Here on eternity's edge, we pray that the Holy Spirit makes us people who speak God's truth, not to please our listeners but to please our God.

Would you settle for "not a failure" stamped on an evaluation of your work? On your report card? On your tombstone? One hopes not. Yet that was how Paul summed up the ministry in Thessalonica: "You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure" (1 Thessalonians 2:1).

Success in Thessalonica

But Paul was writing more than faint praise of the missionaries' efforts among the Jews and Gentiles in that Greek city of the Roman empire. In fact, "not a failure" was Paul's modest—and Spirit-inspired—way of saying that their work had been a success. Their work had succeeded. The missionaries had preached Jesus the Christ. The Spirit had blessed their preaching. The results had been, so to speak, not bad.

Indeed, they had been very good. Some Jews and many Gentiles had come to faith in Jesus. Despite obstacles and hardships, they then became worthy examples for other believers. By God's grace the Thessalonians now had a reputation across the Christian church for eager, enduring faith and energetic, enthusiastic labor in the Lord.

Faithful despite obstacles

But Paul had to make a statement about the success in Thessalonica because after he and Silas were forced to leave the city, enemies of the gospel had accused the missionaries of false motives, insincerity, and selfish interests. So for his dear children in the faith—people who lived at a busy hub of the empire and long used to the traveling philosophers, self-promoters, and for-profit prophets of the Roman world—Paul reviewed shared memories. Among the Thessalonians he and Silas had worked to support themselves, avoided becoming a burden, and shared the gospel out of love for souls and from joy in sharing. To the enemies' false charges, Paul said, in effect, "Fellow Christians, you know better. You know what God's Spirit accomplished in you through our work, and you know our work."

Paul wrote, "We speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men, but God, who tests our hearts" (2:4). They preached God's law unapologetically: turn from your idols; give up your pet sins—even the ones your culture endorses; forget dead works; you cannot save yourselves. They preached the gospel of Jesus—how God's Son had lived perfectly, died innocently, and rose triumphantly to win and assure the forgiveness of sins for them and all who believe.

Was Silas just trying to please people? The law is not easy listening. Was Paul an insincere, false flatterer? The gospel flatters no one—not the speaker, not the hearer. But it is the power of God for salvation. The Thessalonians were proof of its success. The work in Thessalonica was "not a failure."