The Holy Martyrs Onisiphorus and Porphyry; Our Venerable Mother Matrona; The Venerable Theoctista of Lesbos.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Luke 12:13-15, 22-31.
Read 2 Thessalonians 1:1-10
St. Paul addresses these words of thanksgiving to the church at Thessalonica: “We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, as is fitting, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (2 Thess 1:3).
When Paul wrote, the church at Thessalonica was perhaps a year old. It had been founded in a hurry before Paul was driven out of the city by night (Acts 17:10). Most of its members were Gentiles who had “turned to God from idols” (1 Thess 1:9), and many worked with their hands. Their afflictions came from “your own countrymen” (1 Thess 2:14), which meant neighbours, fellow tradesmen and family. To give up the gods of the city and the worship of the emperor was to set a household against everyone around it. At the church’s founding the charge against them was that they said “there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). Their steadfastness was the daily choice to keep that confession when it cost them.
In the midst of this situation St. Paul draws attention to their “steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you are enduring” (1:4). The faith of the Church grows in the middle of affliction, and their love for one another grows with it.
St. John Chrysostom sees this growth as proof of their faith: “It is a great thing for faith to be solidly established and not to be carried away by some sophistry. But when the winds assail us, when the rains burst upon us, when a violent storm is raised on every side and the waves follow upon one another, that fact that we are not shaken is a proof that faith grows, grows abundantly and becomes more exalted” (Homilies on 2 Thessalonians, 2). This is the faith endures.
Our afflictions are usually quieter: illness, loss, the small and steady cost of keeping faith among people who don’t share it. As Chrysostom says, they are still where faith grows. In every Divine Liturgy the we ask for “a good defense before the awesome judgment seat of Christ.” We build that defense the way the Thessalonians built theirs, by holding to the confession we made at baptism and loving one another while we hold to it. Then when he comes “to be glorified in his saints” (1:10), we may be found among them.