The opening verses of Paul's letters are much more than polite, traditional greetings. In them we discover key descriptions of the character of the recipients, like in I Thessalonians:
2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.
In the context of our study on Remembering Who We Are, Paul says: "This is what I remember about you: your faith, your love, and your hope." These things lead him to conclude that these people are God's chosen ones. These characteristics were evidence of what he had seen in their initial response: a people who responded to God's Word, were transformed by God's power, and who fully embraced the Gospel. This was not simply Paul's personal opinion, as we see by his constant use of the pronoun "We." Do we show these marks in our ongoing relationship with God in Christ? Can people look at us and say: "we know who you are: people whom God has chosen for His purpose and His glory."?
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