with it not only the sense of belonging to God, but dependence on God as well. The church begins and ends with God. There is a great deal of pressure in our culture to reshape church in anthropocentric terms-to make people the focus of church in inappropriate ways. Paul’s vision is very different. The church is always theocentric. It is always about and for God and everything else flows from there. The church exists because of the will and work of God, and for the will and work of God. Os Guiness put it this way when he said that when we make the masses sovereign instead of the message, we have lost the focus and purpose of the Church.

And then there is the “tag line” of “Grace and Peace to you.” With phrases as common and simple as this one, it is easy to gloss over it and loose its intended impact. These terms for Paul have theological content, and are not simple greetings. One way to look at this line is as if Paul is saying, “I pray that God’s work among you would continue (grace), and that the natural consequences of His work would take hold (peace).” I want to leave off my thoughts with a passage from Isaiah about peace. I love this passage in part because it gives me a condition-it gives me something I can check in my life to see whether I am succeeding or falling short of the goal.

Isaiah 26:3 (ESV)
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.

Ruth 4

Ruth 4

Ruth chapter four opens with the dawn that closes chapter three. In the middle of the previous night, Ruth and Boaz had their encounter and proposal of marriage. Early that morning Ruth returns to Naomi, and Naomi declares that the sun will not set again until Boaz has settled the matter one way or the other. In the misty dawn of that very day while Ruth and Naomi celebrate their possibilities, Boaz is on his way to the city gate.

It is there where Boaz will be able to official transact the business which has to do with not only Ruth’s status, but Naomi’s land as well. As he is on his way, he sees the kinsman-redeemer he referred to in chapter three, and he calls him over to the gate. Interestingly, he does not give him a name. Clearly he not only has a name, but Boaz would have known it. They were related, after all. So why no name? Given the laws of redemption and levarite marriage, the fact that his unnamed man does not follow through on his duty to his family would lead to disgrace. Or as the NIV puts it, his would then be known as the “Family of the Unsandled” (Deut 25). So we may guess that the author has spared this man’s family from lasting shame by not naming him. Another guess is that it is a kind of subtle judgment on his refusal to marry Ruth. The man tells Boaz that if he marries Ruth, his own family line would be thinned, and he is not willing to do that. In order to save his own family name, his name is lost forever. We all know Boaz and the extraordinary deeds he performs, but none of us know that other guy who refused to show hesed to Ruth and Naomi.

This portion of the story provides a good place to talk about Christ in the pages of Ruth. First, a word of caution. Looking for types in the OT is a fun and sometimes rewarding process, but it can easily be taken to extremes. There are a few types we know for sure are in the OT because they are mentioned in the New, and there are a few which are pretty obviously types, but are not specifically mentioned as such in the New Testament. The book of Ruth falls into the second category. Because of its typology, many have gone a little overboard with finding details in the OT text and allegorizing them into the Gospel account. I would warn against doing that for a couple of reasons. First, it obscures the intent and message of the original text, and second, because it becomes rampant speculation and has little to no grounding in Scripture.

With all that said, this vignette in Ruth is probably the clearest type of Christ and our relationship to the Law in the book. In essence, before Boaz is able to redeem the land and take a gentile bride, the first kinsman-redeemer had to be shown inadequate to the task. Relating that to the Gospel, what the Law was unable to do, Christ did. The Law exists to prove to us that we need a savior, and that it is unable to be that savior. Romans 3 and 8 make that point clearly. Another interesting passage regarding this relationship between us, Christ, and the Law is Hebrews 7. In that chapter, the author of Hebrews is pointing out that Christ had to come because the Law was “set up to fail.” We needed an indestructible priest, not one we had to replace every generation.

Additionally, the issue of Boaz and Christ being kinsman-redeemers is important. One of the great Christian minds, Anselm, wrote a work in the Middle Ages entitled, “Why the God Man?” His answer, in a nutshell, was that God needed to come to earth in human flesh in order to redeem us. (Redemption simply means, “to buy back,” “to restore to original state.”) Hebrews chapter 2 makes that point. Christ came in human flesh and was honored to call us brothers.

What an amazing thing, that God would condescend to human flesh just to bring us back to where He intended us to be-back to what he created us for!

So, back to the story of Ruth.

I find it telling that the book opens and closes with Naomi. Ruth and Boaz have a child, but the child finds itself on Naomi’s lap. In addition, the women of the town are calling it Naomi’s child. This is appropriate and telling in a couple of respects. First, Boaz fulfilled his levarite responsibility by “giving” the child to Naomi and her deceased family. Secondly, it continues to highlight the amazing hesed Ruth is showing Naomi. Through the kindness and humility of Ruth, we find a completely restored Naomi at the end of the book. Not only is her belly filled, but now her home is as well.

Sometimes God puts a similar kind of call on our lives. We are all called to be priests-we believe in the “priesthood of all believers”-and we are all called to serve God’s kingdom on earth somehow. And from time to time it requires a Ruth-like willingness to fade into the background while God works amazing things in the lives of those around us. Recall that up to this point, Ruth was a widow in a foreign country. After her marriage to Boaz she could have left Naomi and taken the child as her own. That would have been nice for Ruth, but it would have obstructed what God wanted to do for Naomi. The kind of act taken by Ruth was not only a key component to God’s work in another’s life, but it took a lot of humility. Not everyone is willing or able to fade into the background while all the attention seems to be headed in the direction of another.

Take for instance Augustine. You have probably heard of Augustine-one of the luminaries of Christian theology and philosophy almost 2000 years after his death. But have you heard of Bishop Ambrose? If you have read The Confessions, you have. Augustine credits a lot of his spiritual journey toward Christ, and then toward maturity to the influence of Ambrose. Without a person willing to minister in Ambrose’s position, we might not have someone like Augustine.

God may not make us all fulfill that kind of role with our life’s work, but I believe from time to time we all need to fade into the background and allow God to do something wonderful in someone else’s life.

Ruth 3

This chapter poses a couple of difficulties from the outset for a Bible Study. First, it seems fairly straightforward and possibly even mundane on one level. It is a story of a marriage proposition, and a short one at that. Secondly, it is loaded with sexual tension, and intentionally so. So what are we to make of this plan concocted by Naomi and enacted by Ruth?

I want to address the second issue first so we will be able to give ample attention to the first. Naomi’s plan is an infamous one. Chapter three opens with Naomi deciding that it is time for Ruth to settle down with the man who will not only be able to provide Ruth with a stable home, but will also possibly provide Naomi with a renewed family hope. The implications of a marriage between Boaz and Ruth are not lost on Naomi. In the midst of explaining her plan to Ruth she calls Boaz, “a kinsman of ours” (vs. 2). Recall that the point of the Levarite marriage was to continue a particular family unit, not just the broader family name. When the brother dies and the brother-in-law and the widow give birth to a firstborn, that firstborn belongs to the deceased brother and not the brother-in-law. Naomi is on the verge of having her family restored to her.

So in order to accomplish this goal of a marriage between Ruth and Boaz Naomi suggests a plan of action that contains a few distinct components. First, Ruth should go and find Boaz at the threshing floor. Second, she should remain hidden until she can deal with Boaz one-on-one. Third, she is to uncover his feet while he sleeps in order to gain his attention and make the proposal. There is no getting around the fact that this plan has plenty of sexual innuendo built into it. First, when women and threshing floors are put together, the Old Testament sees that as a common situation for prostitution (e.g. Hosea 9:1). Secondly, the phrase “uncover his feet” is very similar to other euphemisms in the OT which pretty clearly intend to convey genitalia and sexuality. So, did Ruth and Boaz have a sexual encounter that night (and, more to the point, was it intentional)?

I want to make a couple of points about this aspect of the story. Recall that the book of Ruth is best described as a “short story,” and is a well-crafted one at that. I believe the physical tension built into this chapter serves the story by furthering the romance and relationship between Ruth and Boaz. There is more than just a marriage of family honor at stake here. There is real physical and personal chemistry involved. We are to believe that their relationship is the complete package of family ties, legal and cultural code, and intimate love.

As for the direct question itself, I think the text clears up the tension a little later on when Boaz responds to Ruth’s proposal. In verse 11 Boaz refers to her as a woman of “noble character.” Despite the cultural differences between the modern reader and ancient Israel, fornication would have been an ignoble thing in Boaz’s eyes. I am not so sure Boaz would have referred to her as noble if she had played the prostitute that night. Secondly, when he encourages her to stay the night, the text could have used any other phrase laced with sexual overtones, but it uses a rather mundane phrase for “lodge here” for the night. And finally, Boaz encourages Ruth to leave the threshing floor before anyone else wakes up and realizes there is a woman there, thus protecting her noble character from the allegation of prostitution.

After the study, a member of the group brought up an interesting point. It might be possible that Naomi was still thinking more like a Moabite than an upstanding Israelite when she concocted the plan for Ruth. In essence, it is possible that Naomi’s intent was sexual in nature, but Ruth’s execution of the plan was not.

As for the story in chapter three itself I would like to briefly discuss Naomi and Boaz in relation to their prayers for Ruth in chapters one and two, and them Naomi herself and her metamorphosis since the end of chapter one.

When Naomi tells Ruth it is time for her to “try to find a home for [Ruth],” it conjures up images of her prayer for Orpah and Ruth in chapter one. There, on their way back to Bethlehem, Naomi releases them with the prayer, “May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband” (vs. 9). The phrases, “find a home” and “find rest” are similar to each other, and the second is intended to make us recall the first. In Ruth’s request to Boaz we read these words, “spread your garment over me” (vs. 9). Here, Ruth has turned Boaz’s prayer in 2:12, “May the LORD repay you…under whose wings you have come to take refuge."

In both cases, we find that God has begun to use the people who prayed over Ruth as instruments toward the fulfillment of those prayers. In a sense, Naomi and Boaz have become the answers to their own prayers. I think from time to time when we pray for things or for people, we inadvertently imagine that God will accomplish our prayer behind the scenes in some kind of mystical and quiet sort of way. As we see with Naomi and Boaz, though, God will often use us to help bring about the answers to our prayers. Be alert as you pray-God may be at work in you to do what is in your hand to do!

And finally, I want to turn our attention to Naomi one more time. At the end of chapter one, we saw an embittered woman who considered God her enemy. Chapter two opens with her conspicuous silence. She was in a position to help Ruth, but she does not. Then as chapter two closes, we see a glimmer of hope in Naomi. And then with the opening of chapter three, we see a fully-engaged Naomi who sees potential for her family and for Ruth as a result of Boaz’s kindness. She is now ready and willing to get involved with the rest of the world, and ultimately, with God’s plan for her and Ruth. Ruth and Boaz’s kindness and godliness have given Naomi hope, and hope has changed her.

Hope is a Christian virtue we do not talk about often. We discuss faith and love, but we do not tend to ponder hope. Christians are often chided for having a kind of “pie-in-the-sky” view of life because of our need to be hopeful. It is assumed that to hope is to believe that everything will come up roses, or that we will always get the raise, or things will always go our way. I think it is interesting to note that the one book outside of Psalms which deals the most with the idea of hope is Job. In that book, Job and his interlocutors pray for hope, cling to hope, deride hope, and reflect on hope. Although Job’s life is restored to him, it is during the trial that he tries to come to terms with his hope in God.

What is hope from a biblical point of view? I think one way of seeing it is that hope is the deep and abiding hope that God’s plan is always right and good. (Keep in mind how I am not using “good.” “Good” in this context does not mean anything like “easy,” “comfortable,” etc.) It is deep and abiding because it touches every aspect of our lives and is stronger than any trial we endure. For further reflections on hope, I want to refer you to another blog of mine.

To bring this brief reflection on hope back to the book of Ruth, I want to reference Psalm 119:74, “May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word.” People can be changed because of the hope they see in us, as individuals and as a community of believers. Have you lost hope? God, in His unceasing grace and love will work to restore it. Are you a touchstone for other’s hope? Are they able to see you and rejoice because you have put your hope in God’s word?