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Yes, you can access 1, 2 Thessalonians by D. Michael Martin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Théologie et religion & Commentaire biblique. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
The prescript of 1 Thessalonians follows the commonly used pattern for introductions in Hellenistic letters: the sender and the recipient are identified, and a brief greeting is expressed. Any author was free to elaborate on each of these items as he or she deemed necessary, but in personal correspondence such additions were generally brief. The prescript would often lead into a wish for the health or prosperity of the recipient(s) of the letter.1 Although the form of the prescript of 1 Thessalonians is conventional, the content of the elaborations on the form is distinctly Christian.
First and Second Thessalonians are the only two of his letters in which Paul did not add some elaboration to his name and/or to the names of his cosenders. In other letters such additions remind the recipients of Paul's apostolic status and responsibilities (cf. esp. Galatians). The absence of such additions in the Thessalonian correspondence may imply that his relationship with the Thessalonians was stable, and as a result he felt no need to stress his apostolic status. First Thessalonians is predominantly a letter of affirmation and encouragement. Although Paul seems to have found it necessary to defend himself against unidentified critics in Thessalonica, the criticism does not appear to have involved a challenge to his status as an apostle so much as a criticism of his behavior (2:1–12). On the other hand, 2 Thessalonians commands the church regarding the disciplining of the idle (3:6–15), and so apostolic authority is exercised; yet the address is virtually the same as is found in 1 Thessalonians. Since 1, 2 Thessalonians are among the earliest of his extant letters, Paul simply may not yet have developed the practice of emphasizing his status as a part of the letter address.
The letter identifies three coauthors: Paul, Silas, and Timothy. Joint authorship is reflected also in the predominant use of the first-person plural “we” throughout the letter. That Paul was the leading character of the three is implied by his ability to dispatch Timothy as his emissary (3:2). Also on the few occasions when the first-person singular “I” is used in the letter it is used by Paul to refer to himself (2:18; 3:5; esp. 5:27). And in a comparable situation in 2 Thessalonians, where the same three men are identified as coauthors in the address, Paul claimed the letter as his in the conclusion without any mention of Silas or Timothy (2 Thess 3:17). The exact nature of the relationship between Paul and his various coworkers is difficult to determine. In Acts and the letters bearing Paul's name about “100 names, often coupled with a score of assorted titles, are associated with the Apostle.”2
“Silas” (the name consistently used in Acts) is a variant of the longer “Silvanus” (the name used in the rest of the NT, including the Greek text here).3 This Silvanus likely was the same person as the Silas mentioned in Acts who was a trusted leader of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:22,27). He, along with Judas (also called Barsabbas), carried a letter to the Gentile church in Antioch from the Jerusalem church. Both men also were prophets, and they ministered to the church at Antioch (15:32,34).4 Paul later chose the same man as his companion on the second missionary journey (Acts 15:40). The need to select a missionary companion other than Barnabas resulted from the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark. The choice of Silas to fill this role probably was motivated both by his gifts (Acts 15:32) and by the esteem in which he was held by the Jerusalem church. His participation in the Gentile mission might well have given the mission credibility in Jewish circles, where Paul was considered theologically suspect. The narrative of the mission to Greece presents Silas as an equal to Paul but Paul as the main spokesman of the team (Acts 16:19,25,29; 17:4,10,14–15; 18:5). In addition to these references in Acts, Paul named Silvanus in 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1; and 2 Cor 1:19 as a coworker in the mission in Greece.5
Timothy is a prominent character both in Acts and in the Pauline corpus. He was a resident of Lystra and a member of the church there of whom the believers “spoke well.” As the son of a Jewish-Christian mother and a Greek father (probably a non-Christian), he had not been circumcised (Acts 16:1–3). After being recruited and circumcised by Paul, Timothy remained an associate of the apostle during his evangelization of Greece (Acts 17:14–15; 18:5) and his ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:22; 20:4). He is named in six Pauline letters as a coworker (1 Corinthians; Philippians; Colossians; 1 Thessalonians; 2 Thessalonians; Philemon). Several times he served as a special emissary from the apostle (1 Cor 4:17; 16:10; Phil 2:19; 1 Thess 3:2,6).6 In the several letters where he is mentioned, Timothy is accorded the respect of a faithful fellow worker in the gospel and at the same time lauded as a beloved son in the faith to Paul (Rom 16:21; 1 Cor 4:17; Phil 1:1; 2:19–23). He also is the named recipient of two letters.7
The letter is addressed to the church (ekkl
sia). Ekkl
sia was not a distinctively Christian word. It means “assembly” and was used of a variety of assemblies in the first-century world—social, political, or religious. Acts 19:32,39, for instance, identifies as an ekkl
sia the gathering of citizens in Ephesus to protest the work of Paul and the church. Ekkl
sia is also a synonym for “synagogue” (synag
g
) and was occasionally used of Jewish assemblies in the Septuagint. The early Christian assemblies could have described themselves as ekkl
siai to distinguish their Christian assemblies from the Jewish synag
gai. It seems more likely, however, that ekkl
sia was chosen as a word that was both understandable to the Gentile population and at the same time general enough so as not to prejudice the uninformed hearer regarding the character of the assembly.8 In other words, it was not so much separation from the synagogue as access to the Gentile world that made the term ekkl
sia useful as a self-designation. Considering the degree of anti-Semitism...
