10.29.17 - "Lovingly Peculiar"

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 & Matthew 22:34-46 Paul has been traveling around Asia Minor sharing the good news of the love of God made available through Christ Jesus. He has encountered hostility, ridicule, slander, abuse, and imprisonment. He has also had a number of people receive him and his message: some so well that their reputation is known all around the region. We know this to be the case in Thessalonica. In a world where there were always people peddling new wisdom and religion, what made Paul’s Jesus so convincing to this group of people who became a church? What is it that brings us today to understand the truth of God’s love through Jesus? Paul offers the Thessalonians a word of truth. We would do well to hear it again for ourselves. Let us understand what made Paul’s life such a powerful witness; that we might believe and become witnesses ourselves.