GeorgePWood.com

Every night since my son Reese was born, I have prayed this prayer for him as I put him to sleep: “Jesus, I ask that Reese would follow you from an early age.” Because Reese is three years old, it is easy for me and my wife Tiffany to create the conditions for this prayer to be answered. We attend church, pray and read the Bible together, and model the kind of life we think a Christ-follower should live. But there will come a day when Reese has grown up and must choose for himself whether and how to follow Jesus on his own. When that time comes, I will no doubt be praying with greater intensity.

I tell you this in order to tell you that, as a father, I understand the intensity behind Paul, Silas, and Timothy’s words in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5:

So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain.

Remember the context of these words: According to Acts 17:1-9, the missionaries spent several weeks evangelizing Thessalonian Jews and Gentile God-fearers. At some point, however, a coalition of Thessalonians initiated a mob action against the missionaries and new Christians, the former eventually fleeing the city under cover of night at the encouragement of the latter. These new Christians immediately began to suffer for their faith (1 Thes. 2:14, 3:3). Paul, Silas, and Timothy were worried whether their short, three-weeks’ work among the Thessalonians had laid strong enough foundations for them to withstand these attacks. They needn’t have worried, for the Thessalonians had stood strong.

Several lessons for fathers and mothers–biological or spiritual–who long for their children to follow Jesus Christ:

First, focus on Jesus Christ. The practice of Christianity goes bad when it begins to focus on peripheral issues rather than central ones. The missionaries’ preaching was simple: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah” (Acts 17:3). If you want your children to follow Jesus, show them Jesus all the time.

Second, expect temptations and trials. Following Jesus doesn’t mean an easy life. We are “destined for [trials].” Following Jesus helps us resist temptation and emerge victorious from trials.

Third, keep the lines of relationship open so that you can communicate “encouragement and strength” whenever they’re needed. As your children age, your relationship with them changes. But the goal of your relationship doesn’t. You bear a responsibility of helping them love God, neighbor, and self. This is best done by encouragement, not nagging; by example, not command.

Jesus, may our children follow you from an early age and throughout the ages. Amen!

Many American Christians assume that if they believe and God and do what is right, God will bless them.

Sometimes, this takes the extreme form of the Word of Faith theology, which assures believers that God will give them what they confess. If they confess health, they will be healthy. If they confess wealth, they will be wealthy. Popularly, this extreme is known as the Prosperity Gospel, the Health-Wealth movement, and Positive Confession—or more derisively, Name It and Claim It or Blab It and Grab It.

More often, however, this assumption takes the form of America as a Christian nation. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” Psalm 33:12 says. As long as the Lord is God in America, the argument goes, he will bless America with peace and prosperity.

Whereas Word of Faith theology focuses on the individual, Christian nationalism focuses on the collective. Either way, however, the assumption is the same: If you are good, you will be well.

This common assumption of American Christians is more American than Christian, however. It is not true to the experience of Christians in the New Testament, vast swaths of Church history, or even Christians in the modern day. Indeed, the New Testament at places seems to teach precisely the opposite: If you are good, you will be treated ill.

Consider what Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote in 1 Thessalonians 3:3b–4:

For you know quite well that we are destined for [trials]. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.

We are destined for trials. We will be persecuted. Suffering is the lot of the faithful.

Do you believe this? If not, consider this partial list of the fate of New Testament believers: John the Baptist was beheaded, Jesus Christ was crucified, Stephen the deacon was stoned, James the apostle was executed, James the Lord’s brother was stoned, Paul was behaded, Peter was crucified upside down. Were these men less faithful than we are? Less holy? Less blessed?

Or consider believers around the world who suffer for confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. It has been said that we live in the Age of Martyrs right now, for more Christians were killed for their faith in the Twentieth Century alone than in the previous nineteen centuries combined. Were these Christians less faithful than we are? Less holy? Less blessed?

Or might it be the case that we Americans have confused Christianity and comfort? Have we wrongly identified the American Way of Life with the the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Do we perhaps not suffer because we don’t turn off the TV, put down the potato chips, rise off our couches, and go on some mission for God to win the souls of the lost and relieve the misery of the poor?

I ask these questions not to provide a definitive answer, but to unsettle my comfortable soul—and yours.

Do you ever miss church?

By miss, I do not mean “to fail to be at or present for.” Every Christian misses church in this sense now and again. Rather, by miss, I mean “to notice the absence or loss of.” According to 1 Thessalonians 2:17–20, Paul, Silas, and Timothy missed the Thessalonian church in this second sense.

But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

Being “orphaned” expresses the experience of absence or loss in a powerful way. As orphaned children have an “intense longing” to be reunited with their dead parents, so the missionaries desired to be present against with the Thessalonians. And as an obstacle (death) stands in the way of orphans realizing their desire, so an obstacle (Satan) stood in the way of the missionaries realizing theirs. What a poignant image of unfulfilled desire!

The missionaries also employ a startling set of words to describe their relationship to the Thessalonians: hope, joy, crown, and glory. This set is startling because you would think it described how the missionaries felt about Christ himself. Isn’t he the Christian’s hope (1 Tim. 1:1), joy (Phil. 4:4), and glory (2 Cor. 4:4)? Doesn’t he give us the crown (2 Tim. 4:8)?

But glory is a reflected property. If Christ is glorious, then so are those in him. If we glory in him, then we glory in them…and hope and rejoice.

Two points of application immediately suggest themselves:

First, you cannot love Christ without loving the church. This goes against the grain of much of contemporary culture, which claims to love Jesus but hate Christians. This hatred is understandable. Christians can be an uptight, self-righteous, hypocritical, and judgmental lot: “miserable sinners,” in the words of Thomas Cranmer. But isn’t it uptight, self-righteous, hypocritical, and judgmental to hate uptight, self-righteous, hypocritical, and judgmental people—as if to say, “I’m OK, but they’re seriously messed up”? And didn’t Jesus love miserable sinners and give his life for them (Gal. 2:20)? If you love Jesus, you’ll love whom he loves, and he loves the church.

Second, if you love the church, you’ll notice its absence or loss. You’ll hope for, rejoice in, and glory at the love, acceptance, and forgiveness that are present whenever two or three are gathered in Christ’s name. Alternatively, you’ll rail against the satanic obstacles that keep the church from experiencing and sharing Christ’s love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Either way, you’ll long for a better way of living with people in Christ’s kingdom.

So, do you miss church?

The casual reader of 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 might conclude, at first glance, that Paul, Silas, and Timothy were rank anti-Semites.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way, they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

Christ-killers, Gentile-haters, maximal sinners, and objects of God’s wrath: In the sad history of the Church, Gentile Christians have cited descriptions of Jews such as these to justify their anti-Semitism, discrimination, and pogroms. Words have consequences, and after the Shoah, sensitive Christians can’t help but wince at what the missionaries wrote.

Words also have contexts, however, and we misinterpret them when we read them in light of our history instead of their own.

So, to begin, the casual reader of 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 concludes Paul, Silas, and Timothy were rank anti-Semites. But each of the missionaries was himself a Jew. Paul described himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5). The Jerusalem Council thought so highly of Silas that it commissioned him to carry news of the law-free gospel to Gentile converts (Acts 15:25–27). And Timothy, though the product of a religiously mixed marriage, thought enough of his Jewish heritage to undergo circumcision as a young adult (16:3). If the missionaries hated Jews, then they hated themselves. They did not hate themselves, so they did not hate Jews.

Moreover, though the missionaries wrote harsh words about the Jews who opposed Christ and the early Christian prophets, these words were not their last words. Remember, after all, that Paul himself at one time “approved of their [the Jews’] killing him [Stephen]” (Acts 8:1). (Stephen was a Jewish believer and the Church’s first martyr.) Just prior to meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul was “still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (9:1). And then, this “Christian-killer” and “Gentile-hater” became the apostle of the living Christ to the Gentiles. If God’s grace changed him, it could change them too.

And then, finally, remember that the power-relationship between Jews and Christians in the first century was the reverse of what it became in later centuries. On occasions, Jews who did not believe in Jesus persecuted those who did. Not all of them, of course—for many came to faith in Christ—but some of them. (See Acts 7:54–8:3; 9:1–2, 19-31; 13:49–52; 14:1–7; 17:5–9, 13–15; 18:5–6; 21:27–36; 23:12–22 for incidents involving Paul.) Did this produce in the missionaries a desire for vengeance? No. Instead, they praised the Thessalonian believers for imitating their joyful suffering (1 Thes. 2:14, cf. 1:6).

Love for Jews. Hope for the redemption of enemies. And willingness to endure rather than inflict suffering. These were the missionaries’ attitudes. They should be ours as well.

Every Sunday, Christians gather in churches across the globe to worship God. That worship includes singing, praying, baptizing new believers, receiving communion, and exercising spiritual gifts. One of those spiritual gifts is preaching, to which much of the service is given over.

Why is preaching so important to Christian worship? Indeed, what is preaching? Paul, Silas, and Timothy answer both questions in 1 Thessalonians 2:13:

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God.

What is preaching? The word of God. Why is it so important to Christian worship? Because it is the word of God. As the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) put it: “The preaching of the word of God is the word of God.”

The confession’s statement on preaching is astounding. In a lifetime of attending church, I have heard any number of sermons that don’t rise to the level of mediocre rhetoric, let alone to the lofty heights of a divine utterance. I have even preached a few of those sermons. Is the Second Helvetic Confession claiming too much for preaching? Are Paul, Silas, and Timothy?

Perhaps we can best understand the missionaries’ statement if we interpret it, first of all, as a prescriptive statement, not a descriptive one. In other words, the word of God is what preaching should be, not what it all too often is. This is the besetting sin of preachers: Our sinful proclivities, personal biases, social classes, political commitments, human traditions, self-help solutions, and intellectual hobby-horses distort God’s word rather than being clarified and judged by it. As such, our preaching is merely “a human word.”

But the missionaries’ statement indicates that preaching not merely should be but can be the word of God. They are not setting up us preachers for failure by creating an impossible ideal, in other words. Rather, they are saying both that preachers should and can, on a weekly basis, speak God’s word to others.

How does this happen? It doesn’t happen merely by quoting the Bible. The Pharisees were experts at quoting the Bible, but often missed its point.

Acts 17:1–9 recounts the founding of the Thessalonian church by Paul, Silas, and Timothy. Here’s how verses 2 and 3 summarize Paul’s ministry: “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said.”

The point of Scripture is Jesus. Let me repeat that: The. Point. Of. Scripture. Is. Jesus. If preaching doesn’t present Jesus as the Messiah, the culmination of God’s promises; if it doesn’t offer him as the Savior, the solution to the world’s sin problem; if it doesn’t reveal him as Lord, the model and judge of our own feelings, thoughts, words, and actions, then whatever it is, it isn’t God’s word.

Preaching (God’s word) illuminates the ultimate meaning of the Bible (God’s word) so that people may respond to Jesus (God’s Word).

In the course of a few verses, Paul, Silas, and Timothy compare their relationship with the Thessalonian believers to “young children,” “a nursing mother,” and “a father” (1 Thes. 2:7, 11). Each of these emphasizes one aspect of the missionaries’ behavior. “Young children” emphasizes the innocence of their dealings with the Thessalonians. “Nursing mother” emphasizes their tender care for them. But what does “father” emphasize?

Here’s what the missionaries write:

For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory (1 Thes. 2:11–12).

To this point, Paul, Silas, and Timothy have spoken to the Thessalonians of their relationship “among you”, “for you,” “with you,” and “to you”—where you is a plural second-person pronoun. They were speaking to the believers collectively. But now, in these verses, they speak to “each of you,” indicating their ministry to individual believers. Pastors who minister only to the church collectively—through preaching, for example—fail to minister properly. They must also minister to individuals, paying attention to their unique spiritual needs, progress, and potential, “as a father deals with his own children.”

In what sense is “encouraging, comforting and urging” a uniquely fatherly role? Don’t mothers do this too? But if the motherly metaphor of verses 7–8 is not interchangeable—fathers can’t “nurse,” after all—shouldn’t we also assume that the fatherly metaphor of verses 11–12 is not interchangeable too?

Perhaps in using these metaphors, Paul, Silas, and Timothy were simply building on the prevailing understanding of sex roles in the Greco-Roman culture of their day. Regarding this, Gordon D. Fee writes: “The essential difference between the two metaphors is in this case to be found in the three participles [i.e., encouraging, comforting, and urging], which together describe what the ancients, both Greek and Roman, would have recognized as a father’s duty, especially in the matter of the moral training of his children.”[1] Perhaps the missionaries were teaching something essential rather than merely cultural in the differences between how mothers and fathers relate to their children. Or perhaps the culture vs. essence dichotomy is a false one, with motherly and fatherly roles being shaped by both nurture and nature. I don’t know.

Whatever the case, for the missionaries, the function of the fatherly metaphor had a specific purpose: to train the Thessalonian believers “to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” Christians, in other words, should grow up. Today, they should have grown more than yesterday; and tomorrow, they should’ve grown more still. Pastors—Christians, more generally—should cheer this process along. The goal is not to infantilize Christian disciples perpetually as “our children,” making them dependent on us, but to mature them, making them our spiritual peers, or better, our “brothers and sisters.”

Children. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers and sisters. Different metaphors for different ministries at different stages of life—and all necessary!

As a vocational minister, I constantly hold in tension two thoughts about what I get paid to do:

First, vocational ministry is how I make my living. According to the Bible, getting paid for ministry is appropriate. “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘The worker deserves his wages’” (1 Tim. 5:17–18; cf. Deut. 25:4, Luke 10:7). (I wonder whether Paul compared preachers and teachers to treading oxen to keep us humble and remind us to work hard?)

Second, how I make my living might discredit my vocational ministry. Every now and then, some news show runs an exposé of how much this televangelist or that megachurch pastor gets paid. When I see the multiple homes and luxury vehicles some of these guys own, I have to admit becoming a bit cynical about their ministries. What are they in this for? I begin to wonder.

Such cynicism probably underlies what Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:9–10:

Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.

Remember the history of the founding of the Thessalonian church (Acts 17:1–9). The missionaries (who themselves were Jews) preached peacefully and effectively for approximately three weeks in the synagogue. Then, motivated by jealousy, some Thessalonian Jews who rejected the missionaries’ message “formed a mob,” tried to drag the missionaries before local courts on charges of sedition, but succeeded only in doing that to some of the Thessalonian converts. Alarmed, the Thessalonian believers hustled the missionaries out of town at night. However, they still had to deal with the mob and experienced some kind of persecution (1 Thes. 2:14, 3:3). After a while, some of the Thessalonian believers evidently started thinking, Perhaps those missionaries were only in it for the money.

This kind of cynicism about ministry is deadly to a minister’s credibility and to church members’ faith. If a minister is motivated by money (or power or fame), who knows what he or she will say to get more? And if church members doubt a minister’s credibility, what doubts might they begin to entertain about the gospel’s own credibility? Thus does a pastor’s greed destroy parishioners’ creed.

The missionaries refuted Thessalonian cynicism by working outside jobs: “we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.” I don’t think all pastors need to do this. Paul didn’t think so either. But if we’re going to be paid for ministry, we must work hard and well, lest our lifestyle discredit the gospel.

In sum: Pay for pastors? Appropriate, but potentially dangerous.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy used three metaphors to describe how they acted toward the Thessalonian believers: “young children” (1 Thes. 2:7a), “nursing mother” (v. 7b), and “father” (v. 11). Each of these emphasizes one aspect of the missionaries’ behavior. “Young children” emphasizes innocence. “Nursing mother” emphasizes the missionaries’ in-it-together-ness with the Thessalonians. And “father” emphasizes the goals they were trying to accomplish.

I recognize that discussion about sex roles in America is contested ground, so I want to tread lightly on the differences between mothers and fathers. Nevertheless, it seems to me that that there is a basic difference between the ways moms and dads relate to their children. It is this: Mothers relate to children as “insiders,” fathers as “outsiders.”

A mother carries a child in her womb for nine months. She eats for two. Her health is affected by her baby, and her baby’s health is affected by her. She endures hours of agonizing labor to deliver her baby into the world. Then, as one of her first maternal acts, she brings that baby to her breast and nurses it. This is what I mean when I say that mothers relate to their children as insiders.

A father, on the other hand, is an outsider. He is responsible for but external to the mother-infant relationship. He doesn’t have a womb in which to carry a child. He doesn’t eat for two (although he may experience “sympathetic weight gain”). He watches as his wife endure hours of agonizing labor to deliver their baby (often being reminded, “You did this to me!”). He gets to cut the umbilical cord that has linked mother and child for nine months. (Talk about a highly symbolic act!)

The distinction between insider and outsider relationships leads to a startling insight: A father gives his child what he has, but a mother gives her child what she is.

I’ve waxed philosophical long enough. Let’s get back to what Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote: “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (2:7b–8).

Like good fathers, the missionaries gave the Thessalonians what they had: “the gospel of God.” And as good fathers, they encouraged, comforted, and urged the Thessalonians “to live lives worthy of God” (2:12), a topic to which we’ll return later. But—and this is where the “nursing mother” metaphor kicks in with force—the missionaries shared “our lives as well.” They gave what they were.

There is a lesson here for ministers in particular and the church in general. If we give people what we have but not what we are, they get a creed but not a life. If we give people what we are but not what we have, they get an experience but not a theological reference point. We need both doctrine and experience, “gospel” and “life.” Perhaps that’s why, as Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote, we need mothers and fathers.

In lieu of The Daily Word, and in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I am posting a video and the full text of his best-known speech, “I Have a Dream,” which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on August 28, 1963.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

The problem with Christianity is not Christianity—let alone Christ!—but Christians.

Our walk too often undermines our talk. Our faults cast our faith in a negative light. We rightly strive to defend the truth of the evangel, but that effort comes to little when we evangelists are not trustworthy.

This is not a new problem. It seems that some of the Thessalonians entertained doubts about Paul, Silas, and Timothy. They believed in Jesus Christ with “deep conviction,” and their faith became “known everywhere” (1 Thes. 1:5,8). But because the missionaries left Thessalonica just as the believers there started to experience persecution (Acts 17:5–9; 1 Thes. 2:14, 3:3), some of those believers began to think that perhaps the missionaries had ulterior motives in preaching the gospel to them.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy responded by reminding the Thessalonians what their time among them actually looked like. They appealed to the Thessalonians’ memories of their behavior and preaching using the phrase, “you know” (1 Thes. 1:5; 2:1,2,5,11; 3:3; 4:2; 5:2). In 1 Thessalonians 2:1–7a, the missionaries demonstrated what their ministry among the Thessalonians was not like. We’ve already looked at 2:1–2, so let’s take a look at 2:3–7a:

For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking from praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children[1] among you.

In his commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Gordon D. Fee outlines the syntax of the Greek text of these verses this way[2]:

Vv. 3–4         For our appeal was

not based on error

nor on impure motives

nor with guile

but as those approved by God

thus we speak.

Vv. 5–7b      For we came

not with flattery

nor with a mask of greed

nor by seeking human praise

but we became “infants/little children” in your midst.

Notice all the not and nor statements in verses 3–7a. Turn these into positive statements, and you have a list of suspicions that even people today have about Christians. Christians—so the complaint goes—are in “error,” have “impure motives,” are trying to “trick” the gullible. They use “flattery,” but behind their smiling faces are “masks of greed” and or a desire for fame (“human praise”).

The only refutation for such suspicions about Christians’ motives is the one Paul, Silas, and Timothy gave: “You know.” Do people know you? Are you authentic with others? Does your manner of speech and style of life prove your innocence of ulterior motives? If not, they can’t hear what you say about Christ, for your walk is louder than your talk.

Christians, don’t let your life refute Christ’s message!