i. 8.

This is Paul's first letter. It was written very shortly after his first
preaching of the Gospel in the great commercial city of Thessalonica.
But though the period since the formation of the Thessalonian Church was
so brief, their conversion had already become a matter of common
notoriety; and the consistency of their lives, and the marvellous change
that had taken place upon them, made them conspicuous in the midst of
the corrupt heathen community in which they dwelt. And so says Paul, in
the text, by reason of their work of faith and labour of love and
patience of hope, they had become ensamples to all that believe, and
loud proclaimers and witnesses of the Gospel which had produced this
change.

The Apostle employs a word never used anywhere else in the New Testament
to describe the conspicuous and widespread nature of this testimony of
theirs. He says, 'The word of the Lord _sounded out_' from them. That
phrase is one most naturally employed to describe the blast of a
trumpet. So clear and ringing, so loud, penetrating, melodious, rousing,
and full was their proclamation, by the silent eloquence of their lives,
of the Gospel which impelled and enabled them to lead such lives. A
grand ideal of a community of believers! If our churches to-day were
nearer its realisation there would be less unbelief, and more attraction
of wandering prodigals to the Father's house. Would that this saying
were true of every body of professing believers! Would that from each
there sounded out one clear accordant witness to Christ, in the purity
and unworldliness of their Christlike lives!

I. This metaphor suggests the great purpose of the Church.

It is God's trumpet, His means of making His voice heard through all the
uproar of the world. As the captain upon the deck in the gale will use
his speaking-trumpet, so God's voice needs your voice. The Gospel needs
to be passed through human lips in order that it may reach deaf ears.
The purpose for which we have been apprehended of Christ is not merely
our own personal salvation, whether we understand that in a narrow and
more outward, or in a broader and more spiritual sense. No man is an end
in himself, but every man, though he be partially and temporarily an
end, is also a means. And just as, according to the other metaphor, the
Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, each particle of the dead dough, as
soon as it is leavened and vitalised, becoming the medium for
transmitting th