Timothy Brings Good News

Have you ever waited for news about someone you love? Checked the road, again and again? That is Paul, in the city of Corinth, watching for one young man to come back.

Only a few months before, Paul and Silas had come to Thessalonica, a busy port city in northern Greece. They spoke about Jesus in the synagogue, and many people believed, Jews and Greeks, and quite a few leading women. But others grew angry. A mob formed. They dragged a believer called Jason before the city rulers. So the new Christians sent Paul and Silas away in the dark of night. Paul had to leave a baby church, only weeks old, facing trouble without him. He travelled on, to Berea, then Athens. And he could not stop thinking about them.

In his letter, Paul admits how hard it was. When we could no longer bear it, he writes, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone. He tried more than once to go back himself, but he was blocked. So he sent Timothy instead. Timothy was young, but Paul calls him our brother, and God's fellow worker. His job was to strengthen them, to encourage them in their faith, so that no one would be shaken by the troubles they were facing. Paul had warned them, back when he was with them, that hard times would come. And they had. Paul's worst fear was simple. Perhaps the pressure had been too much. Perhaps they had given up, and all his work had been for nothing.

Then Timothy came back. By now Paul had moved on to Corinth. And Timothy's news was good. Better than good. The Thessalonians were still trusting Jesus. They were still loving one another. They remembered Paul kindly, and they longed to see him, just as much as he longed to see them. Paul writes as if a weight has rolled off his chest. In all our distress and trouble, we were comforted about you, because of your faith. And then he says something lovely. For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord. It is as if their faithfulness gave him back his breath.

What can we say to thank God enough for you, Paul asks, for all the joy we feel because of you? Night and day we pray, very hard, that we may see you again, and supply what is still lacking in your faith. Then he turns his letter into a prayer. May God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus, make a way for us to come to you. May the Lord make you increase and overflow in love, for each other and for everyone, just as we do for you. And may he strengthen your hearts, so that you will be blameless and holy before God, when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Luke, in the book of Acts, calls the city officials of Thessalonica by an unusual title, politarchs, rulers of the citizens. Readers once wondered whether Luke had the word right. Then inscriptions from Thessalonica and other Macedonian cities turned up using exactly that title. One of them, from an old archway in the city known as the Vardar Gate, is now held in the British Museum.

Timothy brings good news. You'll find it in First Thessalonians chapter three, and the story of how the church began in Acts chapter seventeen. A worried friend, a faithful young messenger, and a church that kept going. So here is a question to carry with you. Who could you encourage this week, so that they keep standing firm?