1 Thessalonians 5:11
Holman Christian
Standard Bible (HCSB)
11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are
already doing.
Once upon a time I was asked to visit high schools loosely
affiliated with the university where I was teaching. I visited them and chatted
with the teachers of mathematics there. I asked what they were doing and what
training they had for the teaching of mathematics. I found that most of the
teachers had no real training in mathematics and wished they did. They all
indicated that if we had a master’s degree for teaching mathematics, they would
come and take it. Their schools had a program that paid for them to take
further studies in their fields each summer if they wished to do it.
I presented this request to my department. There was a
favorable reception to the idea, and I was encouraged to look into the matter
further. I got in touch with the Mathematics Association that was connected
with college math teaching and preparation of mathematics teachers. They had a
program that looked really exciting, and I spent hours adapting it to what we
did at the university.
When I presented this as a possibility to the department,
everybody seemed to be opposed to the very idea. I was accused of being
non-professional, of undercutting what the university was doing, of causing
everyone in the department to have to do more work, of working against the
university’s policy of excellence. I received no encouragement whatsoever. The
attacks turned personal. Finally, after months of discouragement, I dropped the
whole idea.
Apparently Paul felt this way in Thessalonica. He was chased
out of the city by disgruntled people. Later he wrote a short letter to the
church there. Eight times in this letter he mentioned encouragement (in the
Holman Christian Standard Bible); that is more than in any two of his other
letters.
Lord, use me to
encourage those I associate with in their walk with You.
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