Calvary Road Baptist Church
THE APOSTLE PAUL’S NEW CONVERTS TRAINING MANUAL
First Thessalonians
by
John S. Waldrip
CLASSICAL BAPTIST PRESS
319 West Olive Avenue
Monrovia, CA 91016
January 2024
NEW CHRISTIANS LESSON # 1
“SOME TRUTHS PAUL’S CONVERTS ALREADY KNEW”
INTRODUCTION:
You are now beginning to study Paul’s “new converts course” in the New Testament, his first Thessalonian letter. Frequently, we forget that Paul’s converts, many of them Jewish Christians with a rich Scriptural heritage (see Second Timothy 3.15) and Gentile converts who were synagogue-attending God-fearers, generally were far more familiar with God’s Word than most new converts of our day.
This being true, it must be recognized that Paul built upon a foundation of knowledge not often possessed by new converts in our day. Therefore, this first lesson takes note of truths and practices that were already known and taken for granted by those in Thessalonica, whom Paul found in the synagogue he went to and reaped an excellent harvest of souls in.
1A. GOD
Jewish people were monotheists, meaning they understood only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Gentiles, even those God-fearers attending synagogue worship who embraced monotheism, had likely grown to adulthood in a polytheistic environment. When evangelizing individuals from such different backgrounds, it is reasonable to assume Paul’s approach to meeting their spiritual needs would have been to reinforce and elaborate to the Jewish audience the nature of God as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures and to lay a foundation for monotheism with his Gentile audience.
1B. As To God’s Nature
1C. His Moral Attributes - holy, righteous, good, truthful, etc.
The God of Israel declares Himself in the Hebrew Scriptures to be unlike the false gods of the Gentiles. He is a moral being, and Paul and his team could be expected to have emphasized this aspect of His nature to Jewish people raised to pay lip service to God’s moral attributes while living lives of external religious formalism. The Gentiles would find such truths about God’s moral attributes unfamiliar in comparison to the gross immoralities of pagan deities.
2C. His Constitutional Attributes - personal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, sovereign
God spoke to Adam and Moses (Genesis 3.9; Exodus 3.4) and others, showing He is personal. His creation of all things establishes His omnipotence. He knows all that is, as well as all the possibilities of what might have been. As sovereign, He is answerable to and accountable to no one, with absolute freedom of choice and action that is only limited by His moral attributes. His Constitutional Attributes show He is uniquely God.
3C. His Triunity.
The Shema encapsulates that there is only one God, Creator of heaven and earth, Deuteronomy 6.4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” Jewish believers were taught this from infancy, and it is impossible to imagine Gentile new converts who were not quickly taught the Shema. Yet the Triunity of God must have been formulated in some way in the instructions given to early believers since Paul showed the equality of the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in the first verse of this letter: “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Thessalonian congregation was in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace were from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Both statements grant the Savior’s equality with the First Person.
2B. As To God’s Activities
1C. Regarding creation (Genesis 1 & 2)
With God’s Word intended for a non-scientific and non-technical audience, no part of the Bible is written from the perspective of science but from the perspective of perception. That said, the first two chapters of the Hebrew Scriptures speak to origins truthfully, using narrative and not poetry to account for the existence of all things material, both inanimate matter and living creatures. Creation is ex nihilo, which is to say “From nothing.” A scientist would recognize that God speaking the physical universe into existence created the time-space-matter continuum. Paul taught those new converts that the days of Genesis 1 were literal, twenty-four-hour days and that the accounts of Adam and Eve’s creations were to be understood literally.
2C. Regarding covenants (Genesis 12.1-3)
Synagogue-trained Jewish people were well-schooled in the Hebrew Scriptures and familiar with covenants. They were familiar with God’s covenant with Noah, to never again judge the whole world with a flood, Genesis 9.8-17. They were also familiar with God’s covenant with Abram, Genesis 12.1-3, and the Mosaic Covenant established following the Exodus from Egypt. Paul also taught that Christ’s coming was crucial to fulfilling God’s Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenant. Related to their understanding of covenants was their anticipation of God’s kingdom being reestablished, a theocratic kingdom with a promised king, a promised land, and a promised citizenry, each promised by covenants expanding on the Abrahamic Covenant. The Davidic Covenant pledge of David’s heir as the future King. The so-called Palestinian Covenant guaranteed the kingdom’s territory. The New Covenant promised subjects of the King in the kingdom.
3C. Regarding redemption
Throughout the OT redemption is related to deliverance. God is the Redeemer of Israel (Deuteronomy 9.26; 2 Samuel 7.23; 1 Chronicles 17.21; Isaiah 52.3). In the NT, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes individuals’ redemption (Galatians 3.13; 4.5; 1 Peter 1.18). Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians establishes to new believers the basics of their new lifestyle as redeemed people.
2A. MAN
1B. Regarding Creation
1C. Man’s constitution: The image of God (Gen 1.26; 5.1-2; 9.6)
God first created incorporeal beings (angels), Job 38.7. He then made the physical universe, Genesis 1.1. When He created Adam, God brought together the spiritual (soul) and the physical (body) for the first time, making Adam in the image of God. Even after the Fall of the human race into sin, humanity continues to bear God’s image, Genesis 9.5.
2C. Man’s evolution: Not evolved from lower forms.
The Bible is true, John 17.17. This is because God cannot lie, Titus 1.2. God’s Word is settled, Psalm 119.89. In God’s Word, creation is shown to be sudden, occurring quickly, and is not the result of a slow process of evolution. Thus, humanity did not evolve but is the direct creation of God. That humanity is not the consequence of any process of evolution is attested by credible scientists who believe in the Bible.[1]
2B. Regarding Communion
1C. God’s desire and right - worship, tithes, prayer, obedience
God has no needs, though He does have desires. One of His desires is to commune with His creatures, as was illustrated in Genesis 3.8 and declared in numerous passages.[2] The use of various means accomplishes this. In the Old Testament era, God dwelt with His people using a tabernacle in the wilderness and a Temple in Jerusalem. He indwells individual believers using His indwelling Spirit, Romans 8.9 and First Corinthians 6.19 and gathers saints for corporate communion into congregations of members serving as His spiritual temple, First Corinthians 3.16.
2C. Man’s decision and wrong
Because of Adam’s disobedience, innocence was lost, and sin was experienced by the first man and his heirs, Romans 5.12. Sin has produced a race born dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2.1, condemned already, John 3.18, 36. The only remedy is the Gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died on the cross, was buried, and rose after three days in victory over sin, death, Hell, and the grave. As the Savior told Nicodemus, “ye must be born again,” John 3.3, 6, 7.
CONCLUSION:
- Of course, there are many more truths and practices observed by the new Christians in Thessalonica that we have not been able to deal with in this short period.
- Paul’s Gospel witness and later instruction did not remove these fundamental realities. Instead, they were built upon them.
- Such realities need as much to be understood by you as the Thessalonian Church members did; members who had trusted Christ for their soul’s salvation were subsequently baptized and embarked on a lifetime of worship, service, and instruction.
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HOMEWORK:
- Read Acts 17.1-10 to appreciate better the context in which First Thessalonians was written.
- Look up and read aloud the Scripture passages in Lesson #1.
- Monday through Friday of next week, read one chapter from First Thessalonians.
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[1] Michael Behe, Henry M. Morris, Philip E. Johnson, Duane T. Gish, and Jonathan D. Sarfati are reliable authors of science and the Bible who successfully show the baselessness of evolution.
[2] Exodus 25.8; 29.46; Numbers 35.34; 1 Kings 6.13; Psalm 68.18; Revelation 7.15
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church