08 How to Deal with Difficult People at Church (1 Thessalonians 5:12-28)

Krisan Marotta: Good morning and welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the eighth talk in my series on Paul's Letters to the Thessalonians. We will be studying 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 12 through 28 today. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. They contain an outline of the main points and links to everything mentioned in the talk. You can also find the lecture notes by going directly to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Thessalonians 8. I am really glad you joined us today. We're going to finish Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians today. Just a review, Paul wrote this letter to a young church. He is encouraging them to persevere in the faith because they are facing persecution from outside the church and some strife within the church. He closes this letter with what may seem like a random series of comments or exhortations. At first reading, it may seem like Paul is listening whatever good advice comes to his mind as he closes the letter. However, I think there is some coherence to this section, and as we get into it, I think you'll see that all of these commands concern how the Thessalonians relate to each other as a church or as a community. Remember, the Thessalonian Church is a diverse group. It was made up of Gentiles, Jews, and God fearers, both the rich and the poor. This diverse group of people have all come to faith in Christ, and now they're struggling with how do we get along with each other. They're facing a great deal of persecution from outside the church, and how are they going to deal with all the problems they're facing inside the church as well? So I don't think this is an arbitrary list of good things to do. Rather, I think Paul is speaking to problems that he's aware of in this young church, probably because Timothy has reported these issues to him. We're going to walk through the passage. We're going to start with 5, 12, and 13. But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. So the first thing we see is that Paul starts this section by admonishing them to respect those who labor among them. And I think he means the people in church leadership. They are those that have charge over you in the Lord, and they give you instruction. And the first thing he does then is encourage the church to respect and appreciate those in charge. What's striking to me is the second sentence where he says, live in peace with one another. Paul doesn't give any indication that he's switching topics from respecting your leaders. So that raises the question, how does respecting your leaders and teachers relate to living in peace together? The fact that he encourages them to peace suggests that there was some strife in the group. There probably were some tensions in the church. It's a very young church. It's only been together about a year or nine months since Paul visited them and found his first converts. When he was in Thessalonica, he preached in the synagogue for about three weeks, and then they kicked him out, and then he spent a few more weeks speaking to the Gentiles. A group of people responded to his message and has formed this church, but also a large group was hostile to the gospel and ran Paul out of town. So this church community has been together as a Christian community less than a year. Those who were put in leadership are probably still fairly young in the faith themselves. We could imagine that they're still in the process of figuring out how do we do this church stuff? How do we live as a believing community with this external opposition that we're facing from our city and our town? As we're going to see, this idea of being at peace with one another is going to extend through the section. We don't know exactly what was going on, but we can speculate. Some people may have been balking at the church leadership or they wanted a different leadership, or perhaps they were complaining about the decisions being made. They want their leaders to do more of something or less of something else or just do things differently. And Paul is encouraging them to think of their leaders not in terms of power, but in terms of service. Think about your own church experience. It's really easy to view those who are in charge as the center of power. When leadership makes decisions we don't like, there's often a power struggle as those who complain or those who have different ideas struggle to get the power in their own hands. It's not hard to imagine that this might have happened in Thessalonica because we see it happening in churches today and we've seen it throughout history. It seems to me that Paul is suggesting your teachers and leaders are not the ones with power. They're the ones who are serving. They labor among you. Think about your leaders in terms of the service they're providing. They are laboring to give you instruction in the gospel. Live at peace with one another. I think the idea is to avoid the power struggle. It's peace as opposed to strife. They are laboring to give you instruction in the gospel, which is a great thing. Power struggles focus on this world. They focus on the here and now. It's easy to get into power struggles if you're focusing on how things are working out right now on Sunday mornings, or how our corporate time is spent, or how our money is spent, or which songs we're going to sing, and so on. That's all the stuff of here and now. When groups start fighting over the stuff of Sunday morning and which ministries get funded, which ministries get announced during the service and which don't, then we start seeing all these turf wars and these power struggles. I was the women's ministry director of my church for over 20 years, and believe me, you can see a lot of power struggles in that job. Fortunately, I was a volunteer, and no one in our leadership perceived women's ministry as having any power whatsoever. So we kind of watched the turf wars from the sidelines and quietly carried out our ministries, trying not to be drawn into the battles. No matter where you're serving, it's easy to take the attitude that we have all these troubles, whatever they are, because the leadership is not doing the right thing. They have power and authority and they aren't using it right. And that's the kind of attitude Paul is addressing. He's speaking to the congregation and he's asking them to focus on the eternal issues. He's saying, your leaders are trying to help you see the truth of the gospel so that you might embrace it and save your soul. Good leaders help you learn the truth and teach you and encourage you to live it out. They're trying to save your soul, and that makes them worthy of respect. Now, hopefully, every church leadership focuses on teaching the gospel and encouraging others to live in the light of that truth. Paul doesn't seem to be calling out the leadership here, so I would assume they're doing a good job. In my humble and limited experience, the more church leadership strays from teaching the gospel, the more power struggles there are. Because as leadership branches out into other areas, they start stepping on people's toes and undermining other people's pet projects and so forth, and then all the fighting gets started. So, in my good for nothing opinion, church leaders ought to focus on instruction in the faith and teaching the gospel, teaching the scriptures word by word, verse by verse, book by book, and leave all the social engineering to other groups. But here, Paul is speaking to the congregants. He's not speaking to the leaders, though, of course, you can imagine a situation where both groups would need some kind of warning or exhortation. But I think his encouragement is to focus on eternal issues. Your leaders and teachers are trying to help you see eternal issues like the truth of the gospel so that you might embrace it and save your soul, and that makes them worthy of respect. Ideally, being a leader in a Christian community is not about power, it's about service. I think the best way to explain this is to transform the dynamic to another arena most everyone is familiar with. I assume most of you listening are not in church leadership, but all of you had parents or you are parents now. So let me make an analogy to parenthood. Parents have a lot of power over children, which children quickly discover and resist. Most parents know that, especially with young children, we parents can get away with telling the kids what to do. But good parents realize there's a difference between dictating and teaching. When your child makes a request and you know you have to say no, there are several ways to say no. The best path to take, in my humble opinion, is not being a tyrant, not say no without explanation or justification, but to teach and lead. Good parents say no in a way that teaches their children what's right so that the kids learn to make wise decisions on their own. Many times we parents say no because it's in everyone's best interest. But many times we're tempted to say no because we just want things the way we want things. We want them our way. My kids may want to stay up past their bedtime and I want them to go to bed now, and that can become a power struggle. When kids are little, it's easy to win those battles. But good parents learn to ask, what are my motives? Am I dictating to my children or am I serving my children? Am I seeking what is right and best for everyone or what is right and best for me? Good parents seek to serve so that they teach their children to choose what is right even when mom and dad aren't around. We raise our children to the level of equals so that they can live well in the world. So we can all exercise our parental authority in a way that forces our children to bend to our will and recognize our power, but that would be a kind of tyranny. Instead, good parents seek what's best for their children, even when that means saying no or holding the line, and they seek to use their authority for what's best for everyone in the long run. And I think that's the concept behind Paul's admonition to respect church leaders. Good church leaders, like good parents, seek to use their power and authority to do what is best for everyone in the long run. You, as a member of the church, may not be getting everything you want from them, but they are providing you a great service. They are teaching and encouraging you to embrace the truth of the gospel, and ideally, they're using whatever power and authority they have to seek what is best for all those they teach and have authority over. Those they teach are to respect them and live at peace with them as opposed to strife. Paul then continues on this same thought, this is 14 and 15. We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. Now, some have suggested that Paul is turning and addressing the leaders and teachers in the church, that having told the congregation to respect the teachers because of their service, he's now telling the teachers to love and serve those that they lead. And that may be what's going on, but I think his advice is relevant to everyone. The fact is, everyone in the congregation must deal with everyone else in the congregation. Every church community includes people with different levels of maturity, different backgrounds, different needs, and different priorities. So all of us face the question, how do we deal with each other? How am I going to respond when I don't get my way? What attitude should I take towards someone in my church who sees things differently than I do? Maybe they prefer communion every week and I think it should only be monthly, or maybe they want to sing a different kind of music, or they want shorter prayers or longer prayers than I do. How am I going to deal with all those people? Paul is encouraging this church to take the attitude of seeking the good of the people around them, and he gives some examples. First he says, admonish the unruly or the idle. This word captures the idea of those that are not working, those who are not seeking to care for their own needs, but are being lazy and irresponsible. He's already spoken to this group in this letter, and he's going to speak to them again in 2 Thessalonians. Apparently, there was a group of able-bodied workers who stopped working. And instead of working, they are relying on the generosity of the church to take care of them. And in that way, they're being lazy and irresponsible. They are not seeking to take care of their own needs and are draining resources from others who may be truly in need. Other people in the church are helping them out, but they are in need not because they've hit on hard times, but because they are refusing to take responsibility for providing for themselves. And Paul says, admonish them, teach them, remind them what is true, and urge them to do what is right. Next he says, encourage the faint-hearted, or we might translate that the discouraged. Given the persecution the church was facing, it's not surprising that some of them have become discouraged or fearful. Paul says, seek to encourage them, remind them of what's true, remind them of the goodness of God, remind them of the promises of God and the hope of the gospel. Remind them of the reasons they have to be confident no matter what happens in this earthly life. God will do well by them in the end. Even though they face persecution right now, God will grant them eternal life in the end. Next he says, help the weak. This word could be physically sick, or it can mean spiritually weak. He might be saying, help out those who are physically ill in your congregation. And while that would be a good thing to do, given the rest of the list, I think he's talking about those who are spiritually weak or immature in the faith. The rest of the list is focusing on spiritual problems and issues of spiritual maturity and how we get along with each other. And I think the idea here is to help those who are weak in understanding. They are young in the faith. They are weak in that sense. They are not yet mature. There may be gaps in their understanding. They need instruction, help, and guidance. So don't reject them or mock them or ignore them so that you can hang out with the cool people. Rather, seek them out, guide them and teach them and strengthen them. Then he says, be patient with everyone. I love this phrase because all of us are problematic to someone else. I'm sure I try the patience of other people in my church. You probably have a mental list of people in your local church that you consider the problems. Well, surprise, most likely you yourself are on someone else's list of problem people. Each of us represents a problem of patience to someone else. We whine, we complain, we're thoughtless, we're neglectful, we sin and disappoint each other. We can let each other down in all sorts of ways. And Paul says when that happens, be patient. Overlook it. Let it roll off your back. We are called to be patient with each other and to overlook each other's sins. Not to turn away and say, I'm sick of dealing with these complaints, but to turn back and say, let's work this out. Let's seek the truth together. And you can see that opposite response in the next verse, 515. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. When we lack patience, we start repaying evil for evil. We start keeping score. We start waiting for our turn to get back at those who have wronged us or annoyed us in some way. And the pressure is on to respond in kind. You treated me badly, so I'm going to treat you badly. You undermined my pet project at the church, so I'm going to undermine yours. You didn't serve on my church committee, so I'm not going to serve on yours, and so on. Repaying evil for evil can range from the petty to the truly cruel. And it's natural when someone has done me wrong, I want to retaliate, I want to hurt them back. And Paul says, resist that, seek after that which is good instead. We've talked about this before, but Jesus tells us the two great commandments are to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, to treat our neighbors as we would want to be treated if the situation were reversed. This is one of those fundamental themes of Scripture. I've talked about it a lot in other podcasts. The idea is that we human beings are equal before God. We are no more or no less important than anyone else, and that's one of the fundamental truths we have to come to grips with when we embrace the gospel. Believers are called to love each other in a unique way because of the blood of Christ. We are now family, we are the body of Christ, and we're going to spend eternity together. We are bound together in a profound way, and we share a common bond that unites us and places an obligation on us that we care for each other and treat each other with respect. So we're to look at other people on our church and say, You are my people, we are in this together, and we're going to spend eternity together. This is why Paul says, seek after that which is good for one another. But notice he says, and for all people. Beyond the church, we are to love unbelievers and try to invite them into the family. Think about their situation in Thessalonica. Who is giving them the most trouble? Who would they be tempted to repay evil for evil? Most likely it's the Jews from the synagogue who are persecuting them who are giving them the most trouble, and he's saying don't repay their evil for evil, don't retaliate against them either. This is your chance to extend the grace and the mercy of Christ to them and maybe win them to faith. We are called to love all people on the basis that all my people are my neighbors. We are to recognize we are just as guilty before God as they are. We are all saved by grace. It's not our place to exact justice on those who have done us wrong. We are to show mercy just as we have been shown mercy. The Thessalonians are a new church, but they've been together long enough to annoy each other. They've been together long enough to start complaining about the leadership, and they may be seeking to love one another, but they're finding that's not an easy thing to do. They have this internal pressure, but they also have the external persecution from those who are opposed to the gospel. So they're getting trouble from all sides, both inside and outside the church, and in that situation each one of them has to ask, What am I going to do? It would be very easy to retaliate against my oppressors on the outside, and it would be very easy to respond with bitterness and impatience to those on the inside. Paul calls them to something different. In kind, repaying evil for evil, but they are seeking the good of others. I think he's continuing now on this same issue. Let's look at 16 through 18. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. I don't think we've moved on to a different topic. I think this is just a different aspect of the same topic. I think the key words here are always without ceasing and in everything. It's easy to rejoice, to pray, and to give thanks when life is good. When I have no problems, when life is bliss, rejoicing, praying, and being grateful are an easy thing to do. But life is not easy in Thessalonica. They are having difficulties with each other inside the church and they are facing persecution from outside the church. The temptation is to despair, to complain, to grumble, and to stop trusting God. Paul is saying you can be at peace with each other because you understand what's going on and who's in control. Life may be bad now, but it's going to turn out well in the end. Even in the face of loss, persecution, tragedy, and all the pressures you're facing. Even in their situation, which was very difficult, there's a bigger picture. God has promised salvation. God has promised He has a plan. God has promised you a place in His kingdom. You can rejoice always, despite your circumstances, because God has promised to rescue you from sin and death. He is working toward that goal in these very circumstances. In other words, it's well with your soul, to quote the old hymn. God is at work in everything. They can rejoice no matter what. They can turn to God and have faith no matter how hard or how easy life is. They can rejoice in the goal, in the purpose of all this hardship, the place this hardship is taking them, and the kind of person it is turning them into. So I think the rejoice always is not so much as every moment of every day, but rejoice in all kinds of situations. Similarly, pray without ceasing. In this context, we can see the parallels to rejoice always and in everything give thanks. Don't just turn to God when He gives you what you want, or in the good times, or when life is easy, or when everything makes sense. Rejoice always in both the good and the bad. Pray always in both the good and the bad times. Give thanks in everything, both the good and the bad. I think the idea is relate everything to God, view everything through the lens of the gospel. Pray without ceasing is not so much the idea of continually, but without turning away, without giving up, without faltering or walking away from your faith. Everyone is going to have those dark nights of the soul where they think, what's the point of turning to God? Life just keeps getting worse. Why bother asking him or praying or turning to him now? And Paul's saying, remember who God is and what he promised and where this dark night is taking you. Turn to God not just in the good times, but in the bad times. Remember what is true. It makes sense to keep going back to him. Similarly, give thanks in everything, not because we enjoy suffering, but because God has promised he is in control. Because God has promised that he is working all things together for his people to bring them to maturity in Christ. As believers, we're never in a situation where God says, oops, I meant to catch that. I didn't mean for that to hit you, but oh yeah, well, you can face it. It is not like that. Nothing is outside the merciful, gracious, loving hand of God. I can give thanks in everything, every situation I might ever face, because it's all in his hand, it's all part of his plans, and he is in control. We may not know why God has asked us to face a particular situation, but we know where the journey is going to take us. And this is all the foundation upon which we can be at peace with each other. When I disappoint you or when you let me down, we can still rejoice and give thanks because we know God is in control. The basis we have to get along is our confidence in God, our confident trust that God is in control no matter what. If you indeed believe that God will do what he has promised, you can be grateful no matter what situation you're in. You can turn to him in trust, knowing his promises are true, and that he is working all things toward this truly great goal. I don't have to put pressure on you to change because I'm counting on God, and I don't have to fight back because I'm counting on God. Now he goes on, and this one may seem to come out of left field, but I think it's related. This is 519 through 22. Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophetic utterances, but examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil. Now some people take this in a way that really does seem to be out of left field. They understand this phrase, do not quench the spirit, to mean something like this. The Holy Spirit is inside you. He's trying to get you to do all kinds of amazing, miraculous things, including perhaps speaking in tongues or prophecy, and you can thwart him, you can hinder his efforts, and you need to stop that. You're fighting him, you're blocking him, and you just need to stop. You need to put aside anything that might be getting in the way of the Spirit. And that's what they think Paul is saying. I don't think that fits the context at all. I think he's still on the same issue of how as a church they are going to relate to each other. And when you add in these next phrases, I think it becomes more clear. He says, do not despise prophetic utterances. The issue here is do you have a teachable spirit? Someone gets up in front and explains the gospel or the word of God or maybe reads a letter from Paul and comments on it or something. How are you going to respond to that message? Are you going to despise that message or accept it? Are you going to disregard the word of God or take God's word seriously? The issue is how are you going to respond when someone else says, I have this prophetic utterance from God? Or to use our modern language, this is what I think the Bible means and how we should live in response. When he talks about quenching the spirit, I don't think the issue is the spirit inside me that I'm pushing down so the spirit can't take control. I think Paul is saying others are going to be gifted by the Spirit to teach, to speak, and exhort. God has given them the gift of leadership and the opportunity to serve this congregation by teaching and explaining the Bible. How are you going to treat them when they do? Are you going to despise them and reject them? Are you going to mock them and scoff at them? Are you going to have bitterness toward them because they got to teach and you didn't? Or how are you going to deal with the potentially divisive fact that someone is going to stand up and say, the Bible says X and you think it means Y? His advice in a nutshell, I think, is be open to what God is doing. If the Spirit seems to be teaching through someone else, be open to it, be teachable. But notice he says, test everything and hold fast to that which is good. A lot of stuff gets called the work of God, which isn't. And a lot of things get taught in the name of Jesus that is contrary to what Jesus taught. Paul's saying, be open but be discerning. Be teachable, but be thoughtful. Now, as a teacher, people could accuse me of despising prophetic utterances. In fact, in my local church, I got into trouble a few times because I was willing to stand up and say, that's not right. Those ideas don't match scripture. And I was called divisive for taking that kind of a stand. Now, if my attitude had been arrogant or prideful or condescending in some way, which hopefully it wasn't, then I would deserve to be called out. I hope I wasn't guilty of those sins, but it's certainly possible. There are interpretations of scripture out there that I will stand up and say I disagree with. And there are people teaching things that I do not believe stand up well to the light of Scripture. Now you could accuse me of disobeying Paul here, of quenching the spirit and despising prophetic utterances in a sense. But I don't think that's exactly what Paul's encouraging them to do. We are called to believe truth and not a lie. We are called to stand up for the truth that we have been taught. Paul's admonition is to examine everything carefully, seek to learn, be willing to be taught, be willing to admit that you might be the one who is wrong. Listen and try to understand the views that you disagree with. Whenever I encounter someone who thinks differently than me, I try to figure out why their view fails to persuade me or where I find their interpretation lacking from Scripture. But I try to be open that maybe I'm the one who's wrong. And I ask myself, do I have good reasons to think differently? All that is to say we are called to be both teachable and discerning. We can't take the attitude, I know in advance what God is going to do, and it's not whatever idea you have in mind. Experience suggests that a lot of sincere, Bible-believing, smart, intelligent Christians are going to get something wrong sometime. Apart from Jesus and his apostles, none of us have perfect understanding. We all grow, we all learn, and we all seek maturity. So we want to be open to the idea that God might work powerfully in a way that surprises us and examine everything carefully. And then when we do have to speak up and say, no, I don't think that stands up to Scripture, we take a humble, I'm on your side kind of approach, not a condescending or judgmental one. Paul wraps things up by saying, This is twenty-three through twenty eight. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you, and he also will bring it to pass. Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. I think it's significant that Paul describes God here as the God of peace. I think that is the theme that runs throughout this section and has not left Paul's mind. He says, Respect your leaders and live in peace with one another. Be patient with everyone. Don't retaliate, but teach and encourage each other in your weakness and failures. In all kinds of situations, both good and bad, rejoice, turn to God and be grateful. Don't automatically reject those who teach you, but seek to learn and examine everything carefully. And then he says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you. This whole section has been about how believers live together in community. It's about how we as a church treat each other and respond to each other. As a church, they are in this situation together, and he wants to encourage them to think about how they can get along. They have a shared hope, a shared faith, a shared trust in God. And that common hope and faith and trust allows them to change their attitude toward each other to one that promotes peace instead of strife. And now Paul is praying for them. May the God who is capable of bringing about exactly this kind of holiness and harmony between you do exactly that. May He sanctify you. May He make you holy. May you be made distinctive. May you be made more and more like the people of God who believe the gospel and act on it. May you be more and more people who are confident God will keep his promises and continually trust him. And may you become less and less like the world and more and more like Christ. May you be more and more a people who understand what's true and have patience and forbearance with each other because of your confidence in God. With the result that you may be fully mature in the faith by the time Jesus returns, so that you are mature in every way, spirit, soul, and body. Everything about you will be complete when Jesus returns. So Paul prays that God would bring this about, and in fact, as he said in 524, God is faithful and he will bring it to pass. This life of faith will culminate in our complete redemption and rescue, and God will bring it to pass. Persevering in the faith in the face of great pressure will come about because God is faithful. The image is not God saying, Well, you know, I set the finish line over there, it's a long, hard race, but if you're tough enough to reach the finish line, then I'll meet you there on the other end and say, Good job. That's not the case. This is a process where God is faithful to push, pull, and strengthen us so that we cross that finish line. God is the one who is getting us there. What God calls us to is very challenging, but God is faithful to get us through it. When we see change and growth and maturity in our lives, that is not evidence of how strong we are or how tough we are. That is evidence of how faithful God is. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and there are no advertisements. It's all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. Hey, if you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or a written review wherever you listen, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can listen to Reggie's music and find his CDs at heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.