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The Pastoral Epistles of Saint Paul
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), part 30, 1 Thessalonians 1-2
January 24, 2022

Topics include: 
(1) Remembering others before God; 
(2) The background for this epistle in Acts 16-17; 
(3) Paul's example in preaching the Gospel among them: not for money or his own glory, but for Christ, gently treating the new believers as his children, with integrity, supporting himself so as not to burden them, and with great fatherliness; 
(4) Whenever we receive great grace, there will also come great afflictions and temptations, but with joy in the Holy Spirit. The Fathers said "without temptation there is no salvation." God, in His inscrutable providence, allows the demons to test us ... so we can, for our own good, "work out our salvation with fear and trembling". For the most part, we lead ourselves into temptation, so the demons don't have to work very hard!