{"id":5455,"date":"2025-05-07T15:42:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2025-05-07T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:42:06","slug":"do-actions-speak-louder-than-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/2025\/05\/07\/do-actions-speak-louder-than-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Do actions speak louder than words?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We&#8217;ve just started studying Paul&#8217;s letter to the church of the Thessalonians in our small group, now in our third week.\u00a0 Paul has just told them how he thanks God for them, and then gives a few reasons why.\u00a0 If you want to read what he has to say about them, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1%20thessalonians%201%3A2-10&amp;version=NET\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">do that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In studying it, I came upon these thoughts from\u00a0 A. R. Buckland in his commentary, written in 1908, and thought they were appropriate yet today for each of us to ask about ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well might all to whom the Gospel has come inquire of their hearts how far the Thessalonian traits are their own.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have they, too, definitely broken with the past\u2014turned from the old idols?<\/li>\n<li>Have they given themselves to full service with the new Master?<\/li>\n<li>Are their lives\u2014apart from their words\u2014of advantage to anybody?<\/li>\n<li>Are other people helped by their example?<\/li>\n<li>Do they consciously \u2018wait for\u2019 the Lord \u2018from heaven?\u2019<\/li>\n<li>Are the people round about them, in their own Macedonia, witnesses of their consistency and zeal?<\/li>\n<li>Has their zeal borne fruit farther afield?<\/li>\n<li>Has it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s worth the self-evaluation, don&#8217;t you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve just started studying Paul&#8217;s letter to the church of the Thessalonians in our small group, now in our third week.\u00a0 Paul has just told them how he thanks God for them, and then gives a few reasons why.\u00a0 If you want to read what he has to say about them, you can do that&hellip; <\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/2025\/05\/07\/do-actions-speak-louder-than-words\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,149],"tags":[289,290],"class_list":["post-5455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-study","category-christian-living","tag-imitators","tag-thessalonians"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1MnZf-1pZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5456,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions\/5456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdackerman.com\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}