“is it not you?”
Paul speaks of the Thessalonians being his crown. In Greek there are two words for crown. The one is diadema which is used almost exclusively for the royal crown. The other is stephanos which is used almost exclusively for the victor's crown in some contest and especially for the athlete's crown of victory in the games. It is stephanos that Paul uses here. The only prize in life that he really valued was to see the believers in Thessalonike, his friends whom he had come to love, living for Christ. He knew that when his life would be over and he would meet the risen Christ, the one question Christ might ask, is “whom did you bring with you?”
Here’s how the apostle John put it...
"No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth." (3Jn 1:4 ).
Paul would have said amen to that. A man or woman’s greatest glory lies in those whom he has set or helped on the path to Christ. Nothing that we can do can bring us credit in the sight of God; but in the end the stars in a man or woman’s crown will be those whom he led nearer to Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment