1 Thessalonians Chapter 1

1 THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 1. 

1:1.  Address and Salutations.  The Thessalonian Epistles are the only epistles to have three authors.  Silvanus, at the side of Paul, had taken an active part in the preaching of the Gospel in the Capital of Macedonia and in the founding of the Church. (Acts 17:4).  Timothy their companion, had come from Thessalonica, where Paul had sent him to strengthen the faith of the young church.  All three had a real tie with Thessalonica, in the origin of the church and its recent life.  Clearly, Paul has taken the initiative and dictates in the names of his two collaborators.  The plural first person dominates in the epistle, but see exceptions, 2:18; 3:5; 5:27.

           

The Church.   The `Ekklesia' was for the Greeks, the assembly of regular citizens convened to deliberate on the affairs of the state, or the popular assembly, illegal, perhaps, united for an occasional purpose, Acts 19:32,38,40. 

The Church of the Thessalonians is defined by the double complement, "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."  It is therefore a Christian assembly, - a Church. 

The "in" has not here a local sense, it defines the double relation constitutive of the Church:  The faith in God, who in Jesus Christ is revealed as the Father, and the faith in Jesus Christ the Lord, whom we adore and serve.

           

1:2-10.  Thanksgiving for the election of the Thessalonians.  In Antiquity, it was the practice of a letter writer to assure his reader of his prayers.  This practice enables Paul to explain the spiritual relations which united them in the Church by his preaching.   It is God who has made them brothers.  Paul also declares how he mentions them always at his prayers, which renewed the remembrance of their authentic Christian behaviour.  They had behaved as Christians should, which marked them out as such. 

           

The Work of Faith.  Their faith is translated into acts, they are put into service of the Lord, by their testimony.

           

Labour of Love.  `Kopos' is labour to weariness and fatigue.  It is Christian service accomplished in the Church and for the Church.  The Christian assumes such painful service by love, and only love will serve to weariness.

           

Patience of Hope.  The work of bearing up without bending.  Their hope sustained and upheld them.  We think of Paul's endurance, when confronted with the violent opposition of the population of the city. (1:6; 2:14; Acts 17:5).  We also see the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of the hope of the Church.

           

1:4-7.  In his recollection of the subjects of his thanksgiving for the Thessalonians, Paul mounts up to God the Father, who is the origin of their destiny of election. 

           

Knowing.  Introduces the new motive of his thanksgiving, which dominates the whole development of the thought of the apostle. 

In addressing his readers as "brothers, beloved of God," Paul considers them in the bundle of the light fallen on them from on high, and in which their existence has put on a new significance, because their election is the expression of the gratuitous love of God for each of them.  [Their election was proof they were beloved of God.   Paul now speaks of the evidence of their election.]

           

1:5.  Our Gospel, i.e. "the Gospel preached by us."  It was not in word only.  It was an efficacious power.  It had gathered a community of believers animated by an ardent faith, it had provoked violent opposition from the Jews, (Acts 17:5), and trouble in the entire city (Acts 17:8).  Paul defines the quality of this power.  Considered in its source and essence, it was the Holy Spirit.  The activity of God himself gave the Gospel this authority, this aptitude to convince, this force of penetration that the human word has not got considered within the bearers of the Gospel. 

           

`Deborder' - overflow, run over, burst forth.  This power was an overflowing assurance, the assurance of men carried by a power greater than themselves, filled with an enthusiastic sentiment to be the workmen of a work.  So that the preaching should come home to the heart as the Word of God, bringing conviction that it is God's Word.  Only those who have experienced it can judge.  Paul recalls his readers to the experience of them, the apostles.  It was the Gospel which had the character of power, but it could not be separated from those who are its bearers.  They had been organs of a divine power in the midst of the Thessalonians, which God himself exhibited for their salvation.

           

1:6.  Comportment - behaviour.  On their part, the believers at Thessalonica had been a living demonstration of this power.  It was not, that they deliberately imitated the missionaries of the Lord, but they found themselves in a situation analogous to them, their behaviour has been analogous and the victory of the Spirit manifests itself in them.  They have received the Word in the face of great tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.  To receive the Word, is to believe the Word, and that supposes the action of the Spirit.  It is what God has done in them that has made them the imitators of the missionaries, and the Lord.

           

Paul insists that is was for the Thessalonians that by the power of the Holy Spirit the missionaries had known this overflowing assurance which had characterised their ministry.  It was right for them to see in this a sign of their election.

           

1:7.  In the time when Paul wrote there were Christians in other cities of these provinces.  These Christians can regard the Thessalonians as the measure of an authentic faith.  As we learn from 3:10 and 4:1, their faith was not without defect, and they were far from realising its moral demand, but the faith here, as in Paul's other epistles, is before all to him  a bond, pledge, of the person, an existential relation with God in Christ, a commencement of the work or action of the Spirit.

           

1:8-10.  The Resounding of the events of Thessalonica.  "The word of the Lord" is the `word' of 1:6, and `gospel' of 1:5.  Does Paul mean that the Gospel has not been confined to Thessalonica, but had gone forth in all directions, carried by believers leaving the city by land and by sea?  It rather appears that Paul thinks of the resounding or fame of the events provoked in Thessalonica by the word of the Lord.  This word was heard with power, producing numerous conversions and assembling the Church, and it is declared in all the Churches, this astonishing victory for the Gospel.  It is in this sense that Paul can say, that the Word of the Lord, preached and heard in Thessalonica, has had echoes which have spread far (so say, Neil, Dibelius).  The advantage of this interpretation, is that it easily explains v.8b, and is in agreement with verses 9-10. 

           

Indeed, with the "word of the Lord" v.8a, corresponds, "the faith of the Thessalonians" (8b), and it is in the same concrete language, Paul continued, "not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God is spread."   In verses 9 and 10, Paul shows that he thinks of the newness (or novelty) of the faith of the Thessalonians, which itself spread not only in Greece, but in every place.

`Rependre', - pour, shed, scatter, spread. 

`Propager', to spread.  That Paul writes "their faith in God," shows the great majority had been pagans, and that their conversion to God was a striking testimony to the power of the Gospel. (1:5). 

           

1:9.  From the pagans a number were converted to God, and broke with idols.  The Greek brings out with the force, this rupture, - `apo ton eidolon', - the demand upon these pagans by their conversion to God, and which they have been lifted.  It is characterized yet by service and by hope.  The idolaters encountered in Jesus Christ, the living and true God. 

           

The first epithet, familiar in the Old Testament, Deut.5:26; Josh.3:10; 1.Sam.17:16. Qualifies the God of revelation in opposition to idols, who makes Himself known by His words and acts.  God works, He lives and is active by the energy of the Holy Spirit. 

           

Is not this the preaching of the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ crucified and raised, accompanied by the powerful action of the Holy Spirit (1:5), who has given the faith to the Christians of Thessalonica?  Thus this living God is also veritable.  The true, genuine God in contrast to the false deities of paganism. 

This second epithet (true) is also in opposition to gods lacking reality, and break those who put their confidence in them.  Only the living God is God.  He demands a continual obedience, and by their whole life the new converts ought to serve the living and true God, who renews the source of their moral life.  God's service is an undivided service, the service that consists in obedience to his will. 

           

1:10. `Portage' - sharing, dividing, division. 

`Attente' - waiting, hope. expectation. 

`Avenir' - future.  The grace of God is not exhausted (epuisse) in the present condition of believers, as they turned towards the future (avenir) in the expectation of the ultimate intervention of God, who shall conduct to its end, the history of salvation, and shall change faith to sight.  God will work out His purpose.  According to Paul, the Thessalonians with all the early church waited from the heavens (cieux) the Son of God, Jesus Christ himself.  The last event is indicated soberly in its unique and paradoxical grandeur, because the Son of God, has been a man who bore in history the Name of Jesus, who died, but God has raised Him from the dead. 

           

The title, `Son of God', gave his coming (venue) its universal signification, and the fact that God had already raised Him from the dead, conferred to this coming its eminence, because the resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God, is the prelude of the resurrection of the dead, and of the whole eschatological drama.  At last, he says for what reason the believers await with fervour:  It is He who delivers them from "the wrath to come."  Wrath, like love is the characteristic (propre) of the living and personal God of Biblical revelation.

           

Does He truly love men if he does not raise up against their sin and impiety?  For Paul, as for other New Testament writers, God faces sinful humanity in His wrath, which shall fully be manifested in the Day of Judgment, fire shall devour before (devant) which no (nul) sinner shall subsist.  But in Jesus Christ, this same God who is against sinners in His wrath, is for them in His love. (Rom.5:9).  In waiting for Jesus, the Son of God, from the heavens, they wait not for him to bring condemnation, but full communion with God always.   Verse 9 does not give a resume of the missionary preaching of Paul, but characterizes some vigorous traits of the new spiritual attitude of those who have believed in this preaching.  Note some of the grand affirmations of the Gospel (1:5):  "The word of the Lord."

1:8.  "The coming into the world of the Son of God."  His death, resurrection, his coming glory and judgment of the living and the dead.  We do not wait for him to bring wrath, but deliverance, accompanied with glory.  The wrath is coming (present tense) to express its certainty.  Are you ready for His return?  Will it be wrath for you, or perfect communion?