I now move on in my “New Testament in a Nutshell” series to the letter of 1 Thessalonians, which for-roughly-ever has been one of my favorite books of the New Testament. It is not one of the most widely read as a rule, but I think it is both unusually important and interesting. For one thing, it is the first letter of Paul that we have and, therefore, the very first piece of Christian writing of any kind that we have. That in itself makes it unusually significant in my view. THE earliest words from any Christian! Whoa.
When I taught Greek at Princeton Theological Seminary (some millennia ago) this was the book we had beginning students first translate once they had all the important elements of Greek grammar down. It’s not excessively hard Greek, but it is challenging for first-timers, and it’s the kind of book that if you read carefully – as you have to do when you’re basically going one word at a time trying to figure out the Greek – you find all sorts of interesting features and puzzles. You can read in five minutes or so in English (and should!); even so, this afternoon when I reread it in Greek I actually came to understand parts of it better than ever before – after knowing it well for, uh, 50 years!
I won’t be able to get into all that here, but I’ll give enough over a series of posts to highlight some of the important aspects of the book. I begin with an attempt at a fifty-word, one-sentence summary. (I have a challenge for you. Even if you don’t know the book, read it a couple of times, slowly enough to follow what Paul’s saying, and then try to write out your own 50 word summary, before reading any further). Here’s my first ever attempt to do so.
First Thessalonians expresses Paul’s anxiety over his former pagan converts in Thessalonica, fearful they have left the faith because of persecution, worried about acts of sexual immorality among them, and, in particular, concerned because they are distressed about the eternal fate of church members who have died before Jesus returned.
.I will now try to unpack the main themes and emphases in the letter, to explain this book “in a nutshell.”
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The book of 1 Thessalonians was written by Paul along with his companions Timothy and Silvanus to the church in Thessalonica, a city in Macedonia (the northern part of modern Greece). The opening chapters of the letter are filled with expressions of happiness and concern for the congregation, as Paul remembers fondly his time with them when he preached to them the Gospel and his fears that they are not doing as well as he hopes. The very personal character of the letter makes it similar to other “friendship” letters from the Roman world, which were generally written to express and promote camaraderie and support for others with whom one was closely related and deeply concerned.
It is clear that this congregation was made up of converts from paganism – Paul reminds them how he converted them away from worshiping idols to “serve a living and true God” (1:9). He also indicates he instructed them “to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1:10).
These two verses at the outset are unusually significant for showing what Paul preached to gentile pagans to convince them to become followers of Jesus. Their pagan gods are “dead” – they don’t exist – and therefore are “false” in contrast to the one God who lives and embodies the truth. Paul’s “evidence” for the true and living God is Jesus, the son of God that God raised from the dead (about which Paul convincingly testify, since he claimed he saw him alive afterward). But just as important, the resurrection shows that the “wrath of God” is soon to hit this world – and so believers are waiting for Jesus to reappear (any time now), to “save” them from the destruction soon to come.
Paul somehow convinced polytheists to give up their entire religious traditions, the ones they and everyone around them held and had held for time immemorial, to worship the resurrected Jesus in anticipation of the imminent day of judgment. Whatever else you can say about him, he must have been a persuasive fellow.
One of Paul’s pressing concerns in this letter is that the persecution of these Christians by their local townsfolk may have proved too much and members of the community had committed apostasy (2:1-16). He is exceedingly pleased to hear they have remained faithful despite local opposition, and are staying true to his teachings, which he insists were not “the words of humans” but “the word of God.” He indicates that this kind of persecution is experienced everywhere among Christians, starting with Jewish followers of Jesus in Judea who were opposed by the Judeans who had “killed both the Lord Jeus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God, and oppose all people” (1 Thess. 2:14-15). Paul is not overly fond of Jews in Judea who do not follow Jesus….
Paul indicates that he has learned that the Thessalonians have not yielded to persecution and remain committed to his gospel message (he sent Timothy to find out and is gratified what he has now learned from him). He then launches into his other major concerns. The first is notoriously difficult to figure out – though presumably his Thessalonian readers knew exactly what he was referring to. He urges them to keep seeking to please God by living “holy” lives and indicates that this means abstaining from sexual immorality. He alludes to the problem by saying that men need to “obtain” or (possibly?) “hold” their “vessel” in “holiness and honor,” not like the pagans do “by the passion of desire” since they “do not know God.”
Hmm… Translators have to figure out what that means even to put it into English – is he talking about men who need to keep proper control of their private parts or about men who need to obtain a wife in a proper way? The matter is confused more by what he says next that it is important to follow his instruction so as not to “offend his brother in the matter” or “defraud his brother in business.” In a couple of posts I’ll take this on and explain what I think it means. For now I’ll just say that it’s more confusing in the Greek than it is when reading an English version where the translator makes some of the hard decisions for you!
From there Paul moves to another issue that is clearer and almost certainly of more pressing importance to him, since it is alluded to in every chapter of the letter. The Thessalonians have misunderstood something very significant about his teachings of the second coming of Jesus and it has led to some serious consternation in the congregation.
The key passage is 4:13 – 5:11, a passage that I will also discuss more fully in a separate post. For now I can give the basic issue. When Paul converted the Thessalonians, he taught them that Jesus who was raised from the dead is now about to return from heaven in judgment. When he returns he will bring destruction on all people who oppose him, but salvation for his followers, who will enter into a glorious existence in the coming kingdom. The Thessalonian Christians took him at his word that this all was to happen soon, but now, since it had not happened yet, some of their members had died, and those who were left are deeply distraught, thinking that they – the dead – have missed out on the glorious kingdom soon to come. They died before it arrived.
Paul writes to comfort them (as he expressly says, 4:13 and 4:18). When Jesus returns, those believers who have already died will be the first to meet him, rising to greet him in the air. Only then will those who are alive rise up to join them. The dead have not lost out; they actually have an advantage over the living.
Paul continues to think this is going to happen soon. When he talks about the living who will join the dead in the air, he includes himself “We who are alive, who are left” will then rise up into the clouds. He expects to be one of the living at the time.
This passage, by the way, is a principal text for evangelicals and fundamentalists who believe in the “rapture,” when (allegedly) Jesus returns to take his followers out of the world before the seven-year period of horrible tribulation here on earth (with the rise of the Anti-Christ) leading up to the final Day of Judgment. In a later post I will explain why the passage is clearly not talking about a “rapture” at all. Quite the contrary. Stay tuned.
Paul closes out the letter by giving some important injunctions both about how to live ethically and to worship God faithfully.
In my next post I will dive a bit deeper into the author of the letter (Paul and his companions, or just Paul?), when it was written, and why.
