New Testament

1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians is Paul’s warm letter to a young church in Thessalonica that came to faith amid persecution and then watched Paul forced to leave. He thanks God for their “work of faith, your labor of love, and your enduring hope” (), defends his conduct among them, urges holy living, and answers their grief over believers who had died before the Lord’s coming. It is probably among the earliest New Testament writings and shows the gospel at work in a Gentile church only months old.

Author: Paul, with Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy (1:1). Nearly all scholars accept it as Paul’s.
Audience: Mostly Gentile believers who “turned to God from idols” (1:9), members of the church founded during Paul’s short stay recorded in Acts 17:1–9. Opposition drove Paul out, and the believers kept suffering at the hands of their own countrymen (2:14).
When: Around AD 50–51, only months after the church began. That makes it perhaps Paul’s earliest surviving letter, unless Galatians was written first.
Where: Most likely written from Corinth, where Timothy rejoined Paul with news of the church (3:6, Acts 18:5). Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia, a port on the main road across northern Greece.
Genre: 1 Thessalonians is a pastoral letter from missionaries to new converts, full of thanksgiving, affection and practical teaching. The thanksgiving runs long, through much of chapters 1–3, and the instructions follow in chapters 4–5. Every chapter ends by pointing to the Lord’s coming (1:10, 2:19, 3:13, 4:16–17, 5:23), so hope frames the whole letter. Read it as encouragement to a suffering church rather than as a full treatise on the end times.

Shape of the book

A Church That Turned From Idols · ch 1Paul thanks God for their faith, love and hope, recalls how the gospel came with power, and celebrates how they turned to God to wait for His Son from heaven.
Paul’s Conduct and Longing for the Church · ch 2–3Paul reminds them that he came without flattery or greed, gentle as a nursing mother and urging them as a father, then tells of sending Timothy and his joy at the good report.
Holiness, Love and the Dead in Christ · ch 4Instructions on sexual holiness, brotherly love and quiet work, then comfort for those grieving believers who have died, since the dead in Christ will rise when the Lord comes.
The Day of the Lord and Life Together · ch 5The day will come like a thief, so believers live as children of the day; brief commands on church life end with a prayer for complete holiness.

Themes

Faith, Love and Hope. Paul recalls their “work of faith,” “labor of love” and “enduring hope” (), and later describes faith and love as a breastplate and hope of salvation as a helmet (). The three together describe a living church.
Turning to God From Idols. The Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await His Son from heaven” (). This short summary of conversion, turning, serving and waiting, shows what the gospel did in a pagan city.
Holiness. “It is God’s will that you should be holy” (). Paul applies this to sexual conduct, contrasting it with the passions of Gentiles who do not know God (), and he prays that the God of peace will sanctify them completely ().
Grief With Hope. Paul does not want them to grieve “like the rest, who are without hope” (). Because Jesus died and rose again, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Him (), and all believers will always be with the Lord ().
A Ministry of Integrity. Paul answers accusations, whether real or expected, by recalling how he lived among them: no flattery, no hidden greed, working night and day so as not to burden them (). The messenger’s life commends the message.

Where Christ is

Jesus is the Son from heaven whom God raised from the dead, “our deliverer from the coming wrath” (). The letter rests on the simple confession “that Jesus died and rose again” (), and it looks for His coming, when Old Testament hopes for the Day of the Lord are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.

The Day of the Lord. Fulfillment. The prophets announced a coming Day of the Lord, a day of judgment and deliverance (, , ). Paul applies the title to the coming of Jesus, and his picture of a thief in the night echoes Jesus’ own warning (, ). (; ; ; ; )
Coming With the Clouds. Echo. Daniel saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven (), and Jesus used that picture of Himself, with angels gathering His elect at a trumpet call (). Paul’s description of the Lord descending, the trumpet of God and believers caught up in the clouds () draws on the same imagery, and his “word of the Lord” () may refer to Jesus’ teaching. (; ; ; )
With All His Holy Ones. Echo. Zechariah foresaw the Lord coming with all His holy ones (). Paul prays that the church will be blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all His saints (), giving to Jesus the role Zechariah gives to the Lord. (; )
The Armor of Salvation. Echo. Isaiah pictures the Lord putting on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation (). Paul gives believers faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet (), salvation that comes “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (). (; ; )

Reading well, key terms and common misreadings

Read it well

Read Acts 17:1–10 first to see how short and turbulent Paul’s stay was, which explains his anxiety in chapter 3.
Notice that each chapter ends with the Lord’s coming. Hope is not an appendix here but the frame of the letter.
Read 4:13–18 for its stated purpose: comfort for the grieving, ending with “encourage one another with these words” (4:18).
Read 2:1–12 as Paul’s defense of his motives, perhaps against critics who said he was a traveling teacher out for money.
Treat the rapid commands of 5:12–22 as a snapshot of early church life: respecting leaders, helping the weak, praying, and testing prophecy.

Key terms

Coming παρουσία (parousia) — Arrival or presence, used for the visit of a ruler. Paul uses it for the Lord’s coming (2:19, 3:13, 4:15, 5:23).
Meet ἀπάντησις (apantēsis) — A meeting, often used for citizens going out to welcome an arriving dignitary. It describes believers meeting the Lord in the air (4:17).
Caught up ἁρπάζω (harpazō) — To seize or snatch away suddenly (4:17). The Latin translation of this verb is the source of the English word “rapture.”
Fall asleep κοιμάομαι (koimaomai) — A gentle way of speaking of death for believers, implying that they will wake again (4:13–15).
Affliction, suffering θλῖψις (thlipsis) — Pressure or distress. The Thessalonians received the word in much affliction and were told to expect it (1:6, 3:3–4).
Holiness, sanctification ἁγιασμός (hagiasmos) — Being set apart for God and living accordingly. Paul calls it God’s will for them (4:3, 4:7).

Easy to misread

Treating one end-times scheme as the obvious meaning of 4:17. Pretribulational readers, many of them dispensational, see a gathering of believers to the Lord before a period of tribulation, distinct from His visible return. Many other readers see one public coming, at which believers rise to meet the Lord and accompany Him, noting that the word for “meet” was used of welcoming a visiting dignitary. Paul’s stated purpose is comfort, and his firm point is that “we will always be with the Lord.”
Concluding that Paul set a date. He includes himself among “we who are alive and remain” (4:15), which some read as expecting to live until the Lord came and others as simply speaking of the living generation, but he also says the day comes like a thief and needs no timetable (5:1–2).
Using 2:14–16 to support hostility toward Jewish people. Paul, a Jew, compares the Thessalonians’ suffering from their own countrymen with what the churches of Judea suffered from theirs, and his charge falls on those who opposed the gospel. A few scholars suggest these verses were added later, but no manuscript lacks them.
Building a detailed theory of human nature on “spirit, soul, and body” (5:23). Some read it as three parts of a person, while many take it as Paul’s way of praying for the whole person to be kept blameless.

Further reading: David Guzik, Enduring Word · Matthew Henry on CCEL · BibleProject overview video