11 How to Handle Idleness, Work, and Generosity (2 Thessalonians 3:1-18)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the 11th and final talk in my series on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. We will be studying 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 1 through 18. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. You can also go directly to them by going to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Thessalonians 1 1. Thanks so much for listening. We are going to finish Paul's letters to the Thessalonians today. Just review the second letter in chapter 1. Paul encouraged the Thessalonians by expressing his gratitude for their growth in faith and love. Their faithfulness under persecution is evidence of their genuine faith. He assured them that their suffering would end and that one day God would bring justice to them and judgment to their persecutors. In chapter two, Paul straightened them out about the return of Jesus. He assured them that Jesus has not yet returned because certain very obvious events which must happen first have not yet happened. And then he assured them that when Jesus does return, God will judge their persecutors, but they will be saved and granted their inheritance in the kingdom of God. Now he's going to close the letter with this wrap-up, beginning in three one, he says, Finally pray for us. And let's read chapter three verses one through five. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful, he will establish you and guard you against the evil one, and we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. Well, as we've talked about before, Paul's life followed a certain pattern. Whenever he went to a new town, there was either a revival or a riot, sometimes both. He traveled around from town to town, and when he arrived at a new town, first he would go to the synagogue and preach there. Usually it would only take a matter of weeks before they threw him out, and then he would find a place to preach to the Gentiles. Typically the Gentiles would respond in larger numbers than the Jews, and he would stay in that town until he was beaten, arrested, jailed, or otherwise driven out of town. We know that Paul was writing this letter from Corinth, and we do know a little bit about Paul's time in Corinth. This is from Acts chapter 18, verses 1 through 11. After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome, and he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. Now remember, Silas had gone back to Philippi to see how they were doing, and Timothy had returned to Thessalonica, and both those cities are in Macedonia. When Timothy returns and reports back to Paul, it prompts him to write first Thessalonians. Going on with verse six through eleven. And when they opposed and reviled him, this is the Jews, when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garment and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads, I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles. And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. So this is the spiritual climate Paul was in when he wrote this letter and requested this prayer. He must have had serious and legitimate reason to fear attack or to fear that people were going to harm him for God to give him this kind of vision to reassure him. I assume that God doesn't just give everyone this kind of vision, and the forces against Paul must have seemed overwhelming and threatened to defeat him. The Jews in town have rejected him, now he's preaching to the Gentiles, and he must have feared for his life enough to have considered leaving Corinth, but God intervenes and tells him to stay. So now he asked the Thessalonians to pray that he would be delivered from these opponents so that he could keep preaching and that others would find the same kind of faith that they found. Now Paul has commented several times in this letter how faith took hold among the Thessalonians, how he seen their lives change, and he told them how their response to the gospel had become famous throughout the region. He asked them to pray for that same kind of response on his future journeys. He asked them to pray that God would keep him from being jailed or killed or beaten so that he can continue spreading the word of God. And in that prayer, he makes that simple statement, for not all have faith. In 3-2, he says, Pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith. Paul travels around spreading the gospel because not all have faith, and they need to hear the life-giving truth. Paul is repeatedly beaten and persecuted and driven out of town because not all have faith, and they hate the truth that he speaks. Then Paul reminds them again that the Lord is faithful, this is three three through five. But the Lord is faithful, he will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. So Paul reminds them, God has chosen them and God will not let them fail. He will establish them in faith and guard them against the lies and deception of the evil one. Paul is confident that they have genuine saving faith, and he prays that God will hold them tight and continue his work in them. Now we get the third of three commands Paul gives in his closing. The first was back in two fifteen when he said, Stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught by us. The second one was in three one, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead. And now he returns to this problem of idleness, and we find the third command here in three six. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. Now clearly idleness was a problem in Thessalonica. This is not the first time Paul has addressed this problem of the lazy. Paul told us when he visited Thessalonica, he spoke to them about idleness and work. Then we saw in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul encouraged them to live quietly and to work with their hands. Paul's concern is not with those who are willing to work but are unable to work for some reason. His concern is with those who are not willing to work, those who are being kind of defiantly idle or lazy. And he gives three directives to the church in Thessalonica regarding work here. First, in six through nine, he says, follow our example. Second, in 10 through 12, he says, work for your own bread. And then finally in 13 through 16, he says, mark men who won't work. We're going to talk about each one of those, but first let me review the problem that Paul is addressing. As is often the case, the fundamental issue with idleness is how do I deal with my desires? We all desire to prosper, and we'd all like to prosper with as little effort as possible. I would rather take care of my needs without hardship, without working long hours than with it. We all desire to work in the sense of doing something fun, creative, and fulfilling, but we don't usually desire to work jobs that just pay the bills so we can take care of the needs of our families. It's easy and tempting to seek to fulfill my needs in a way that is convenient and easy for me, and I'd like to fulfill my financial needs in a way that doesn't cost me much time or effort. That desire can lead me to say, hey, I'm in this group of people who are generous and they're willing to help those in need. So I'm going to kick back and give them an opportunity to be generous and support me. I'm going to let them do for me what I really ought to be doing for myself. I'm just not going to work and I will let them support me. Now it's probably likely too that some in Thessalonica thought Jesus was coming back imminently, so they didn't need to work. They were just kind of kicking back and waiting for it to happen and letting everyone else support them. The problem with that attitude is loving my neighbor as myself demands something different of me. God has called each of us to take care of ourselves and to take responsibility for our own welfare. Not only is it good for us to work to take care of ourselves, it is unloving to be lazy, such that we must rely on the generosity of others. What if someone else said, I don't want to bother with taking care of myself, I want you to take care of me for the rest of your life. Would you think they are loving you as God requires? There's a difference between recognizing this person's in a tough spot and I want to generously help them out, versus someone who is being irresponsible and then I'm enabling them. It's not loving to encourage someone to be irresponsible. It's not obedient to our calling to be lazy and to refuse to contribute to my own needs or my family's needs. Now, of course, there are times when there is real financial need that's unavoidable, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. Emergencies and disasters happen to everyone. Someone may become gravely ill and incur huge medical debt, or some disaster, hurricane, tornado hits and wipes you out, or something can make it impossible for you to care for your family. In fact, if we have the means to help out when we see that kind of situation, we might be ashamed for not helping. On the other hand, it doesn't help anyone to encourage someone to be irresponsible. If I am simply not stepping up where I ought to step up, if I can and ought to participate in meeting my own financial needs and supporting my family, then enabling me to continue to be lazy is not loving me. In those situations, it's not loving to support me and enable me to continue down this wrong path. Now the new idea that Paul adds here is keep away from the idle brother. This is 3-6 again. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from the brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. These people are disobeying the instructions Paul gave them and they are acting irresponsibly. And Paul says, What should you do? You should keep away. Now I don't think he means shun them or ostracize them. I think he means stop supporting them. Don't enable their irresponsible lifestyle by feeding and housing them. In essence, I think he's advocating a kind of tough love. They need to wake up and make a change, and you, brothers, need to stop helping them stay asleep. So again, I don't think he means keep away in the sense of shun them. I think he means stop feeding them, stop providing for their needs and enabling them to be lazy. And then he explains that command. This is in three, seven through nine. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. So Paul says, Look, we set the example when we were with you, and I think he means we, I, Paul, set the example. We worked when we were among you and took no financial support. If we ate your bread, we paid for it. We work to support ourselves while we preach the gospel to you. Even though, as an apostle, Paul has the right to receive financial support from them, Paul considered the impact of receiving financial support and decided against it. As he explained in his first letter, he didn't want them to think that he was selling the gospel or using the gospel to make money. If he had accepted money for preaching, he opens himself to the charge that his motive for preaching and teaching is to make money off them somehow, like a salesman selling a product. Instead, he worked when he was among them to support himself. He didn't burden anyone with his own financial need, and that sets an example for others. The idol in Thessalonica know what Paul did because they saw his example, and they also know what he taught. They have no excuse. They've been shown and they've been taught what is right. I think the part of his example that he's emphasizing is his willingness to work. He wants them to learn something from the fact that he was willing to work, and he's urging them to be willing to be responsible for their own financial needs. Everyone needs to work. He makes it very clear. He says, if you're not willing to work, then you don't eat. But the example he set was being willing to work. He didn't presume or assume that others would support him. He assumed that he was responsible for his own needs, and he was willing to do what it took to provide for them. And now he gets to the heart of the matter. This is three ten through twelve. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. The problem in Thessalonica is that some are not willing to work, and they are relying on the generosity of others to get by. They're able-bodied, healthy, they're in a position to support themselves, but they refuse to work and instead rely on the generosity of others. The idle have decided, you know what, I think I'd rather you work for my livelihood than I work for my livelihood. And Paul argues that attitude is incompatible with loving my neighbor as myself. So to the givers, Paul encourages them to continue to be generous to those in true need, but to stop supporting the idol who refuse to take responsibility for themselves. And to the idol, he says, get back to work. We command you and encourage you in the Lord to get back to work. He reminds them that even when he was present with them, he said, If you don't work, you don't eat. And after seeing his example, hearing his teaching, hearing that command, he still hears that some are being idle. They are able to work, but they're not willing to work. And he says, To those people, we command and encourage them to earn their own living. Now again, I think this is more than practical advice. When it comes to finances, there is a way to live our lives that reflects God's values and a way that doesn't. And the way we live our lives matter. The choices we make not only make a difference in our daily existence, they reflect our destiny. They reflect who we trust and what we're counting on. If we're counting on God, our choices and our lifestyle are going to look different than the way the world is going. So the motivation behind Paul's teaching here is not get your act together because you're being a financial burden. The motivation is believe the gospel and live like what God says is true. Believe what the real problem is and where the real solution is to be found. Financial irresponsibility is damaging to you who are practicing it, and it's also unloving to your neighbor. But the bigger question behind such irresponsibility is why are you rejecting the God who says what is right and wrong? Rejecting God's values has eternal negative consequences, and that's dangerous to your soul. So the crucial important question behind the choices you're making about work and idleness is do I want what God wants? Do I want the promises of God or just goodies and an easy life now? Am I content with the boundaries and the responsibilities he has placed on my life? And am I willing to live like what he says is true? I think Scripture teaches that God expects all of us to contribute to our own livelihood insofar as we are able. It's not good for us to be idle, and it's not loving to be a financial burden to others. Now, I think contributing to our livelihood encompasses more than work for a paycheck. At some seasons of your life, your work could be being a student, your work could be staying at home and raising kids, your work could be caring for an elderly parent. Work is what you need to do to provide for yourself and the needs of your family. And I would also include in that the responsibility to stay out of debt and to provide for your retirement, because eventually we all get so old that no one will pay us to do anything, but financial stewardship is another talk. So, how do we put all this in practice? How do we know when to support someone and when to stop supporting someone? And what does Paul's example mean if you're in a ministry position that relies on the support of others? Well, I'm going to approach this topic from the perspective of the giver. My husband and I have always been in some kind of teaching ministry over the years, but no matter what ministry we worked in, we've always had jobs and means to support ourselves. So I'm coming at this from the point of view of how do I know who to support, when is it appropriate to give, and how do I recognize who's being lazy. For the other perspective, when should a full-time ministry worker get a day job? I will share the thinking of my mentor and friend Jack Crabtree. He has spent his whole life working on support in Christian ministries of various kinds, and he wrote a very thoughtful and engaging article on this topic from the perspective of being someone on support. He is wrestling with the question: if I'm in full-time ministry and my support is inadequate, what should I do? And I will put a link to that article in the lecture notes, but I'm not going to fully explain it here. Instead, I'm going to take the perspective of the Thessalonians. How do we know who to keep away from or who to stop supporting? How would we apply Paul's words here? Well, first, I think we have an obligation to take care of ourselves and provide for our own needs. I think I can make a good argument from Scripture that we have an obligation to work and not to be a burden to others if we can help it. I think it would Wrong of me to expect others to take care of me if I am not willing to take care of myself. I think that's the unavoidable teaching of Thessalonians. If you don't work, you don't eat. We are called to work. We need to be willing to work. If I am healthy and capable of working and my support is not meeting my financial needs, then it is my problem to solve, not my friend's problem to solve. The question holiness asks of me is not, are you working hard enough? Rather, it is, are you taking care of your own financial needs? The idleness which Thessalonians exhorts us to avoid is the idleness of being economically dependent upon others to meet our needs because we're not willing to be economically productive. Maybe we're not working hard enough, maybe we're overspending. In either case, it's my problem to solve. And I think all of us need to take seriously our need to provide for our own welfare, whether we're in ministry, nonprofit, or for-profit or whatever. Next, then why might I support someone in full-time ministry? Jack Crabtree identifies three reasons in his article, which again I'll link to in the lecture notes. The first is gratitude. Maybe I have benefited from their work in some way, and I am grateful for it, and so I give a gift of support as an expression of my thanks. This seems to be part of what Paul argued for when he encouraged them to respect their leaders, and what he argues for in 1 Corinthians 9 as his right that he is not exercising. It is right and appropriate to give back to those who give to me. If I benefit by someone's work as a teacher or a preacher or a pastor or a minister of the gospel, then I ought to gratefully support them. There's something appropriate about me recognizing that others have worked on my behalf and that I support them out of whatever means God has given me. In a sense, it's analogous to hiring someone to mow my yard and then refusing to pay them after the work is done. If I've benefited from their labors, it's appropriate for me to recognize it. But notice that this is an obligation I have before God. This is not a contract or an obligation the minister or the teacher or the pastor has a right to place on me. If I don't pay my plumber or my lawnmower, he does have a right to feel gypped. That's work for hire. We had an agreement, we had a contract. Teaching the gospel or ministering to others is not work for hire. If I teach and no one responds financially, I don't have the right to feel gypped. Teaching the gospel is not a contract. The gospel was given freely to me, and I should give it freely to others, regardless of their ability to repay me. Yes, it's appropriate of the receiver who has benefited to give back. If I withhold support from someone who has worked hard on my behalf because I'm selfish or greedy or thoughtless, then I'm in the wrong. But that's an obligation I have before God. It's not appropriate for the gospel worker to demand it, expect it or require it. It seems to me that Paul argues that he has the right to accept such support, but he is not arguing that he has the right to expect it, demand it, or require it. We see him working to meet his own financial needs. He is grateful when his needs are covered and he can preach full time, and he is willing to work when the support is not there or when there's a more important lesson at stake. While his argument implies that those who have received his labors have some moral obligation before God to support him, we never see him demanding that they support him. The second reason I might choose to support someone in ministry is patronage. By that I mean I'm so committed to the work that they are doing in proclaiming the gospel that I decide to support them to enable them to continue. So just like I might be a patron of the arts, I want this gospel work to continue. Some people minister to groups of people who have no means to give back to them out of gratitude. Maybe they're refugees or the chronically poor or they're bankrupt or students or they simply lack any means to give back, even though they are truly grateful. Well, that's where patrons can step in. They may not have benefited directly by the ministry, but they can see its importance and want to help the workers continue to do it. The third reason I might choose to support someone in full-time ministry is charity. I see the person is in need and I graciously help them out. I help them out of love and I give because God has graciously given me resources and this other person has a lack. While I think it is wrong for someone who preaches the gospel to deliberately put himself in a position where he requires charity of others, I don't think it's wrong for any giver to be charitable. It's wrong for me as a ministry worker to expect, demand, or require others to take care of me and to be unwilling to work on my behalf. I think scripture teaches that each of us has a responsibility to provide for our own needs, whether we're in full-time ministry or not. So to summarize, all of us are responsible before God to work and provide for our own needs, no matter what kind of work we do. As givers, it's appropriate to support someone out of gratitude, patronage, or charity. As full-time Christian workers, we have no reason to be ashamed for accepting gifts of gratitude, patronage, or charity, but I ought not to put myself in a situation where I require charity. If my support is not adequate, it's my problem to solve, and I ought to consider some kind of work for pay in addition. And the last thing I'd say in this area is how a person works all this out is between him and God. Each of us has obligations and responsibilities and family needs and so forth. How we work all that out is between us and God. I am not to judge or condemn someone else because he lacks a day job, nor am I to dictate to someone else how much of their money they give away or to which causes they give it. We are to be discerning, as Paul urges us here to say, if it looks like someone is being truly lazy, we don't need to support that, but we are to trust God to try to be wise in our own situations and not resent, judge, or condemn others for their choices that may be different than ours. Again, choices matter. We can be financially irresponsible no matter what our circumstances. We can be financially irresponsible whether we're rich, whether we're poor, whether we're on support or not. We don't know each other's hearts and circumstances, and our place is not to just quickly judge and condemn others whose lives may not look like us. So we are to examine our own hearts and be willing to work, be willing to take responsibility for our own needs, and be willing to give generously when there is a true need. If we humbly and thoughtfully come to the conclusion that someone else is being lazy or idle in the sense Paul has talked about here, then the most loving thing to do is to stop enabling them. Now Paul concludes in 313 through 15, as for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. So one last time Paul encourages them to stay the course, do not grow weary in doing good. They're suffering for their faith, they're growing in their labor of love, and they need to keep on. If people try to tell them that Paul is wrong and they can live otherwise, then they too are to ignore that person. Again, I think the idea here is not to shun him, but just don't listen to him. Don't be persuaded by his ideas, don't join him in his wrong choices or follow his example. And Paul makes that clear by clarifying don't regard him as an enemy, warn him as a brother. And then Paul concludes in sixteen through eighteen, now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine. It is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Now Paul generally dictated his letters to a scribe like Silas or Timothy. Here he picks up the pen, or I guess the stylus, and he writes with his own hand. Now many scholars think Paul's eyes were never quite right after his conversion on the road to Damascus. Perhaps he had something like cataracts that made writing difficult or something like that, but here he closes the letter with his own hand to testify this letter is from me. This is a genuine letter from the Apostle Paul. And from several things he said in this letter, it seems likely that there were false letters circulating around that claim to be from Paul that were contradicting the gospel he taught. Again, I think it's significant that Paul describes God as the Lord of peace. One of the themes of these letters is how are they getting along with each other? He's been encouraging them to unity because of their shared faith. He's been encouraging them to stand firm in the gospel and be at peace with their situation, knowing that God is in control. And here he prays that God would grant them peace in every way. I'd like to close by asking, what have we learned through these two letters to the Thessalonians? Well, one of the things we learned is that the second coming of Christ was central to Paul's teaching. We know that Paul was with them only a short while, and during that short time, it's clear that he talked about the second coming of Christ, and that that was an important part of his teaching. Now I find that interesting because many today downplay the return of Christ, and they deny that that is the focus of our hope as Christians. Many people today seem motivated to pursue Jesus and his teachings because of how it makes them feel now in this life, rather than thinking about their faith as involving this future hope. Sometimes Christianity is dismissed as a kind of pie in the sky religion that offers nothing concrete now, and you've probably heard the dismissive phrase, he's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good. Yet as I study the Bible, just about every letter in the New Testament eventually points us toward the future as an explanation for how we ought to be thinking about living our lives today. The biblical teaching is this future hope gives us a perspective on life today. Knowing where we're headed and what God has destined us for changes how we live our lives now. It informs our choices, it changes our values, it changes the way we live. That belief, that hope in the return of Christ is the anchor that gets us through the sufferings of this life. We have the first fruits of the rescue now, but we don't have the full package. We've already been rescued from spiritual blindness and rebellion to God. We've been rescued such that we embrace the truth of the gospel and long for the kingdom of God. We've been reconciled to God and promised forgiveness and mercy on judgment day, and that is a big deal, but it's not the whole deal. There is a greater rescue still to come, and that will happen when Christ returns. And that greater rescue is the redemption of all creation, conquering sin and death, removing sin and evil from the world and from us, and making us people like Christ. This is a major theme in the New Testament. My hope for the coming rescue transforms the way I live my life now. By having my hope fixed on the right thing, I can have the proper perspective on daily life now. The second thing we've learned is what it means to be faithful now, what it means to be prepared and alert and ready for the kingdom of God. Paul has been urging them to persevere, to stand firm, to hold fast to the things that he taught them. And that's how we're ready. We stand firm. Every day we're going to face trials and temptations and situations that test our faith. Trials force us to wrestle with the question, do I really believe God or not? Am I focused on the salvation He offers or not? Is that my goal and my hope, or do I really want something else? If I fixed my hope on the return of Christ, then in spite of all my failures along the way, I'm standing firm. I am being faithful to the gospel. So remaining faithful, being ready, is just continuing to believe that rescue and true life are to be found in the cross of Christ and his return. We have this problem with sin that no amount of good intentions can solve. We need rescue. We need a savior to deliver us from sin and death. And we will repeatedly face situations that test whether or not we believe that Christ is that savior. Standing firm and being faithful is clinging to that truth no matter what. Finally, Paul spent a good deal of time urging them to be at peace with each other, and that's peace as opposed to strife. He talked about respecting their leaders as those who serve among them. They're to avoid repaying evil for evil and instead seek the good of their neighbors. They are to be patient with each other's sins and shortcomings, and they are to pray and rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances, both good and bad. The temptation is to despair, to complain, to grumble, and to stop trusting God. And Paul has urged them, 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, even in their very challenging circumstances, there is a bigger picture. God has promised salvation. God has promised He has a plan. God has promised you a place in His kingdom if you cling to the blood of Christ and the mercy found in the cross. And so you can rejoice always, despite your circumstances, because God has promised to rescue you from sin and death. And that's the foundation upon which we can be at peace with each other. We can let go of demanding our share, looking out for number one, seeking vengeance and retribution because we know God has a plan, He's in control, He's promised to rescue and redeem us, and all we have to do is wait for that day. Paul spent so much time teaching about the return of Christ because his return is the point of history. It is the culmination and the climax of the gospel. All of history is on a collision course with the day of the Lord. God intends to bring his creation to the point where everything has been redeemed and sin and death have been vanquished, and that will happen at the return of Christ. That will not only be the most significant event in history, it will be the most significant event in each of our lives. And it hasn't happened yet. It's what we're hoping for and waiting for, but it will come. One day, the Father will turn to Jesus, who's sitting at his right hand, and say, It's time. Go and bring our people home. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means but how we figure it out. If you haven't visited my website, please stop by. There are no advertisements. Instead, there's a wealth of Bible study information, and it's all free. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, subscribe to the podcast, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can listen to his music, which I highly recommend, and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. If you want to find out more or hear previous episodes in this series, please go to wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.