The coming of Christ is a prominent theme in the New Testament epistles. This is understandable given the situation that the early church faced. They were a minority group that was often persecuted for their beliefs and so they lived with a sense of tension. They felt firsthand the conflict between God and the world system . It was starkly polarised and very real for them. The same tension exists today but we tend to be less conscious of it because it doesn’t cause us much personal discomfort. In fact, the lifestyle cult of our culture would have us as comfortable and complacent as possible. And yet the conflict is ever present. In one sense our comfortable situation presents a greater danger to our faith than a situation of persecution. The early Christians lived in anticipation of the coming of Jesus because they felt the pain of the conflict between the world system and God. This anticipation did not cause them to bunker down and leave the world to itself. They were intensely active in bringing the transforming power of the Gospel to their culture. But the more the light shone through them the more vehement was the reaction from those who preferred the darkness. They weren’t acting in response to the persecution. Rather, persecution came in response to what they were doing by God’s power. What the Christians longed for in Jesus’ coming was the final destruction of the evil that was coming to the surface as a result of their ministry.
Ask God to make the tension and conflict in the world more evident to you.
Read 2 Thessalonians 1
