2 Thessalonians 2:17-18 – But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us.
In the good old days when I was growing up, we rode dinosaurs to school and had a telephone that plugged into a wall with a cord. Trying to get more than two people on a telephone conversation was impossible because only one person could hear what the other person on the line was saying.
Thankfully, our new smart phones have a few helpful features that our old dumb phones lacked. Today, we can add people to the conversation if they are not present through a conference call, or we can turn on the speaker phone feature so that more than one person can listen to the entire conversation.
Reading and studying books of the Bible can be a bit like listening in to a conversation on an old phone. There is a conversation between the author and the audience, but we only eavesdrop on half of the conversation and what the author says.
For this reason, the more we can know about the audience receiving and reading the letter, the better perspective and deeper insight we have on what exactly is meant by the words on the pages of our Bible. In the next devo, we will look at some of the characteristics of 1 Thessalonians and the godly church at Thessalonica.
What’s your favorite book of the Bible and why?
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