October 18, 2026
Isaiah 45:1-7
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
We learn things in a lot of different ways. We learn things by reading about them as well as by going to new places and experiencing new things there. I learned to tie knots by watching someone tie them, by watching them tie them again and again, and then by repeatedly tying that knot again and again until not just my brain but my fingers knew how to tie it.
Over and over again, though, I’ve learned how to do things by imitation.
I’m sure that any of you who have visited my office have noticed the lack of something: an unoccupied horizontal surface. I firmly believe that horizontal surfaces exist to have things placed on them. Books. Memorabilia. Photo frames. File folders. Paper.
I believe in employing horizontal surfaces for their purpose.
I learned this behavior from my own parents in my own home. Both of them treated flat surfaces in exactly the same way. The kitchen counters were usable toward the edges, because the back was taken up by ingredient canisters, appliances, and other kitchen articles. Somehow my mother managed to keep the kitchen table empty for us to eat meals.
I like to think that that’s where I got the example to keep the table in my office mostly empty for Bible Study.
Early Christians had a limited set of examples to imitate. Those raised as Jews had more examples: there were lots of people in the Hebrew Scriptures, people of faith, people of principle, people of righteousness. As I think I’ve also mentioned, they all had flaws. I would be thrilled to imitate Moses, but I would like to do so without whining. I would love to imitate Solomon, but I would also like to conclude my career without people complaining that I’d put unfair burdens on them. I would love to imitate Jeremiah, but hopefully without sounding like, and possibly being, somebody who was clinically depressed.
That’s a complicated set of examples to emulate. The Christians who came into the Church from the religions of Greece, Rome, Egypt and northern Europe didn’t have those examples handy. They had very different ideas of what it meant to live a faithful life, ideas that sometimes went smoothly with the Jewish foundation of the Church, and sometimes really clashed. In First Thessalonians, Paul sounded concerned about that. From what Paul wrote in verse 9 – “how you turned to God from idols” – it sounds like most if not all of the people in the Thessalonian congregation came from other religions. They had had to learn a lot about the God of the Hebrews, in addition to welcoming the good news of Jesus. It’s no wonder Paul was so proud of them, so pleased with their faith, so concerned that the stresses they were under (which might have been official persecution or might have been the more casual but still painful pressures of prejudiced neighbors), so thrilled that despite these pressures, they were a growing and learning and thriving Christian community in Macedonia.
What examples had they had to follow?
The one Paul would have mentioned first, of course, was Jesus. That’s kind of a basic for any teaching about Christianity. Whatever else you say about Jesus, his acts of wisdom, compassion, faithfulness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and resurrection became a primary model for the Jesus-people to follow. The first name for Christians was, it appears, the “People of the Way,” those who imitated Jesus. Before his crucifixion, Jesus had directed his followers to care for the people around them as he did. Feed them. Heal them. Teach them. Baptize them. Encourage them.
What did he teach his disciples to do after his resurrection? The same. Make more disciples, too. Set everyone to feeding, healing, teaching, baptizing, encouraging.
It’s a good example. Paul would have been all too aware, though, that Jesus’ example was (and is) a hard one to follow. Jesus knew that the authorities were suspicious of his activities. He was warned. He went right on with them. He walked right into the lion’s den (or rode a donkey, if you prefer). Even with resurrection beyond, who wants to emulate a man whose courage led him to execution?
Paul did. I think that makes it fair enough to include him among the examples for imitation – and for the Thessalonians, Paul and those with him on his initial stay were the whole of what they knew Christians to be and to look like. “What’s a Christian?” “Well, there’s Paul. And Silvanus. And Timothy.”
Who else would they imitate?
Michael Joseph Brown writes at Working Preacher, “Persecution and death are not the only way we, as believers, imitate Paul, the other churches, and the Lord. Consequent to these crucifixion-like experiences are resurrection-like experiences. Paul indicates this when he notes that the Thessalonians ‘received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit’ (emphasis mine). The inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is an indication that she has transcended persecution, just like Jesus’ resurrection transcended death (i.e., ‘whom [God] raised from the dead;’ 1:10).”
Paul named, I think, the first point in which the Thessalonians imitated him: “for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit.” It’s a crucial point, isn’t it? Christianity has earned itself a somewhat bleak reputation, not just in this century, but in many, of being judgmental to the point of cruelty. I’m grateful that we’re not currently experiencing anything like the waves of legalized violence against “heretics” that took so many lives so horribly in Europe. Lest we think too much of the modern era, we might remember “the Troubles” in Ireland in which Protestant vs. Catholic hatred was repeatedly fanned into violence. I guess I could be relieved that it’s not just Christianity that does this kind of thing – but I’m not.
In contrast, the Thessalonians responded with joy. With joy. Christianity was not a burden to be imposed. It was a gift to be embraced. As they embraced it, they received the power and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as well, the sign Paul always looked for as those new to following Jesus grew in faith.
Joy. Not angst. Joy. Not regret. Joy. Not self-punishment. Joy. Not other-punishment. Joy.
Paul summoned them to a work of faith and a labor of love, and they responded with joy. “Why? what labor is it to love? Merely to love is no labor at all,” wrote John Chrysostom in the fourth century. “But to love genuinely is great labor. For tell me, when a thousand things are stirred up that would draw us from love, and we hold out against them all, is it not labor?”
Yes, there are things that would draw us from love, aren’t there? So many things.
Greed. Rage. Lust – both for sex and for power. Self-criticism – that notion that I’m not worthy of a relationship with God. That would draw us from love, too.
The first step, I think, and I think Paul thought, was to accept the gifts of God with joy.
That was imitating Paul.
The next step, I think, and I think Paul thought, was to translate faith into loving action. As Richard Ascough writes at Working Preacher, “The presentation of the Gospel is found in words and action. Paul notes that he and his colleagues did not simply talk about the Gospel, they lived it. They lived it to the degree that when the new believers wanted to know how to live, they imitated the messengers. In like manner, the Thessalonians themselves became exemplars of action for others.”
Should you imitate Paul in all things? No. He could be remarkably abrasive with people he loved and respected. As much as I honor the truths of Second Corinthians, I’m aware that if I tried speaking to people the way he wrote to them, I’d be a spectacular failure. I don’t think I’d persuade anyone to my way of thinking.
We don’t actually know whether Paul did.
So no, don’t imitate everything in Paul. Paul wouldn’t want that. Think about the person who comes closest in your life to living fully as a Christian. Don’t emulate everything in them. Don’t emulate everything in me. I don’t want that. I try to be a good example of a Christian, but I know I fall short. Take the best from me, and leave the rest. But know that neither you nor I will know, just as Paul couldn’t know, the fullness of truth, the depths of righteousness. We’re still people, after all.
No, if you want to imitate someone and have pretty fine assurance that goodness and truth are what you’re emulating, choose Jesus. Choose one who fed people, healed people, taught people, encouraged people.
Choose one who loved people. Imitate that one.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the sermon as preached does not precisely match the sermon as prepared.
The image is Paul and Silas in Philippi, by an unknown artist (between 1591 and 1600). Photo by Rijksmuseum – http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.223502, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84114572.