1 Thessalonians 3
1 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. 4 For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. 6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. 8 For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. 9 For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10 as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Some years ago I read a fascinating and troubling interview with John Derbyshire, at that time at National Review. Derbyshire was talking about his own lack of faith and reported this anecdote form his own family.
I have the depressing example, in my own family, of an uncle who lost his faith at the very end of life. He’d been a staunch Methodist…Fred was, in fact, the only close relative of mine to be religious in a busy, dedicated way helping with church functions, lay reading, that sort of thing…Then in his late 70s he got esophagal cancer, and spent several months dying slowly. It’s an awful way to go: slow starvation and slow choking, simultaneously. At some point he lost his lifelong faith, and died an atheist, railing at the folly of religion…Anyway, the example of Uncle Fred has been lurking there in the back of my mind ever since. You hear a lot about deathbed conversions, but not much about deathbed apostasies. Well, let me tell you, it happens.[1]
“Deathbed apostasy.” Derbyshire is right: You do not hear a lot about that. But it does happen.
In many ways, life seems to assault our faith. Some stand strong like unmoved citadels. Some collapse. But many are in the middle: They continue to believe, but their faith is buffeted and in need of strengthening.
The young Thessalonian church was suffering. They were undergoing persecution. And Paul (who himself had had to flee Thessalonica earlier) was worried. Would the church there hold on to their faith in Jesus? Would the devil use their sufferings to tempt them to abandon the faith? Or would they stand firm?
As it turns out, these are the same questions that confront us today.