Category Archives: 1 Thessalonians

Click here for 1 Thessalonians 5 audio:

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Read it. Pray it. Share it. Live it.

Paul reassures believers about the day of the Lord: it will come “like a thief in the night,” catching the world off guard, but Christians are children of light and won’t be surprised (vv. 1–5). So stay awake and sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation (vv. 6–8). We are not destined for wrath but for salvation through Jesus, “so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (vv. 9–10). Therefore, encourage and build one another up (v. 11).

Inside the church, Paul urges a healthy, holy community: respect your leaders who labor among you (vv. 12–13). Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with all. Don’t repay evil for evil; pursue good (vv. 14–15). In worship and daily life: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances (vv. 16–18). Do not quench the Spirit or despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast to what is good, and abstain from every form of evil (vv. 19–22). Paul closes with a prayer that God would sanctify them completely and keep them blameless at Jesus’ coming—and the promise: “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it” (vv. 23–24, 28).

🌀 Reflection:
Where do you need to trade fear for hope today? Ask God to help you live as a child of the day—alert, prayerful, thankful, and ready to encourage someone who’s weary (vv. 5–6, 16–18).

💬 Mission Challenge:
Encourage a church leader or volunteer. Send a brief note or text to thank them for their labor and to pray 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 over them.

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Click here to return to the contents page for Phase 2.2 — The Savior, His Church, and the Mission.

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Click here for 1 Thessalonians 4 audio:

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Paul urges believers to please God more and more by walking in holiness (vv. 1–2). God’s will is our sanctification—that we abstain from sexual immorality and learn self-control “in holiness and honor,” not in the passion of lust (vv. 3–5). To sin sexually is to wrong a brother or sister, and the Lord is an avenger in these matters. We were called to holiness; to reject this command is to reject God, who gives His Holy Spirit (vv. 6–8).

Then Paul commends their brotherly love and calls them to a quiet, faithful life: mind your own affairs, work with your hands, and walk properly before outsiders so you’re not dependent on others (vv. 9–12). Finally, he comforts the grieving: we don’t sorrow as those without hope. Because Jesus died and rose, those who have “fallen asleep” in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord—and “so we will always be with the Lord” (vv. 13–17). Therefore encourage one another with these words (v. 18).

🌀 Reflection:
Where is God inviting you to grow “more and more”—in purity, in quiet faithfulness, or in hope about death and Christ’s return (vv. 1, 3, 11, 13)? Ask the Spirit to help you walk “in holiness and honor” today (vv. 4, 8).

💬 Mission Challenge:
Write a short note (text or card) to a believer who’s grieving. Share 1 Thessalonians 4:14–18 and one sentence of encouragement: “Because Jesus rose, we have sure hope.”

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Click here for 1 Thessalonians 3 audio:

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When Paul couldn’t stand the concern any longer, he sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to strengthen and encourage the church in their faith because trials were expected for followers of Jesus (vv. 1–4). Paul feared the tempter might shake their trust and make his work “in vain” (v. 5). But Timothy returned with good news—their faith and love were steady, and they longed to see Paul just as he longed to see them (v. 6). Even amid Paul’s own distress, their steadfast faith refreshed his heart: “now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord” (vv. 7–8).

Grateful for God’s work, Paul prayed night and day to see them again and supply what is lacking in their faith (vv. 9–10). He asked God our Father and the Lord Jesus to clear the way for a visit (v. 11), to make their love increase and overflow for one another and for all (v. 12), and to establish their hearts blameless in holiness at Jesus’s coming with all His saints (v. 13). Holiness and love now prepare us to meet Christ with joy then.

🌀 Reflection:
Where are you facing pressure for your faith? Ask the Lord to help you stand fast today, and to grow your love so it overflows toward both the church and your neighbors (vv. 8, 12).

💬 Mission Challenge:
Encourage a believer under pressure. Send a brief prayer or verse and one sentence naming how you see their faith and love strengthening others (v. 6).

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Click here to return to the contents page for Phase 2.2 — The Savior, His Church, and the Mission.

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Click here for 1 Thessalonians 2 audio:

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Paul reminds the Thessalonians how he and his team ministered with courage after being mistreated in Philippi—preaching the gospel “in the midst of much conflict” (vv. 1–2). Their message wasn’t built on error, impure motives, or trickery; they spoke as those approved by God, seeking to please Him who tests our hearts (vv. 3–4). They didn’t use flattery, chase money, or demand honor, even though as apostles they could have (vv. 5–6). Instead, they were gentle like a nursing mother, sharing not only the gospel but their very lives, and they worked night and day so as not to burden the church (vv. 7–9). They lived holy, righteous, and blameless among them, urging them like a father to walk worthy of God, who calls us into His kingdom and glory (vv. 10–12).

The church’s response confirmed God’s work: they received the preached word “not as the word of men but… the word of God,” which keeps working in believers (v. 13). Like the Judean churches, they suffered from their own neighbors for following Jesus (v. 14). Paul explains his sudden absence: he was torn away and repeatedly tried to return, but Satan hindered him (vv. 17–18). Still, his hope, joy, and crown of boasting at Jesus’s coming will be the Thessalonian believers themselves—his dearly loved spiritual family (vv. 19–20).

🌀 Reflection:
Where might God be inviting you to serve others not for praise or gain, but with a mother’s gentleness and a father’s faithful urging (vv. 7–12)? How can you welcome the Scriptures this week as God’s living word that keeps working in you (v. 13)?

💬 Mission Challenge:
Write a short note (text or card) to someone who helped you grow in Christ. Thank them for sharing “the gospel of God” and their life (v. 8), and tell them one way the word is still at work in you today (v. 13).

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Click here to return to the contents page for Phase 2.2 — The Savior, His Church, and the Mission.

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Click here for 1 Thessalonians 1 audio:

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Paul, with Silvanus and Timothy, greets the church and thanks God for the clear marks of new life among them—faith, love, and hope—seen in their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 1–3). He’s confident they are loved and chosen by God because the gospel came to them not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, and because they saw the missionaries’ sincere lives (vv. 4–5).

The Thessalonians imitated Paul and the Lord, receiving the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and they became an example to believers throughout Macedonia and Achaia (vv. 6–7). The news of their faith sounded forth everywhere: they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, the One who delivers us from the wrath to come (vv. 8–10).

🌀 Reflection:
What “idol” (habit, approval, control, comfort) do you need to turn from today so you can more freely serve the living and true God and wait for His Son (vv. 9–10)?

💬 Mission Challenge:
Let your faith sound forth (v. 8): share a brief testimony with someone today—how Jesus met you in a hard season with the joy of the Holy Spirit (v. 6)—and invite them to read 1 Thessalonians with you.

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Click here to return to the contents page for Phase 2.2 — The Savior, His Church, and the Mission.

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