1 Thessalonians 01 Introduction and Background

Good afternoon SBC Family and Friends,

I hope you are having a great day in the Lord. One more day to serve Him. Tonight we are taking an aside from Acts 18:5 to embark on a study of 1 Thessalonians, which Paul wrote at this time during His second missionary expedition. It's a great letter that Paul wrote to some new believer that deals with prophecy of all things! He adds a new idea to the plan of God known as the rapture, and he explains it in relation to an old idea in the plan of God known as the day of the Lord.

Prophecy is very practical. What you believe about the future impacts how you live in the present. At the end of every chapter in 1 Thessalonians there is a statement about the rapture. This book is rapture packed. The big issue with the rapture is the timing. Everyone agrees that it happens before the day of the Lord, but not everyone agrees when the day of the Lord begins. Does it begin with the 70th week of Daniel? Does it begin in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel? Does it begin sometime in the second half of the 70th week of Daniel? Or is it the day of the Second Coming? Everyone agrees the day of the Lord is the day of the wrath of God, but when it begins is part of the cause of all the ruckus.

What is even a bigger part of the cause for the ruckus is whether you see one people of God or two people's of God. What I mean is, does God have one people known in the OT as Israel that is replaced in the NT with the Church, or does God have one people that in the OT is known as Israel that is the Church and in the NT is the Church also known as Israel. There are several variations of talking about the one people of God. Of course, there is only one way of salvation. That is not the dispute. The dispute is whether God has a special plan for Israel and a special plan for the Church. If there is no distinct plans for Israel and the Church then there is no place for a pre-trib, mid-trib, or pre-wrath rapture, since all those presuppose there is some distinction. Post-trib is the most logical view in the one people of God concept. I probably won't even talk about this tonight or next week, but this one people of God concept was developed around the time of Cocceius in the 17th century AD. He was among a group of theologians who were looking for a principle to unify the Scriptures. They decided on the principle of covenant. Then they argued that God made a covenant of works with Adam to give him eternal life if he obeyed. When Adam disobeyed, God made a covenant of grace with Adam to give him and his elect progeny eternal life. This was the origin of the one people of God concept. Their view of God's ultimate purpose is to save this one group of people they call the elect. Everything in Scripture is about saving the elect. That is why there cannot be a plan for Israel and a plan for the Church. That doesn't register with them. They understand what we are saying, but they disagree with it because it doesn't jive with their covenant of grace and it's one people of God concept. At any rate, once you read that idea into the Scriptures you can never see Israel and the Church as distinct groups God is working with and then you can never see a pre-trib rapture. It just doesn't make sense with their presupposition. Reading Scripture straightforwardly one sees God create the nation Israel out of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their descendants come out of Egypt. Later, Christ says I will build My church. He wasn't building it yet. It started on the day of Pentecost. These are not the same thing. It's easy to see if we just let the Bible speak for itself. Ok, that was kind of a rant. I cease.

I hope to see you tonight.

See the attached handouts. There are a couple of different formats. I don't know which one you want. Have fun.

Grace to you,
Jeremy

Attachments:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N3ZlsQcxNRZUAE2tjGFophP8hkUfEFUF/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EMc_uqx-z1gN7qLPO1OKJZ_ZFfdThWEg/view?usp=drive_link