4For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know. 5For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.
Rose garden is not what Paul promised people when he preached the gospel. He didn’t paint a “happy” life to follow. Yes, there would be abundant joy and peace and hope, and the prospect was continuously put forward about the communal love of the family of God. But it would not be a cake walk. He always prepared new believers for persecution. For while the message of the gospel meant internal peace, it destined them for conflict with the unbelieving world.
That is exactly what he did with the Thessalonian believers, and that was their experience. And that was the cause of his anxiety concerning them; their faithfulness in the midst of persecution was not to be taken for granted. They were not just notches in his gospel gun, about which he could write back to Antioch boasting a high number of “saves.”
What is fascinating is that nowhere do we hear of Paul counting the number of conversions he was responsible for. The book of Acts does enumerate the phenomenal results of the day of Pentecost, where three thousand were saved (Acts 2:41). The record shows that “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved,” to the point where the count rose to “about five thousand” (Acts 4:4), and then “many thousands . . . among the Jews of those who have believed. . . .” (Acts 21:20). But Paul was not about counting numbers; he was about people. It was not enough to see people saved; he wanted to see them grow into Christlikeness. If the latter doesn’t happen, then the former is ultimately in vain—that was Paul’s thinking.
Some might object that even if the Thessalonians, or any believer for that matter, fall away because of persecution or temptation, all is not lost because they are still saved. Of course, there is some truth to that, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). Yes, we believe in the eternal security of true believers (see Rom. 8:28–39, for example), but it is a vain ministry that is satisfied with carnal or faithless Christians. Paul’s desire was that they would continue in the faith, love, and hope that was characteristic of their early faith walk. That is the complete package, the whole gospel.
Lord, help me resist the temptation to fall away in the face of difficulties.
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