1 Thessalonians 5:15-18 …Seeking to Do Good (11/22/16)
“See that no one repays evil for evil, but always seeks to Do Good for one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the Will of God.” ~ Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:15-18)
This passage is intriguing for several reasons – Firstly, because it (like so many of Paul’s sayings) exposes Paul’s own hypocrisy. For while Paul talked a great game as far as being Kind to others was concerned, he was often anything but Kind to those who challenged him or who believed differently than he did (see 1 Corinthians 16:22, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, Galatians 5:12, Philippians 3:18-19).
Secondly, while this passage does well to claim that God would have us be Kind to our enemies (and while this particular belief does indeed harmonize fully with Jesus’ own beliefs about the “perfect”, fully unconditional, and ever-non-condemning nature of his heavenly Father’s Love — see Matthew 5:48 + 1 John 4:18 + Luke 6:36 + Matthew 8:21-22 et al), such a claim does not harmonize with Paul’s own beliefs about Paul’s own God – a God who thinks not twice about casting unbelievers into eternal damnation; a God who demands petty subservience from all His followers before affording them any measure of post-mortem solace (see Romans 5:21, Romans 9:27, Romans 11:21-22, Romans 12:19, 1 Corinthians 5:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Corinthians 10:5).
Thirdly & finally, this passage encourages us to give thanks in all circumstances – something Jesus did indeed fully fulfill (see his utterance of Psalm 22:1 to his listeners — while nailed to a cross, no less!), and yet a Truth that Paul himself found frequently difficult to exude (see 1 Corinthians 4:9-13, 2 Corinthians 6:4-5).
In essence, Paul is here once again the epitomical “false prophet”, one of the spiritual charlatans of whom Jesus warned us – one of those (at least in this case) who evidences the Truth that we are to emulate what such “zany zealots” mean to say, not what they actually say or do (see Matthew 23:3).
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