But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape. But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief. You are all children of light, and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness, so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep in the night, and those who are drunk are drunk in the night. But let us, since we belong to the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and, for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God didn’t appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do. But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to respect and honor them in love for their work’s sake.
Experience
The last few years have been very difficult regarding “knowing those who labor among us, and are over us in the Lord…” “…to respect and honor them in love for their work’s sake.” Why? Because there is little or no authority in what they bring to the table. There is no power, no recognizable Holy Spirit, no assurance. Instead, we see regular men, living regular lives, who hold their God-given authority over our heads to bend our will to theirs. To trade our freedoms in Christ for their yoke has not been appealing. Are we rebellious or do today’s leaders simply lack the power to change the lives of men?
