1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

Am looking at 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3.

It is a prayer.

We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we think of the great Christian virtues, we think of faith, hope and love as mentioned in this prayer.

Certainly, we think of 1 Corinthians 13:13, And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

We also may think of the 9 aspects of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

All worthy of striving for in our lives through prayer for ourselves and for each other.

What is interesting to me in the prayer in this passage is that faith, hope and love don't stand alone. Rather something happens as a result of the existence of those virtues in the life of the follower of Jesus. In fact as I read it, I can feel the sweat on the brow building up: these virtues are linked to work, labor and endurance! I picture in my head those Gatorade commercials!

The three words that describe what springs forth from faith, hope and love intrigued me.

Since I'm a molecular biologist and not a Greek scholar, there is a limited amount of information I can glean from the Greek text. But with on-line resources, even a lay-person like myself can get a little flavor of the Greek. If you go to Bible.Crosswalk.com one can access the Greek through various clicks. I'm still not very good at it but if you hunt around you can get to it!

Tied with faith is work which is the Greek word ergon (Strong's 2041) which has this definition:
(1) business, employment, that which any one is occupied that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking
(2) any product whatever, any thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind
(3) an act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is emphasised in opp. to that which is less than work

Quite a word picture, eh?

There is a sense of purposefulness and a product at the end of the day. Faith isn't some abstract thing but at the end of the day it should have produced something tangible. Just as an artist has a painting on the wall from her efforts or a craftsman has a piece of furniture to use.

Linked to love is labor which is the Greek word kopos (Strong's 2873) which has this definition:
(1) a beating
(2) a beating of the breast with grief, sorrow
(3) labour, trouble, to cause one trouble, make work for him, intense labour united with trouble and toil

Talk about vivid!

We think of love as this soft-focus warm fuzzy thing with music in the air. Not so! It is intense and even painful!

Lastly, hope is connected to endurance which is the Greek word hupomone (Strong's 5281) which has this definition:
(1) steadfastness, constancy, endurance, in the NT the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate, purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings, patiently, and steadfastly
(2) a patient, steadfast waiting for
(3) a patient enduring, sustaining, perseverance

Hope means sticking it out even when the going gets tough. It means keeping an eye on the prize at the very end.

Lord, teach me to be centered on Jesus. Produce in my life works of faith. I want my life to have a real result. Teach me to practice what love really means and how that shows itself in labor that is not easy and even painful and sorrowful but ultimately worthwhile. Help me to hang in there even when discouraged by focusing on Jesus. Amen!