Paul's letter to a young church begins with eleven signs that people are truly elect and saved. Paul can rejoice for the Thessalonians, but could he for us? And are the signs reflected in professing Christian congregations today? Have we reason to rejoice? 

Thessalonica saw lives radically changed. The new objective of believers was the gathering of souls out of a doomed world for Christ's return, not world restoration (an old heresy returning today). Here also is their realisation of God's hatred of sin. Is ours fading?

Paul entered Thessalonica outwardly lowly but inwardly laden with treasures of grace and power. He lays out three tests of soundness: matter (the message), motives, and manner (of proclamation), and here we apply them to Jews, pagans, modern atheism, and present-day Christian phonies also.

Paul's description of the mission to Thessalonica presents the vital ingredients of evangelism - a desire for souls, hard work night and day, holy lives, fatherly appeals, and a desire for lasting conversion, all leading to a miracle of God in illumination and regeneration.

Of all the marks of conversion the apostle's crowning sign here is readiness to suffer in the course of witness. Also, he refers to Satan's hindrances (here are today's), and to the immense joy of relating to converts (our wreath of glory) both now and eternally.

Reflected in this letter is the apostle's deep concern for believers, and his sacrificial spirit. Also we see his acceptance of hardship for Christ, his great priority of building faith and trust in believers, his prayerfulness and his teaching on separation from the world.

Four principles of living to please the Lord: (1) The need to be pledged to constant progress, (2) the chief virtues to aim at, (3) the necessity of deliberate, determined abstention from sin, especially returning sin, and (4) the role of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle declares Christ as the unique and authoritative hope for the resurrection of the body. Here also is the concept of being joined to Him for salvation and therefore for eternity; the parousia and the rapture, and their imminence and comfort.

So inclined are we to spiritual and moral casualness that the apostle stresses the necessity and urgency of constant self-scrutiny of our tendencies, temptations, conduct, words and our associations in the fight against the surrounding 'darkness'. Here are his three selected items of armour.

This brief 'treasury' of concise exhortations lists key duties for Christian living, including rules for the spiritual life and duties for life in the everyday world. Here are the first eight forming a life of aspirations to both monitor and inspire.