Tag: Thessalonians

• Luke 4:1-13: The Test

  
  

  Luke 4:1-13: The Test

  Thursday, Christmas Day, December 25, 2025

  

  As we approach a new year, let us prepare ourselves to be tested as Christ’s followers, and let us watch the Master as he interacts with Satan. This reflection was written in January 2010 and is posted today as a Favorite . . .

  Today we watch as Satan tests Jesus, hoping to tempt him into succumbing to his control. We hear Jesus remind Satan that he cannot test God. Even after his failure, Satan departed from him until an opportune time. The devil never gives up . Neither does God.

  St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians (10:9), reminds us of this again. In 2 Corinthians (2:9) he encourages us to be stalwart so that we might withstand our own test and temptation. In 8:8 and 13:5 he recommends that we test our own spirit to see where it needs bolstering. In Galatians 6:4 he again suggests that we test ourselves. To the Thessalonians he says: Test everything. Hold on to the good and avoid every kind of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)

  St. James (1:12) lauds the holy one who can withstand the test. 

  St. John in 4:1 of his first letter writes that we are to test false prophets and stray spirits to examine the origin and veracity of their authority.

  Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:16 when he reminds the devil that we are to refrain from testing God. We are to obey the commandments, to do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord. In the Old Testament, this clinging to commandments and laws brought God’s protection and defense. In the New Testament we realize that we are graced with God’s protection as a birthright; we receive uncounted blessings each day, even in the midst of suffering.

  All of this testing of self and this refusal to test God takes a great deal of effort, and by the end of each day we may be fatigued from holding firm and maintaining our own appropriate behavior. Spiritual exhaustion may accompany a life of trust in God, patience with God’s creatures, and perseverance in living a life of charity. It is for this reason that we must refill the well and give ourselves permission to rejuvenate the spirit. Perhaps when our nerves are frayed we ought to take this as a sign that we need to retreat from life for a bit.

  When Jesus is tempted by Satan, he replies: One does not live by bread alone; worship the Lord your God and serve him only; and do not put the Lord your God to the test.

  When we feel ready to explode, about to fall apart, or are just plain exhausted, we might repeat these words to ourselves and follow them with . . . if this is a test, dear Lord, give me the grace, the peace and the will to follow you, to know that you will convert all harm to good, and to know that we need trust only you. 

  In this way, we may pass each test that comes our way.  

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  Image from: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4453/Jesus_Tempted_in_the_Wilderness_J%C3%A9sus_tent%C3%A9_dans_le_d%C3%A9sert 

  For more images of Jesus from the Brooklyn Museum, click on the image above or follow this link: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4453/Jesus_Tempted_in_the_Wilderness_J%C3%A9sus_tent%C3%A9_dans_le_d%C3%A9sert

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  December 25, 2025

  Paul, wilderness, Jesus, John, temptation, Thessalonians, James, Satan, trusting God, test spirits and self, Corinthians, Galatians

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• 1 Corinthians 11: Imitators of Christ

  
  

  1 Corinthians 11: Imitators of Christ

  Monday, December 22, 2025

  Written on January 29 and posted today as a Favorite . . .

  

  So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.  Ephesians 5:1-2

  You became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model in Macedonia and in Achaia . . . For you became imitators in God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: you suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered.  1 Thessalonians 1:6, 2:14

  This portion of 1 Corinthians deals with problems in liturgical assembles; the church Paul established in Corinth was experiencing difficulties in maintaining the customs instituted by the apostle and so he writes to counsel them. He encourages them to remember who they are and all that God has given them; he asks them to serve as good models of Christian living – even though he, Paul, is not with them. He asks that they call upon their faith in Christ’s promise to be with them always in the offering of bread and wine. He asks that they put aside the corrupt ways they have allowed the creep into their spiritual practices.

  

  Some of what we read is troublesome when we look on these words from our place in the twenty-first century. Commentary tells us that Paul’s attitude toward women was in concert with the thinking of that day. Fundamentalists take these words literally and diminish women to a status below men. Most scholars today aver that if Paul were living in our world he would give women equal status with men. But rather than focus on some of Paul’s words here, what we can focus on is the way Christ himself treated women, beginning with his own mother, and the sisters of his friend Lazarus, Mary and Martha. It is clear from the Gospel stories that the Samaritan Woman in John 4, the woman with the hemorrhage in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8, the Canaanite/Syrophoenician woman in Matthew 15, and Mark 7, the woman crippled by a spirit for thirteen years in Luke 13, the woman caught in adultery in John 8 are all important to Jesus. He uses women in his parables in Matthew 13, for example – The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough – and in Luke 15 with the woman and the lost coin. There are other instances but these few serve to show the respect with which Christ treated women and this is what we are called to model.

  

  As Paul writes to the Corinthians – and to us today – about how we misuse and even abuse the gift of presence God gives to us each day either through the Eucharist or in any other form, we might remind ourselves that while we strive to imitate Christ perfectly we will miss the mark frequently. And as we read through the many stories we have about Jesus, we find one thing in common: Jesus loves us all, greatly and deeply. This is what Paul calls us to imitate. This is what we can strive to be and do. This is the person we can follow no matter our circumstance, gender, or status. This is all that God asks of us. This and nothing more.

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  A re-post from November 27, 2011.

  Images from: http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue/2011/03/the-samaritan-woman-loneliness.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_in_the_House_of_Martha_and_Mary_(Vermeer) and https://www.nga.gov/artworks/46155-magdalen

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  December 22, 2025

  Ephesians, Four Gospels, imitate Christ, liturgy, love, Thessalonians, women and Jesus

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