Deeper Reflection
A CHURCH MAY AT THE END OF A YEAR REPORT ON THE number of pre-believers who received Christ through its personal and congregational evangelistic efforts. But does that church check on the number of these new believers who remain in the faith, how are they being discipled and who are those who have fallen away? We can safely assume from Paul’s close relationship with the Thessalonians, and his desire and attempts to reconnect with them after being forced to leave them abruptly, that he had such concerns. And this would be especially so when Paul recognised the reality of spiritual warfare in disciplemaking.Satan is mentioned twice in 1 Thessalonians, which point to two battlefronts in spiritual warfare in disciplemaking. Discipleship battlefront: The Thessalonians in their young faith were suffering affliction and Paul felt that he had not adequately built their faith. So, he was fearful in his absence from them that “the tempter” might have “tempted” them (1 Thess 3:5), they were “being shaken by the troubles you are going through” (1 Thess 3:3, NLT) and fell away from the faith. A very critical disciplemaking curriculum is suffering in discipleship. Disciplemaking battlefront: Paul made attempts to return to Thessalonica “again and again”, but to no avail, because “Satan hindered us” (v.18). The Greek word for “hindered” applies to “breaking up a road to render it impassable”⁴⁷. When we fail in committing ourselves to disciple new and young believers, we may have already lost in the disciplemaking battlefront without being “hindered” by Satan. 

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⁴⁷ John R. W. Stott, 62