Bible Journaling: 1 Thessalonians

In this first letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul reminds them of the hope we find in Christ. Mark all the places where he references the Gospel and this message of hope with a star as you read through this letter. 

For a broader view of this book of the Bible, we encourage you to watch this video:

Bible journaling tip:

There are some simple questions that you can always use as journaling cues no matter what Bible verse it is that you want to write about. Some of these include: What does this say about God? Where is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in this story? What does this say about people? Where am I in this story- what character do I identify with? What is one thing I can obey from this story? How can this transform my life to look more like Jesus? Keep a list of these and other questions that are helpful prompts in your Bible as a reminder to look deeper into the text when you read.

LOOK UP(information): encounter God through the Scripture 

Author:

Paul is the author of this book. What is everything that we know about Paul? This man who is believed to have written about half of the New Testament is not really that well-known by modern believers, even though we can learn a lot about him through studying his letters. It is a good idea to do a study on the life of Paul in order to understand his letters better. 

Audience:

This letter was addressed to the church at Thessalonica. This is one of two letters to that church. Can you find any clues about the audience and location in these letters? 

History:

When we look at the big story of God that we find throughout the Bible, we see this letter fits into the days of the earliest believers after the ascension. People who heard the Gospel through the disciples and Paul, received the same message that we receive today. Jesus Christ is our hope and we fix our eyes on His return. 

Genre:

Look at this overview chart of the book of 1 Thessalonians. You can view the image here. Use this image as a resource to mark the different parts of the letter in different colors. You can also consider making your own overview chart using other creative Bible journaling methods.

LOOK IN(revelation): contemplate / reflect on our own lives

Key verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:23 NIV

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Inspiration:

How can you allow God to sanctify you - make you pure and blameless? In the spiritual sense, you are already clean because Jesus paid the price for your sins on the cross. What does this mean for your life? How does a sanctified person live? Read the second sentence of this verse.

LOOK OUT(transformation): respond with creative worship action  

Drawing prompt:

Choose a verse from the book of 1 Thessalonians and write it on a page, in the middle. Now, we are going to use the letters (a,b,c) of the verse to create movement around it. You can use movement and different shapes to focus on specific words that you want to highlight. You can use different colors and fonts to make it interesting. 

Imagine the letters as brushstrokes and create an image using just the letters.
For example, I have written the letters vertically and diagonally going out from the sentence.

I have chosen to focus the eye on the word ‘love’. 

                                    e           e
  e              v           v

              r         o          o           

  a     l        l                  
    You are love.      l       o      v       e

      Y            l        l                   

      o                o          o

      u                     v            v

          e             e   

Bible Journey with HolyJot:

Here are some questions / prompts provided by the HolyJot community. 

• Did Paul think his work and that of Silas and Timothy in Thessalonica had been barren of results? (I Thessalonians 2:1)
• What had they done in Thessalonica after Paul and Silas had been shamefully treated at Philippi? (I Thessalonians 2:2)

Follow this link to dive into this book with an online Bible Study group.

 Writing prompt:

Thankfulness and gratitude is a theme that runs throughout Paul’s letters that is also focused on in this letter. See if you can find all the places where he talks about this. 

Our writing prompt for this book will be an ongoing challenge. Take a page and write the heading “counting joys - reasons to be thankful”. Now, place this page and a pen somewhere where you will see it often - whether that is in your car, on your kitchen counter, or on your bedside table. If you can put it in a public space, you can share this activity with your whole family. Perhaps you can all even contribute your moments of thankfulness to the same page.

Whenever you find something that you are thankful to, add it to the list. Try to engage all your senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hear) and live with more awareness as you count joys through your week. See if you can keep this practice going for 7 full days. You can add additional pages if you run out of space. 
 

For example:
#1   tiny bird on windowsill
#2   favorite song the radio
#3   the smells of spring

Prayer:

God, I want to thank you for the book of 1 Thessalonians. Teach me to bring the Bible into my everyday life more and more. Let my response to this text be worship unto you!