The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

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The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, the thirteenth book of the NT. Most scholars are agreed that 1 Thessalonians is the first Pauline Letter, written about A.D. 50. The amanuensis (scribe) was Luke.

Outline of Content

I. Greeting (1:1)
II. Thanksgiving (1:2-10)
III. Apostolic behavior (2:1-12)
IV. Reception of the Gospel (2:13-16)
V. The apostle’s continuing concern for the church (2:17-3:13)
VI. Ethical exhortations (4:1-12)
VII. Instructions about the Parousia (4:13-5:11)
VIII.Exhortations about life in the church (5:12-24)
IX. Letter closing (5:25-28)

Paul, Timothy, and Silas are co-authors of this letter to the Christian community at Thessalonica, a fact supported by the predominant use of the first person plural (‘we’). Paul and his co-workers arrived there after having experienced much conflict in Philippi (Acts 16:11-40; 1 Thess. 2:2).

Thessalonica, so named by Cassander (one of Alexander’s generals) after his wife who was the daughter of Philip and the sister of Alexander the Great, was founded about 316 B.C. When Macedonia became a Roman province in 148 B.C., Thessalonica became the most important city of the province and the center of Roman administration.

Background

Both 1 Thessalonians (1:9-10) and Acts (17:4) suggest that the Thessalonian church was composed of Jews and Gentiles. Further, according to the account in Acts, Paul and his co-workers (Timothy and Silas), encountered sharp opposition instigated by the Jews and were eventually forced to leave Thessalonica because of this conflict.

In addition to a strong Jewish presence in Thessalonica, we know that several religious cults of the Greco-Roman world were active in this leading city of the province and seat of Roman administration, including the cult of Serapis and the cult of the Cabiri. Paul’s description of his apostolic practice in 2:1-12, his ethical advice in 4:1-8, as well as his teaching about the return of Christ (Gk. parousia) in 4:13-5:11 may be better understood with this background in mind, a background in which Paul’s missionary style and teaching would have differed enormously from that of his competitors, with their sexual immorality and their varied expectations of the afterlife.
Content

Paul’s affectionate letter to the church of the Thessalonians begins with his remembering their ‘work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1:3). This same trilogy occurs again in 5:8: ‘…put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.’ In chap. 3 we learn that Paul, who is probably writing this letter from Corinth, is anxious about the current status of the Thessalonian church.

The overall context of the Letter is that hope is precisely the element that is deficient and needs to be strengthened.

Despite Paul’s affection and high regard for these Christians whose faith served as ‘an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia’ (1:7), he must correct and clarify one major area of misunderstanding: the status of those who have already died in Christ since the end has not yet come.

The Thessalonian Christian should not grieve as others do who have no hope ‘concerning those who are asleep.’ This problem surfaced when some in the community died prior to the eagerly expected imminent Parousia and this anxiety may well have been fueled by those outside the church who mocked what seemed to them the absurdity of Christian claims.

Two final observations: first, it is noteworthy that ‘justification language,’ used predominately in Galatians and Romans, is absent in 1 Thessalonians, although Paul does use here, as in Romans, the terms ‘sanctification’ and ‘salvation.’ In 1 Thess. 4:3, 4, 7 and 5:23, sanctification refers to the quality of new life in Christ, which will culminate in salvation (5:8, 9). Second, it is significant for the study of the development of the structure in the NT that already in 1 Thessalonians there is a reference to an organizational pattern: ‘But we beseech you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work’ (5:12-13).