Deeper Reflection
WHEN WE DISCIPLE PEOPLE AND THEIR LIVES ARE transformed by God through our ministry and influence, we can look at them as “our crown of boasting” and “our glory and joy” (vv. 19-20). Mark the word “our”. The “joy” refers to the present, and the “crown of boasting” and “glory” refers to the future at Christ’s Second Coming.³ Paul’s joy in this world and his glory in the next were tied up with the Thessalonians who were transformed by Christ – their “work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope” in the Lord (1 Thess 1:3) – through his ministry.Does Paul’s glory in the Thessalonians conflict with his affirmations of glorying only in Christ and His cross (1 Cor 1:31; Gal 6:14)? Obviously not, otherwise Paul would be self-contradictory. Boasting can be prideful attitudes in our sinfulness, even in our spirituality (Rom 2:17-18, 23). For Paul, “my pride in you” – the Corinthians – was Christ-centred: a pride “which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord” (1 Cor 15:31). We can legitimately boast and that boasting is “in the Lord” (2 Cor 10:17-18). Paul could say honestly without pride, “I laboured more than all” the other apostles, with the qualification, “yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor 15:10). Paul’s glory was in the Thessalonians themselves, not his own achievements. It is easy to blur the line in this. And that glory and boasting will be “before our Lord Jesus at His coming” (v. 19) – not now. This kind of glory and boasting has to do with our perspective, motive and attitude.

---

³ John R. W. Stott, Thessalonians, 63