Deeper Reflection
WHAT THE THESSALONIANS “HEARD FROM” PAUL, THEY “received” and “accepted it not as the word of men”, but “the word of God” (v.13). But what the Thessalonians “heard” were human words spoken by Paul. How then could they consider that “not as the word of men” but “the word of God” – and with the emphatic “what it really is”?The nature of the ministry of the Word is shaped by the nature of the Bible, the Word of God given as divine revelation. “The Bible is the Word of God given in the words of men in history.”31 That was how God gave us the Bible: “in the words of men” – the only way He can speak to us such that we can understand. Paul’s letters in the New Testament are considered as “Scriptures” (2 Pet 3:15-16), which he wrote as he was “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:20-21) and are thus “God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16). But they are all written in human words, nonetheless. So, when we read Paul’s letters, we hear Paul’s voice and God’s voice through Paul’s voice.When we communicate in human words, thoughts, ideas and insights that are based on and built from the Scriptures, and we do so “not in persuasive words of [human and worldly] wisdom” (1 Cor 2:4), but by the power of the Holy Spirit with deep conviction (1 Thess 1:5), we are speaking the Word of God. Our speech can become “Scripturated” – influenced, formed and directed by the Scriptures – that we speak Scripturally, even without citing Scriptures. Jesus was like that.31 George Eldon Ladd, The New Testament and Criticism (Eerdmans, 1967), 12