One of my favourite sayings regarding church is; “there is no such thing as a perfect church, and if you ever find one leave it quickly before you destroy it.”

It’s so true and it bizarrely is a comfort to me. We know that as believers we are not perfect, we sin, we struggle, we doubt and if you put us all together we will say and do things that we shouldn’t. That’s sad of course and we shouldn’t glory in this or become apathetic towards those behaviours because we are called to be increasingly transformed into the image of Christ…. however we realise the need to hold the tension of our earthly bodies and heavenly citizenship.

We are not a perfect church but we follow a perfect Father.

With that said I so enjoyed reading Paul’s letter to the church that he planted in Thessaloniki (modern name) in Greece, which today’s stands as the second largest city in the country. We read about the church being founded in Acts 17 when “a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women” came to faith. It wasn’t an easy time though as the Jews there, who were jealous of Paul and his friends, formed a mob and started riots in the city which resulted in some of the believers being dragged out of the city. Paul and Silas had to escape the city at night and run off to another place. In total, it seems like Paul was only there for 3 weeks or so and we can imagine that the persecution of the believers left behind in the city didn’t stop when he left.

If I’m being honest my faith for that church to still be going strong after what was a difficult start for a bunch of brand new believers would not have been high. However, when we read Paul’s letters to the church there we see that not only had they survived, they had thrived. Here is a list of the things Paul is encouraged by in this new church;

• Their work produced by faith
• Their labour prompted by love
• Their endurance inspired by hope in Jesus
• They became imitators of Paul and his companions
• They welcomed the message with joy given by the spirit even though they were in the middle of several suffering
• They became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia (southern Greece)
• They turned from idols into serving God
• They accepted Paul’s words as thought they were from God, not from humans
• They loved Paul and missed him

Even in His second letter we hear they are still going strong;

• Their faith was growing more and more
• Their love for each other was growing – Paul boasted to other churches about these things

Throughout both letters we read only encouragement and reminders to keep going. The only small correction, and it didn’t even seem to relate to the main group, was a warning against some believers who had become idle.

Isn’t that incredible?

I really don’t have loads more to say other than…… I love this!! I love that a church formed amongst persecution, with no ‘Christian’ background, after only 3 weeks of instruction from the church planter (I realise there might have been other leaders present) continued to grow in faith and truth. This should be an encouragement to us all for our churches today.

There is no such thing as the perfect church this side of heaven but…….that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t lean in to be all we are called to be in Christ.

Thank you Thessalonians for today’s encouragement!!!