Read: 2 Thessalonians 3 (see 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 for more context)
People were expecting Jesus to come any day. Some leaders were saying it was the end. But Paul reminds us to not worry when the end will come; we wait while being productive until it does. Work, feed your family, make some money so you can help those who cannot. This is not frantically working to get ahead. We can work hard without worry because God is faithful and our future is secure in Jesus. What are we filling our time with that doesn’t matter? How can we make ourselves more useful to those in need?
“Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
I believe that though our current global moment is in so many ways different from the early church’s, this kind of life is the way forward. To live ordinarily and quietly, work with our hands, embrace the rhythms and realities of daily life, is seemingly mundane. However, it is actually how we engage in the great spiritual battle against the flesh and the powers and principalities. One could be fooled by such a quiet life, yet when tuned to a heavenly frequency, such a life resounds with a mighty roar.
Mark Sayers, Strange Days, 166.
Resources:
- I just finished reading Mark Sayers’ Strange Days (above quote) and he’s brilliant. He does a great job at both cultural analysis and pushing us for a more biblical, Spirit-fueled life. It helped me make sense of some of what’s going on around us now, how we got here. Plus, his advice on living a scaled-back life landed with me because of where we are right now. Check it out! You can also listen to him on the This Cultural Moment podcast.
Baker Storycraft 