A THESSALONICA WAY OF EVANGELISM

Part ONE

(Footnote: The last series of messages I preached at First Baptist Church in Altoona, was from the book of I Thessalonians)

1 Thessalonians 1:8. THE LORD’S MESSAGE RANG OUT FROM YOU.".

"For from you, sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything." KJV

"For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you"

"The Greek word is "sound" ‘execheo’, which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is derived from echos, an ‘echo’ or noise. According to TDNT, it can mean to ‘sound, ring, chime or boom’. It was used in LXX of bells, zithers, trumpets, and other loud noises. In the New Testament the weaker verb echeo relates to the noise of a resounding gong (1 Cor.13:1) and of the roaring sea (Lk.21:25; cf.Ps.65:7). LKGNW "An echoing like thunder or sounding out as a trumpet" And indicates that a sound is made and it is heard spreading out from a center over an area. The word "sound" is a perf.pass. ind. This means the word denotes the continuing activity.

A THUNDEROUS SOUND WAS MADE

Chrysostom thought that Paul was likening the preaching of the gospel to "the sound of a loud trumpet". The verb is also used of "a great thunder" (Eccles.40:13; cf.46:17), and Jerome described Paul’s writings as non "verba sed tonitrua," "not words but thunderclaps". At all events, whether Paul is thinking of thunder or trumpets, the gospel proclaimed by the Thessalonians made a loud noise, which seemed to reverberate through the hills and valleys of Greece.

A FAITH IN GOD WAS SEEN

But there was something more than that: "your faith in God is spread abroad" or "become known everywhere" (8). We must notice carefully the threefold correspondence in verse 8 between the two means by which the gospel spread from Thessalonica.

• The first is between "the word of the Lord" (direct preaching) and "your faith in God" (an implied report).

• The second is between the loud "sounding out" of the gospel and the much quieter "spreading abroad:" or " becoming known" of their faith.

• The third is between the local provinces of Macedonia and Achaia which the preaching reached, and "every place" to which the news of their faith had penetrated (cf. Rom.1:8).
  Even if Paul’s "every place" is embellishment, he is certainly saying that the Thessalonians’ faith was becoming known far beyond Greece, maybe west by land to Rome and east by sea to Ephesus.

Drafted by Charles E. Whisnant Proof Checked by Charity Whisnant