2:2
Jesus starts off by praising the church. He is fully aware of their hard work and perseverance. They had an intolerance for wickedness. Notice that it says “wicked people”. They were also discerning, testing those who claimed to be apostles but were not. These are areas where the church is very weak today. We are far too tolerant of evil and wicked people. And parts of the charismatic church are far too ready to attribute the title “apostle” to people, and to not test teachers, leaders and apostles. Now there does need to be balance in all things, and some of the so-called discernment ministries are anything but discerning. But the correct approach is to be properly balanced. We should be discerning, but that is not all we should be. Indeed a specific ministry geared at “discernment”, or any single aspect of Christian ministry (eg a “prophetic ministry”) is probably a bad idea. God’s building blocks are the churches, not “ministries”. Churches should be discerning, prophetic, evangelistic, teaching etc.
2:3
“You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary”. In the west we have forgotten that persevering and enduring hardships are an essential part of the Christian life, and characteristics that please Jesus! The whole ethos is society regards these things as things to be avoided. We need the Holy Spirit to teach us how to persevere and endure. Notice the end of the sentence, “and have not grown weary”. This means that it is possible to go through these things without growing weary. This does not mean we never find things difficult, but that we can maintain our spiritual fervour.
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