a Happy Minister's Meeting

“For you, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews.”

Paul unbosoms his heart to the loving church at Thessalonica.

He knew what it was to be worried by the Corinthians and the Galatians, but he found rest when thinking of the Thessalonians.

The most tried ministers have some bright spots.

In setting forth his joyful memories of Thessalonica, Paul gives us a sight of three things.

I. MINISTERS GIVING THANKS. “We also thank God.”

Ministers are not always groaning and weeping, though they often do so. They have their time of thanksgiving, as in Paul’s case.

1. This followed upon sore travail. See verse 9. Only as we sow in tears do we reap in joy.

2. This was backed by holy living. Dwell upon each point in verses 10 and 11. Unholy ministers will have scant cause for joy.

3. It prevented all self-laudation. They thanked God, and this is the opposite of glorifying self.

4. It was of a social character. “We thank God”: Paul, and Silas, and Timothy. We hold a fraternal meeting of joy when God blesses us among our beloved people.

5. It was of an abiding character,—“without ceasing.” We can never cease praising the Lord for his goodness in saving souls.

6. It cheered them for further service. They wished, according to verse 17, to visit the friends again, and further benefit them.

   • What a mercy for us all when God’s servants are glad about us!
   • Their joy is in our salvation.

II. HEARERS RECEIVING THE WORD. “You received the word of God,”

Not all receive it. How badly do some treat the gospel!

Not all receive it as did the Thessalonians, for

1. They received the word of God: they heard it calmly, attended to it candidly, considered it carefully.

2. They received the word of God with a hearty welcome. They accepted it by faith, with personal confidence and joy.

3. They did not receive the word of man. It is well to keep the doors locked in that direction. We cannot receive everything; let us reject merely human teaching, and leave the more room in our minds for the Lord’s word.

4. They did not receive the gospel as the word of men. Their faith was not based on the clever, eloquent, logical, dogmatic, or affectionate way in which it was preached.

5. They received it as God’s revealed word, and therefore received it

   • With reverence of its divine character.
   • With assurance of its infallibility.
   • With obedience to its authority.
   • With experience of its sacred power.

6. They received it so that it effectually worked in them. It was practical, efficient, and manifestly operative upon their lives and characters.

III. CONVERTS EXHIBITING THE FAMILY LIKENESS.

1. They were like Judean Christians, the best of them, In faith; in experience; in afflictions.

2. Yet many of them as heathen began at a great disadvantage.

3. They had never seen the church of God in Judea, and were no copyists, yet they came to be fac-similes of them.

4. This is a singular confirmation of the divine character of the work.

   • The same Lord works in all believers, and in the main the same experience occurs in all the saints, even though they may never have seen each other.
   • This similarity of all regenerated men furnishes a valuable set of experimental evidences of the divine origin of conversion.

Let us not be daunted by opposition, for at Thessalonica Paul was persecuted and yet triumphant.

Let us rejoice in the effects of the Word everywhere.

Memoranda

There was a minister of the gospel once, a true preacher, a faithful, loving man, whose ministry was supposed to be exceedingly unsuccessful. After twenty years’ labor, he was known to have brought only one soul to Christ. So said his congregation. Poor worker in the trench! his toil was not seen by men, but the eye of God rested upon it. To him, one day, came a deputation from his people, representing to him, respectfully enough, that, inasmuch as God had not seen fit to bless his labors among them, it were better for him to remove to another sphere. They said that he had only been instrumental in the conversion of one sinner. He might do more elsewhere. “What do you say?” said he. “Have I really brought one sinner to Christ?” “Yes,” was the reply; “one, but only one.” “Thank God,” cried he, “for that! Thank God! I have brought one soul to Christ. Now for twenty years’ more labor among you! God sparing me, perhaps I may be the honored instrument of bringing two.”—Calthrop.

“Whoever made this book,” said a Chinese convert, “made me; it tells me the thoughts of my heart.”

A celebrated Frenchman said, “I know the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, because it has pierced me through.”

Loskiel’s “Account of the Moravian Missions among the North American Indians” has taught me two things. I have found in it a striking illustration of the uniformity with which the grace of God operates on men. Crantz, in his “Account of the Missions in Greenland,” has shown the grace of God working on a man-fish—on a stupid, sottish, senseless creature, scarcely a remove from the fish on which he lived. Loskiel shows the same grace working on a man-devil—a fierce, bloody, revengeful warrior, dancing his infernal war-dance with the mind of a fury. Divine grace brings these men to the same point; it quickens, stimulates, and elevates the Greenlander—it raises him to a sort of new life—it seems almost to bestow on him new senses—it opens his eye, and bends his ear, and rouses his heart; and what it adds, it sanctifies. The same grace tames the high spirit of the Indian—it reduces him to the meekness, and docility, and simplicity of a child. The evidence arising to Christianity from these facts is perhaps seldom sufficient, by itself, to convince the gainsayer; but, to a man who already believes, it greatly strengthens the reason of his belief. I have seen, also, in these books, that the fish-boat, and the oil, and the tomahawk, and the cap of feathers excepted, a Christian minister has to deal with just the same sort of creatures as the Greenlander and the Indian among civilized nations.—Richard Cecil.

The Edition of those living Epistles is the same the world over; the binding only may differ.