First and Second Thessalonians

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

Beverly Roberts Gaventa

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781611642520
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

In this brilliant commentary, Beverly Roberts Gaventa discusses the issues central to the books of Thessalonians, identifying what makes each book important for the life of the church today, as well as for preachers and teachers.

Commentary on First Thessalonians

Consider the images invoked by mentioning the apostle Paul. Perhaps it is a street-corner evangelist, tugging at sleeves and shouting after passersby in Corinth. Or is Paul pacing the floor, struggling to find the right words for a letter to Christians at Philippi? Perhaps the Paul who comes to mind has taken up residence in a prison cell in Ephesus or Jerusalem or Rome. Whatever his activity and location in our imagination, one dominant image of Paul is that of an early Christian soloist, a virtuoso apostle roaming the ancient Mediterranean world in search of potential converts. On this scenario, his companions, if there are such, slip far into the background, and the Christian communities Paul initiates are little more than passive receptacles for his preaching.

This image owes much to the high regard Christians have had for Paul’s letters and to Luke’s stories in the Acts of the Apostles, but it also overlooks important elements in Paul’s letters. Even in the first verses of 1 Thessalonians, a different picture of Paul emerges. Here Paul is by no means a solo performer. He is part of a team, as is clear from the initial verse of the letter. More important, here Paul speaks of evangelism as something that transforms both evangelist and evangelized (vv. 2–10; see also 2:1–12).

“Grace to You and Peace”
1 THESSALONIANS 1:1

Little in the opening of a letter catches our attention. At most, we may quickly check to see that it bears our name instead of that of another family member or a neighbor. We rush past the greeting and opening lines to discover what is actually at stake. Does this letter concern a family in turmoil, a bill unpaid, an illness diagnosed? Given modern epistolary conventions, such haste may be understandable, but reading the opening of biblical letters with the same dispatch creates serious problems. The salutation (1:1) provides important clues about the persons involved in the letter, their relationships, and their locations. It invites us to read the letter through the eyes of those persons and their ongoing conversation with one another.

Even from the meager wording of this initial greeting, we can detect evidence of a good deal of unfinished business between the senders of this letter and the “church of the Thessalonians.” As the letter unfolds, we learn that Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy together made an initial visit to Thessalonica, where they preached and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some Thessalonians (we have no way of ascertaining how many) “turned to God from idols” (1:9) and joined these apostles in their expectation of the return of God’s son, Jesus Christ. Following the apostles’ departure, Paul found himself unable to go back to Thessalonica (2:17–20) and sent Timothy to learn how the Thessalonian believers were faring. He has now returned to Paul and Silvanus, and it is Timothy’s news that appears to prompt the writing of the letter. (This sketch of the letter’s comments stands in tension with the story in Acts 17, but priority will be given to Paul’s letters in adjudicating these details; see Introduction, and see commentary on 2:17–3:10.)

Whatever the historical events surrounding the writing of this letter, it is important to notice the presence of all three names in the salutation. The naming of these three persons might mean that all three took part in the composition of the letter (that 1 Thessalonians was written by committee?), but later it seems evident that the strongest voice is that of Paul (see 2:18; 3:5; 5:27). Whatever the facts of composition, the introduction of the gospel in Thessalonica was not the work of a single individual but of a team. Not only do Silvanus and Timothy join Paul in sending the letter, but they joined Paul in the initial work in Thessalonica (1:2–2:12) and continue in profound concern for the ongoing life of the Christian community in that place (2:17–3:10). As surprising as it will be to those accustomed to the specialized meaning of the term “apostle” elsewhere in the New Testament, all three are referred to in 2:7 as “apostles of Christ” (see on 2:1–12).

The recipients of the letter are identified simply as “the church of the Thessalonians.” Since we associate the word “church” with structured organizations that go well beyond the local community, it might be better to think of the Greek word ekklēsia as a “gathering” or an “association.” The phrase “of the Thessalonians” is distinctive, since the later Pauline letters address the church “in Corinth” or “the churches of Galatia.” This phrase also reinforces the translation “association”; the letter addresses the group of Thessalonians who have come to share the senders’ convictions about Jesus Christ.

The next phrase raises a number of questions. Does “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” describe the church itself (that is, the church has its location in God and Jesus), or does it describe Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, who write by means of God and Jesus Christ? The Greek can be translated either way. And what are we to make of the relationship between “God the Father” and “the Lord Jesus Christ”? Are the titles “Father” and “Lord” synonymous? Does “Father” here refer to God as the father of Jesus Christ or as the father of all creatures? Such subtle distinctions quickly grow dizzying for many readers. Far more important than resolving them is lingering over the too obvious but often neglected point: God and Jesus Christ are the primary agents in the Thessalonian church. Whatever Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy began, whatever the Thessalonians themselves have accomplished, it is God who is to be thanked (1:2), God who directs and strengthens the church (3:11–13), God who is and will remain faithful (5:24). The letter reveals much about the relationship between the apostles and the Thessalonians, and it has much to suggest about relationships among Christians in the present, but none of that can be understood apart from “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Even in this, the earliest of his letters, Paul departs somewhat from the letter style conventional in his time. Instead of completing the salutation with “Greetings,” Paul writes “Grace to you and peace” (see also Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:3; Phil. 1:2; Philemon 3). Whether intentional or not, the alteration is significant. Although there are many elements of friendship in this letter, it is not merely a letter from friends to friends, as the word “greeting” might imply. This particular friendship comes into being by virtue of the action of God in Jesus Christ, the same God whose promises include grace and peace.

Verse 1 deserves our sustained attention, then, not simply because it provides us with historical lenses through which to read what follows. Without going even a single line further, we know already that this association, however much it may gather like-minded people, is not in the first instance a social event, a civic club, or a philanthropic organization. It exists only in relationship to “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Few sermons would confine themselves to a single verse in a letter salutation, yet this one offers an important reminder about who the church is.

A Profusion of Thanksgiving
1 THESSALONIANS 1:2–10

Conforming to the letter-writing conventions of his day, Paul’s letters routinely include a thanksgiving. Only when he writes to the Galatians does Paul omit any word of thanks, presumably because events in the Galatian churches have so distressed him that he cannot recall any grounds for thanksgiving. In a sense, this letter to the Thessalonians presents the opposite problem; there is more thanksgiving here than interpreters know how to handle. It is a simple matter to identify the beginning of the thanksgiving in 1:2, but the end of the thanksgiving proves elusive. In Greek, 1:2–5 constitutes one long sentence in which the main verb is “we give thanks,” so that the most narrow definition of the thanksgiving would identify verse 5 as the conclusion. Yet verses 6–10 follow so naturally from and are so directly connected with verses 1–5 that the thanksgiving surely runs through at least 1:10. Another section of thanksgiving appears in 2:13–16, and a brief word of thanks appears also in 3:9; in fact, some analyses of the letter identify the thanksgiving as 1:2–2:16 or even 1:2–3:9.

Reading and interpreting the text does not depend on answering this technical question about letter structure, of course, but the profusion of thanksgiving in this letter reveals something essential. The arrival of the gospel among the Thessalonians is an event for which thanksgiving is a primary response.

Even at the outset of the thanksgiving, we notice its effusiveness. When Paul contends that he and Silvanus and Timothy “always” give thanks for and “constantly” remember the Thessalonians, we are inclined to be skeptical (see the similar expressions in 1 Cor. 1:4; Phil. 1:4; Philemon 1:4). How is it possible to pray always and constantly? There may be more than a little hyperbole at work here, but these assertions take on a different tone if we listen to them in the context of the familial imagery that characterizes the letter. Although we will see that those images are varied, prominent among them is the assumption that Paul and his coworkers became parents to the Thessalonians. Paul affirms that he and his coworkers behaved toward the Thessalonians “like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children” (2:7) and “like a father with his children” (2:11). These claims make Paul’s assertions about constant prayer more credible. One of the fearsome realities of many parents’ experience is that children are never removed from their parents’ thoughts, certainly never from their hearts. If prayer involves those “sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26), as Paul will later write, then there is a sense in which parents always are in prayer. If Paul finds himself regarding the Thessalonians as his children, something more than rhetorical flourish is at work when he claims to remember the Thessalonians “constantly.”

The Table of Contents (v. 3)

Thanksgivings in the Pauline letters also provide an implicit table of contents for the letter that follows. For example, in 1 Corinthians Paul mentions the fact that the Corinthians have been enriched “in speech and knowledge of every kind” and in spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 1:4–7). In the body of the letter, he returns to these topics that have become problematic among believers in Corinth.

In this particular thanksgiving, Paul celebrates the Thessalonians’ “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Given the utter familiarity of the triad “faith, hope, and love” from 1 Corinthians 13, those words seem to leap off the page. Yet here they do not appear in conventional order, or what seems to us conventional order (see also Rom. 5:1–5). Instead of “faith, hope, and love” we find “faith, love, and hope.” More important, each of these attributes is introduced and governed by another term: “work of faith,” “labor of love,” and “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is tempting to skip over the introductory terms as so much embroidery, familiar religious rhetoric, but they are essential hints to the content of the letter to come.

The expression “work of faith” is awkward in English, and the Greek might be better captured with a phrase such as “work that stems from faith” or “work that belongs to faith.” Although it cannot be restricted to one section of the letter, this phrase nicely anticipates 1:6–2:16, where Paul recalls his initial visit to Thessalonica and the way in which the Thessalonians received the gospel.

“Labor of love” is an evocative expression, one that has come to be applied to an endless number of endeavors undertaken for the sheer pleasure of labor or out of affection for another. Gardening in this sense can be a “labor of love,” but so can the family laundry (at least in theory). The Thessalonians are engaged in a labor of love in the sense that their life in the present embodies Christian love. They are to love one another (3:11–13; 4:9–12) and conduct themselves in a manner consistent with that love (4:1–8; 5:12–22).

“Steadfastness of hope” is perhaps the phrase easiest to underinterpret, especially if we hear it as part of the familiar triad of “faith, hope, and love.” The problem arises when hope becomes a Christian virtue in the sense that Christians are called to be optimistic, cheerful types, no matter what difficulties life hands them. The complete phrase is “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (emphasis added), and we do not have to read far into 1 Thessalonians to know that this is a very particular hope, the hope of Jesus’ return or parousia. As early as 1:10 Paul specifically characterizes Christians as those who “wait for his Son from heaven,” and he returns to this topic again and again (2:19; 3:13; 4:13–5:11; 5:23).

The agenda of the letter, roughly speaking, is now set: the proclamation of the gospel and the Thessalonians’ response to that proclamation (1:2–2:16), the continuing concern of Paul and his colleagues for the Thessalonians’ response (2:17–3:13), the behavior appropriate to this gospel (4:1–12; 5:12–24), and the promise of Jesus’ return and its consequences in the present (4:13–5:11).

As Paul takes up the first of these topics, the Thessalonians’ “work of faith,” his description of their faith merits sustained attention, both for what it says and for what it does not say. Particularly in some corners of contemporary North American Christianity, individualism dictates that reports about conversion focus on the stories of particular Christians and their changes in attitude or behavior. If reports about conversion do attend to a community of believers rather than to individuals, those reports likely center on concerns about numbers. A church’s health is measured in things that may be quantified—numbers on the roll, numbers in the budget, numbers of square feet in the church building. Paul reveals little that can be quantified, yet he says a great deal about what is important.

A Matter of Imitation (v. 6)

Prominent and problematic among Paul’s comments about the Thessalonians is that they are imitators, both of the apostles and of the Lord. This is a theme elsewhere in Paul (most notably in 1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17), but interpreters often overlook it, in part because it does not appear in Romans and Galatians, the letters that dominate discussion of Paul’s thought (however, see Gal. 4:12). Perhaps the call to imitation also strikes a jarring note because we perceive imitations as “mere” copies of an original or, worse yet, as simple phonies. Those who imitate others are perceived as betraying themselves. One of the sharpest charges raised against a work of literature or art, for example, is that it is imitative of someone else’s style. Moreover, that Paul should praise the Thessalonians for imitating him raises issues of self-aggrandizement and patriarchalism. To put the question sharply: Does Paul actually think that believers should make themselves over in his image?

A closer examination may help address this discomfort and reclaim this neglected and misunderstood motif. In the first place, a wide variety of teachers in Paul’s day employed personal example and urged their students to conform to those examples (Benjamin Fiore, The Function of Personal Example in the Socratic and Pastoral Epistles). Had Paul avoided the use of example and imitation, he might have appeared to his contemporaries as a person who knew himself unfit as a teacher.

In addition, the order “of us and of the Lord” need not suggest that Paul was more concerned with his own status than with that of the Lord. In 2:5, he combines an appeal to the knowledge of Thessalonians and of God, placing the Thessalonians first and God second (“As you know and as God is our witness …”). Again in 2:10, Paul claims that “you are witnesses, and God also.” In every case, he puts the more powerful party second.

Perhaps it is more important to notice, both here and elsewhere, what sort of imitation Paul commends. The Thessalonians became imitators “of us and of the Lord,” he explains, “for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit” (v. 6). If we press this particular instance of imitation closely, it begins to fall apart. How can it be said that Christ “received the word with joy” in spite of persecution? Indeed, it is hard to say how Paul himself became a believer in spite of persecution. Neither Paul’s own brief autobiographical remarks no...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Interpretation
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication page
• Series Preface
• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction to First Thessalonians
• Commentary on First Thessalonians
• Introduction to Second Thessalonians
• Commentary on Second Thessalonians
• Bibliography