So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ. [2 Thessalonians 1.11-12]
While this passage of scripture provides an excellent platform for us to simply pray for others, the "context" behind it reveals what "to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do" accurately means. For this context, we need only to look to Paul's first letter to the Thessalonian Church:
And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment. [1 Thessalonians 1.8-10]
In his first letter to the Thessalonian believers, Paul encouraged them about their widespread testimony of "faith in God." Paul breaks down their "faith in God" in three ways: 1) their wonderful welcome of Paul, 2) their turning away from idols and to God, and 3) their anticipation of Jesus' return.
In his follow-up letter to the Church in Thessalonica, Paul noted their flourishing faith and ever-growing love for one another. He furthermore encouraged them to endure and remain faithful in the midst of all their persecutions and hardships.
Dear brothers and sisters, we can’t help but thank God for you, because your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing. We proudly tell God’s other churches about your endurance and faithfulness in all the persecutions and hardships you are suffering. And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. [2 Thessalonians 1.3-5]
So, why would the Thessalonian believers be suffering persecutions and hardships? The Holy Spirit power demonstrated by Paul's preaching (for free) assured them that they no longer needed the expensive idols they had been trusting up to that point.
We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. [1 Thessalonians 1.4-7]
They were persecuted because they trusted in Jesus Christ alone and turned away from idols. In so doing, the Thessalonian believers created a riff in the marketplace, explaining why the marketplace was the understandable setting for a mob and rioting to be incited (as recorded in Acts):
But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd. [Acts 17.5]
To overlook the role of idolatry in Paul's interaction with the Church in Thessalonica is to completely misunderstand it.
The problem therefore with a Biblical and historically accurate understanding of idolatry's role in ancient Thessalonica is that it foreshadows and foretells the same awkward riff in our own time and marketplace. If God's Church today, by exclusively trusting the power of the Holy Spirit, rejects and turns away from the expensive marketplace idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology, they can be sure persecution and hardships will result from such an act of "faith in God" alone.
In the context of history, the subject passage above (2 Thessalonians 1.11-12) is Paul's timeless and enduring prayer for the Church to "accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do" as it pertains to idols! Genuine "faith in God" alone will ALWAYS reject and turn away from idols (of our own way) and to the glory of Jesus Christ and His way - His demand for singular commitment to Him:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24 (also, Mark 8.34 & Luke 9.23)]
Father, I realize that Your Holy Spirit possesses the only power to help us first understand the damning role that idols play in our society (and sadly, the Church) today. I also realize that any proclamation of "faith in God" that upsets the idols of the "marketplace" is sure to draw ire from those idols and the ones who profit from and worship them. Even so, may Your truth prevail and even so, come, Lord Jesus! So be it.
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