Devotion: 1 Thessalonians 5:14

1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

Our verse today takes us to the end of 1 Thessalonians where Paul is giving his final instructions to the believers there. This group had been facing great persecution and Paul’s letter was meant as much to encourage them as it was to instruct them in how to respond and live.

We see instructions from Paul to warn the idle and disruptive, to encourage the disheartened who were feeling the weight of the persecution they were facing, and to help the weak. The passage immediately follows a charge to respect church leaders. Verse 14 applies these instructions to the entire congregation and their daily interactions with one another.

The overarching command he gives to this suffering church is to be patient with everyone. His hope was in preventing internal disputes, guiding them away from revenge or paying back wrong for wrong. He wanted to see the success of this church and was giving them as much support as possible from a distance to encourage them and remind them that over everything they need to show patience.

Be patient with everyone. What a hard command to fully follow. If you were given that command today, how would you feel? Would you be able to do it? I admit that I would probably struggle. I find myself quickly getting irritated by the most mundane things (slow people walking in front of me, people taking forever to make a decision when ordering and there is a line, people still using physical checks at the grocery store, my daughter deciding to use the bathroom when I tell her it’s time to go to school…. So many things try my patience!) and would probably struggle with the command to be patient with everyone.

This verse addresses practical, everyday actions that should take place within a Christian community. It is fair to say that a certain level of spiritual maturity  is necessary to put this into action and requires us to both confront harmful behavior and support the vulnerable, with all that is done being covered in patience.

(I have always considered myself to be fairly mature spiritually but now having written this devotion I am questioning that assumption! And now you can see why I chose to write an entire month’s worth of daily devotions on the topic of patience!)

Prayer: Lord, Let everything I do be done with a dose of patience. Be the patience I need when my shortcomings threaten to appear. I want to be an obedient, patient child of God. Amen 

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