Peter Barnes: 1 Thessalonians 2:13
SERMON NOTES: PAUL AS GOD’S HERALD (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
- Be thankful when people receive God’s Word.
– 2:13. The Word brings creation (Gen.1); sanctification (John 17:17); and salvation (Rom.10:17).
– 2 Tim.3:15. The word is effective – Isa.55:10-11.
– Paul does not count heads for his own glory, but thanks God that He has been at work – hence, for example, Col.1:3; Phil.1:3-5.
- Paul as a human author.
– 2:13. Paul clearly does not mean that God took over completely and there was nothing human left.
– Jer.7:22-23 means that the sacrificial system was never the main point of the law of Moses.
(a) His letters come from him – Rom.1:1, 7.
(b) His style can be deficient – Rom.1:8. There is a ‘First’ but no ‘Second’.
(c) Rom.8:12-13. Clearly, he meant to go on to say that we are debtors to the Spirit of God.
(d) 1 Cor.1:14-17. God would not speak like this but there is no error.
(e) He writes in a rather dense style (e.g. Ephesians 1:3-14 is one sentence in the original Greek; whereas John, for example, writes with a kind of majestic simplicity (e.g. 1 John 1:5).
- Paul as conveyor of God’s Word.
– 2:13; an explicit claim to be conveying the very Word of God.
– Jer.1:4; Amos 1:1, 3. Paul was aware of the authority he bore as an apostle of Christ – 1 Cor.14:37; Gal.1:11-12. Calvin says that the Thessalonians ‘could rest assured that what they had heard was not the passing sound of the human voice, but the living and efficacious doctrine of God.’