Live to please God

"What is it to live and walk so as to please God"? It is, to make his pleasure our ultimate end".

1 Thessalonians 4:1-5. 1Timothy 2:19

Living to please God should be the role of every Christian, we are instructed how to live to please God, in the sense of maintaining proper Christian conduct, everybody lives to please someone; either self or for someone else. Christians should live to please God. Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" 1 Timothy 2:19.

The letter is written to Thessalonians from Corinth, and in Thessalonians 3:7 he tells them to live and stand fast in faith, after hearing the report from Timothy, he mentions praying night and day. Paul understands sanctification as an active cleansing walk with Christ, exhorting the Christian as "how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more." the sanctification of a Christian vessel, is a vital part of being disciples and followers of Christ.

In Thessalonians 4:1-5 we are given instruction on purging oneself, and become a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work" 1 Timothy 2:20-21 "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.

The Background of the letter to Thessalonians is found in the book of Acts, chapter seventeen. The concerns that Paul has for the Thessalonians in this letter, is summed up in the first part of the chapter, having waited anxiously for a report from his fellow workers Silas and Timothy.

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. 1:2We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; 1:3remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father; 1:4knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, 1:5how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake. 1:6And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit; 1:7so that ye became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. 1:8For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. 1Thessalonians 1:1-9.

Thessalonica was the capital of the province of Macedonia and a large seaport. The letter to the Thessalonians is thought to have been written by Paul from Corinth a few months after founding a congregation there, the church was establish after three Sabbath days mission, or it took only three weeks. Time of the letter is perhaps dated around AD 51.

Acts 17:14

After leaving Macedonia in Alexander's kingdom, and after planting the Thessalonica church, leaving Silas and Timothy behind to continue the work that was started, they sent him away to sea. It is to be noted that, Silas and Paul had very different doctrines. Firstly, Paul would not have chosen to travel with Silas if there were significant doctrinal differences between them. Paul was selective about who should be in his team, according to Acts 15:37-38, and he chose Silas in preference even to Barnabas. We have to consider the incident in Gal 2:11-14, the Jerusalem counsel may have insisted on having one of their representative go on mission with him and to keep an eye on him.

Therefore we can be confident that Silas was indeed a leader of the Jerusalem church, and that he was chosen by the other Jerusalem church leaders to represent them on the issue of Gentile inclusion. And it is very likely that Paul share the same views of inclusion of the gentiles as did the Jerusalem church.

And brought the apostle Paul unto Athens, it was the cultural center of the world, capital city of ancient Greece, which has styled the modern day democracies of voting, with participants and exclusions; you had to complete military training in order to vote.

(Verse 16) Paul waited for his colleagues and made use of his time, this church may not be where you want to be, but God will have you to make good use of your time, and live for him.  Paul will get into disputes with Jews in the synagogue, and society's philosophers, he is encountered by the epicureans and stoicks. Paul himself was a learned man, been taught at the feet of Gamaliel, who was a Pharisee doctor of Jewish laws. (Acts 5:34).

A city given over to idolatry, what is idolatry? The worship of physical objects, (Ref 1 cor 10.20)

How does God say us auth to worship? What example do we find in the bible of worship?

Jews, devote persons, in market places, daily, his testimony was not about material things, or just prosperity, or saying that God is good. We need to formulate, and link up words to better describe our experience with God, your vocabulary in Christianity can be enhance by a prayer life, spend time reading at length the word of God, spend time in fellowship of those who love the scriptures, nothing defines a culture as distinctly as its language.

Add to your learning capacity, add to your faith virtue to virtue, inner strength to do right, 2 peter 1:5. Growth in Christ is a progress life maturing into the measure of the fullness of Christ, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me, Galatians 2:20.

Paul further teaches us about brotherly love: "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." It is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who teaches us and trains us through the word and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Christian is one in whose love toward the brethren is revealed the divine love of God in Christ Jesus. "Whoever does that which is good is taught of God to do it, and God must have the glory. All who are taught of God are taught this lesson, to love one another.

In Athens, Paul finds different schools of thoughts. Epicureans, they are base on the teaching of Epicurus, 1 BC 34 to 270, a system of philosophy base on the theory of materialism,  they taught only things that exist is matter, and attack superstition and divine intervention, they love seeking pleasure, to attain tranquility from fear, they were atheists in the broad sense.

Stoicks, philosophers who proclaim themselves exalted above others, the theory of science highest perfection above miseries, they were pantheist, believing evolution and space and rejecting the concept of omnipotent creator, and both parties express belief in astrology and hold the notion of many gods. And they opposed biblical Christianity.

We need to formulate and linkup words to better describe our experience with God, add to your learning capacity, add to your faith virtue to virtue, inner strength to do right, 2 peter 1:5.

Paul will come up against the Greek culture, just like we come up against the English culture, or Caribbean culture, we must not be ignorant, have knowledge of the what we are talking about, know about some of the laws, have the ability and courage to defend what you believe.