April 13, 2020

With COVID-19, quarantining, and isolation that a lot of people are experiencing during this time, a lot of people have more free time on their hands. I was always told growing up that when you have too much time on your hands bad things happen. I still believe this is true. Whether we are looking for things to occupy our time or digging through the internet looking for something to fill our time. According to Psychology Today, one of the major pornography sites showed that traffic went up 11.6 percent on March 17th. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the site also reported a steady increase since quarantining began because of the coronavirus? Psychology Today also believes that this increase could be a coping mechanism for people who are trying to cope with the fear of death and disease.

Paul’s words here to the church were to walk with and please God (verse 1). He then follows it up by telling them to abstain from sexual immorality. This was during a time when the church in Thessalonica was dealing with heavy persecution and death because of their faith in Jesus. Do you think that some of them were probably trying to cope with this fear by also indulging in sexual immorality? This could be the reason Paul addresses this here in this letter. Paul then tells them to flee these things because God called them to holiness (verse 7)! He calls Christians today to that same holiness. So flee from impurity! If this is an area that you are struggling with during this time, find an accountability partner and ask God for help. 

His last point in this section is to love others. I see how you all are loving those around you during this time, but Paul says to do this even more (verse 10). People should come out of this crisis seeing Christ’s love through our actions!

By: Jacob Kerr — West Campus Pastoral Ministry Apprentice – Worship & Students