Being alone is one thing. Being alone and wondering what is happening to fellow-workers is something else. But if you are part of a new movement that is changing the world and cannot afford to be cut off from the action is a heavy burden indeed.
Paul feared that his letter would be read by friends in Thessalonica who had given up. This new faith, Christianity, as it came to be called, had claimed their attention and satisfied longings but it could not last. Had they given up the struggle? Had the pressures of of an unsympathetic society proved too much for them? Had they succumbed to family wishes?
It went on. Paul had to have up-to-date news. This nerve-racking experience was just too much. So he sent Timothy and was now not only forlorn in Athens but friendless. Until, that is, Timothy returned. And return he did – with good news too. The believers in Thessalonica were just as eager to see Paul as he was to see them. Far from being swept off their feet by everyday pressures they were standing firm in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3.9). For Paul that was the breath of life.
The new converts were doing well but they could do better. ‘This is the will of God, that you should be holy.’ Pay the bills and earn the money to do so, he was saying. That would command the respect of those outside your circle of friends in the faith. Paul was aware of the constant tug to adopt the life-style of the city they lived in. To do that would be to capitulate.
LONELY MARINER
‘Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (‘The Ancient Mariner’)
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