23rd August 2026 (pm) - 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

But a question that is good to have in our minds as we come to this part of the Bible is what does genuine Christian ministry look like? What does faithful ministry look like? And that's an important question, isn't it? Because there are so many who have the name pastor or evangelist or preacher, and some of them are genuine servants of Jesus Christ.

But we know there are many who aren't.

And there are lots of people who... preach, call themselves evangelists, whatever, who really are charlatans, to put it as simply and as bluntly as we can.

They're in it for themselves.

They're in it for their belly.

They're in it for the money.

And the question then is, how can we discern between the true servant of God and the false one? All you have to do is turn on certain Christian channels.

So some of the stuff on there is okay, but some of the stuff that you get on telly is just shocking.

And so how can you discern between what is genuine Christian ministry and what is not? Who can we trust? Well, here in this section of 1 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul is telling the Thessalonians they can trust him and they can trust his message.

And he reminds them of the ministry that he had among them.

And so we can look at what Paul says about his own ministry, the way that he served Jesus among the Thessalonians.

And we can say, well, that is a genuine Christian ministry.

What does it look like? And do we see this in others today? Now, the reason why the Apostle Paul is reminding the Thessalonians of his ministry, of how he served Jesus among them, how he preached among them, is because there were some in the church, not in the church, but in Thessalonica.