A church under pressure: Paul writes to the young Thessalonians

First Thessalonians is probably the earliest of Paul's surviving letters, written from Corinth about AD 50 to 51, during the stay described in Acts 18. (If Galatians was written to the South Galatian churches before the Jerusalem council, it would be earlier; see the Galatians classes.) The authorship of Paul is almost universally accepted. The letter names three senders, Paul, Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy (1:1), the team that had founded the church in Acts 17:1-10.

Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia, a port city on the Egnatian Way. Luke says Paul reasoned in the synagogue for three Sabbaths and that some Jews, a large number of devout Greeks and several leading women believed (Acts 17:2-4). The letter itself suggests that most of the believers were Gentiles who had turned from idols (1:9). Opposition from the city forced the missionaries to leave by night (Acts 17:5-10). Paul, who had been in the city perhaps only a few weeks, was anxious. He tried to return more than once (2:17-18), and from Athens he sent Timothy to strengthen the church (3:1-5). Timothy rejoined him at Corinth with good news of their faith and love (3:6; Acts 18:5), and the letter is Paul's response.

The Thessalonians faced suffering from their own countrymen (2:14) and grief over believers who had died (4:13). Some scholars, such as Abraham Malherbe, have read Paul's self-defence in chapter 2 against the background of travelling philosophers and rhetoricians who were accused of preaching for money and praise. Others think the defence is mostly a model for the new believers. Both readings explain why Paul stresses his gentleness and labour.

• First Thessalonians is an occasional letter, written as one half of a conversation, and its tone is warm and personal. It follows the usual shape of Paul's letters: greeting, thanksgiving, body, exhortation, closing. The long thanksgiving of 1:2 to 3:13 is unusual, since it takes in the narrative of Paul's relationship with the church.
• The first three chapters are therefore mostly history and prayer, and the instruction comes in chapters 4 and 5.

Two cautions help.

• First, Paul describes his own conduct here as an example for imitation (1:6; 2:10), and the statements about the ministry are descriptions of what happened in a particular place. They are not a program for all ministry without further reflection, though they show what he thought a faithful servant looked like.
• Second, the polemical passage in 2:14-16 must be read in its context. Paul is himself a Jew, writing to a mostly Gentile church that is suffering from Gentile neighbours, and he compares their suffering to that of the Judean churches at the hands of fellow Jews. The language is that of Israel's prophets, who denounced their own people's leaders in strong terms (compare 1 Kings 19:10; Jeremiah 7:25-26). It is not a statement about all Jews or Jews as a race, and it has been wrongly used to justify hatred. A small number of scholars, following Birger Pearson (1971), have argued that 2:13-16 was added later; most hold that Paul wrote it, noting that the passage is in the manuscripts we have.

1:1-3. The greeting is brief: grace and peace to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The thanksgiving begins with the triad of faith, love and hope, here expressed as work produced by faith, labour prompted by love and endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. The same three appear in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and Colossians 1:4-5.

1:4-10. Paul knows that God has chosen them, because the gospel came to them not in word only but in power, in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, and because they became imitators of Paul and of the Lord, receiving the word in much affliction with joy from the Holy Spirit. They became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia, and the word of the Lord has sounded forth from them. People everywhere report how they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the coming wrath. In a single sentence Paul gives the shape of conversion: turning, serving, waiting.

2:1-12. Paul reminds them that his visit was not in vain. Though he had been mistreated at Philippi, he declared the gospel in the midst of strong opposition. His appeal did not come from error or impurity or deceit, as he speaks not to please people but God who tests the heart. He never used flattery or a pretext for greed, and he did not seek glory from people, though he could have asserted his authority as an apostle of Christ. Instead, he was gentle among them like a nursing mother caring for her children. (Some manuscripts read 'infants' for 'gentle', a one-letter difference in Greek; most editors prefer 'gentle'.) He shared not only the gospel but his own life. They remember his labour and toil night and day, working so as not to burden any of them, and his holy, righteous and blameless conduct. Like a father with his children, he exhorted, encouraged and charged each of them to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls them into his kingdom and glory.

2:13-16. Paul thanks God that when they received the word of God, they accepted it not as a human word but as it truly is, the word of God, which is at work in believers. They became imitators of the churches of God in Judea, suffering from their own countrymen as those churches did from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove Paul out. Paul says that they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering him from speaking to the Gentiles so that they might be saved. The last sentence is that wrath has come upon them 'to the end' (eis telos), a phrase whose sense, 'completely' or 'at last', is disputed.

2:17-3:5. Paul was torn away from them for a short time, in person not in heart, and tried more than once to come, but Satan hindered him. They are his hope, joy and crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus at his coming (parousia). When he could bear it no longer, he sent Timothy from Athens to strengthen them, so that no one would be shaken by these afflictions, since afflictions had been foretold. He feared that the tempter had tempted them and his labour had been in vain.

3:6-13. Timothy has just returned with good news of their faith and love and that they long to see Paul. Paul is comforted and says that now he lives, if they stand firm in the Lord. He prays that God and the Lord Jesus would direct his way to them, that the Lord would make them increase and abound in love for one another and for all, and that he would establish their hearts blameless in holiness before God at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.

The letter teaches the shape of the Christian life as faith, love and hope, and it grounds that life in God's choice and the Spirit's power. The doctrine of election appears early (1:4), not as an abstract subject but as a ground for thanks. Paul reasons from the way the gospel came and was received to the conclusion that God has chosen them. Reformed traditions read this as unconditional election; Catholic, Orthodox, Wesleyan and Arminian traditions understand election differently, as God's choice in view of the response of faith or as the call of a people into Christ. The text itself does not settle these questions, but it makes election a source of assurance and thanksgiving, not of speculation.

The second teaching is the Christian hope. Believers wait for God's Son from heaven, who rescues them from the coming wrath. The return of Christ is mentioned at the end of each chapter in this letter (1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:13-18; 5:23). In the canon this hope continues the Old Testament expectation of the day of the Lord (Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1:14-18), now centred on Jesus.

A third teaching is the expected suffering of the church. Paul says that afflictions are what believers are destined for (3:3), a theme he shares with Jesus (John 15:20) and the rest of the New Testament (1 Peter 4:12-13). Finally, the letter shows pastoral ministry as a mixture of gentleness and firmness, mother and father together.

Christ appears in the opening as Lord Jesus Christ, joined with God the Father in the church's life (1:1). The church's hope is the Son from heaven, raised from the dead, the one who delivers from wrath (1:10). That summary holds three claims: his divine sonship, his resurrection, and his coming as Saviour. Paul speaks of imitating both himself and the Lord (1:6), showing that the Lord's life of suffering is the pattern for the church's life.

In 3:13 Paul prays for holiness at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his holy ones, language that echoes Zechariah 14:5, where the Lord comes with all his holy ones. If the connection holds, Paul places Jesus where the Old Testament places the Lord, which is a quiet statement of his divinity; the link is an echo and not a stated citation. The Old Testament language of the 'day of the Lord' is now filled in with the person of Jesus, which Paul develops in chapters 4 and 5.

The suffering of the Thessalonians also joins them to Christ. They imitate the Judean churches that imitated Christ and suffered from those who killed the Lord Jesus (2:14-15). In the Old Testament, the prophets were rejected before him; Jesus is the last and greatest of those sent, as he said in the parable of the tenants (Mark 12:1-12).