1 Thessalonians Chapter 2.

1 THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 2.

           

2:1-12.  The work in Thessalonica.  "To be pleasing to God."  He has indicated that their evangelization was told abroad in Greece and elsewhere, and now reminds his Thessalonian brethren themselves that their coming as missionaries had not been in vain.  But their entrance should have been in vain, if it had not been stamped as the work of God in the Divine plan for world evangelization.  Their coming to Thessalonica was part of God's plan in the evangelization of the world. 

           

2:2.  The character of the ministry of the missionaries is revealed first by the circumstances in which it had been exercised.  Paul and Silvanus had arrived in Thessalonica injured by the flogging they had been subjected to, at Philippi (Acts 16:22).  Which outrage they had resented (Acts 16:37), as being Roman citizens, who were exempt from such treatment (Acts 22:25).  All these things showed the perils in which they were exposed in preaching the Gospel.  This marked Spirit in which they began their campaign commenced at Thessalonica, not in the lulling to sleep of illusions of an easy optimism, but in power of their God, unknown yet among the inhabitants of the great city. 

`Bercer' - rock, lull to sleep. 

           

The courage of the preacher of the Gospel of God, braves great opposition.  They spoke in much conflict.  This last word can be understood in two different ways.  Indeed, the word `agon' can mean either the war, the combat, particularly of the games of the stadium, or the effort, the grief, pain.

`Jeux' - games. 

`Stade' - stadium. 

`Exiger' - to exact, demand, require.

           

Some exegetes adopt this second meaning, because according to them, the beginnings of the mission to Thessalonica was not marked by opposition from the adversaries, Jewish or pagan.  Paul recalls here the intense effort demanded by the preaching in Thessalonica so as to justify his speaking of courage as necessary on his part, so that they should hear.  But Masson prefers the meaning of a great conflict or war.  It was a great battle, in which they suffered much affliction.

           

2:3.  The men who drew courage from their God to proclaim a message which is the Gospel of God are immediately distinguished from the mass of itinerary preachers, rhetoric and philosophers who found their audiences in the great cities of the empire; the apostles mission was not a human one, they are not the authors of their message, it is from God that they received their message, i.e. the Gospel.  They are responsible before Him, and preach to please Him.  Both in its origin and nature, then, the word of the missionaries is entirely different from that of the itinerant preachers with whom they were in danger of being confused. 

           

Paul uses the term `aparaklesis' - exhortation, call, to designate the Gospel preached by him and his employment of this term is justified by the fact that the Gospel bears an appeal for decision, on the faith of the hearers.  What worth had this exhortation, even if new in its form and its contents.  It was very different from that of the preachers who seek a fortune in this world.  It did not proceed from error, it was not the case of men deceiving themselves and deceiving others, it had its source in the truth revealed in Jesus Christ.  It was not inspired by impurity, or impure motives, to satisfy some personal interests or passion, it did not have recourse to guile, in the talents or skills of a propaganda for which all means are good to gain some followers.  That is, considered so.

           

`Tromper' - deceive, cheat, delude, take in; abuse, disappoint.

`Recourir' - run again, to have recourse. 

`Ruse' -guile.

`Paraklesis' is in measure an appeal or call to the hearers for a decision.

`Akatharsia' - impurity.  Its usual meaning in Paul's epistles is sexual licence.  Many exegetes take the word in a more general sense here, but Frame favours the more particular sense.  The first two statements depending on `ek' - origin, the origin of the preaching on `en' model or instrumental.

2:4.  After saying what the preaching of the missionaries was not, he introduces his positive declaration by a expressive `alla' - "on the contrary." 

The verb `dokimazo' has caused embarrassment, and to get out of this difficulty, it is necessary to remark that the sense of the verb is perfectly clear in the last member of the phrase, where it is to be compared with Jer.11:20, "the God who proves our hearts."  God is so named because He scrutinizes the inward dispositions, man's interior, particularly that of His servants and He does not suffer the purposes of the thoughts or after-thoughts which are not conformable to His will.  The missionaries are viewed as having been entrust-ed with the Gospel, after having been proved by God in their most intimate intentions and plans.

           

`Souffrir' - to suffer, bear, endure, stand.   

`Confier' - to trust, to entrust to.

           

They cannot escape (echapper) in the Divine control which is the best guarantee of the purity of their inspiration.  And by this control they are never at fault, they are free of anxiety to please men who cannot accept them after the authenticity of their word and trustworthiness of their behaviour.  Their one anxiety is to please God who proves their heart.

           

2:5-7.  The Disinterestedness of the Missionaries.  As in verse 3 and 4, Paul had characterized the preaching of the missionaries by the triple negation, following by contrast an affirmation introduced by `alla' (on the contrary), he proceeds in the same way in verses 5-7, to establish that their behaviour had been that of men who sought not to please men but God.

           

2:5.  The missionaries of Christ had never used flattery as the travelling orators did, and that, the Thessalonians well knew.  

For `kolakeia' see M-M, Vol.4.  Their preaching had been no pre-text badly hiding greed, and of which God who scrutinized their hearts, could testify; 

`Prothasis' - see Bauer. 

The pretext.  `Pleonexias' - greed, which made the teaching of the very numerous orators, philosophers and others, a pretext to enrich themselves.

           

2:6.  At least they had not sought the honour that comes from men, neither from their brethren at Thessalonica, nor from others.  In their manners, their ministry, they did not seek to be big men. 

           

`E doxa' - the glory, not there in a Biblical sense, but in a sense very common in Greek:  the honour.  On account of its origin - coming from men.  It is a question of honours which often accompanies the love of material advantage.

   

2:7. `Exciper' - allege, plead. 

`En Barei einai' - "to impose oneself."  This is to be understood in the light of verse 6, - the missionaries indifference to the honour dispensed by men, they could have put value on their authority, pleading their quality as apostles of Christ, envoys of the King of Kings.  Another interpretation makes Paul speak of his right to be maintained by the Community.  These two interpretations are not self-exclusive.

           

How are we to take the plural, "apostles?"  Did Paul give to Silvanus and Timothy the same title as himself?  Paul seems to have had a larger conception of the apostles than the book of Acts.  But he never gives the title to Timothy, even when he seeks to clothe his authority with the Church, see 3:2; 1.Cor.4:17; 16:10; Phil.2:22.  Even if we are to decide in some measure the case of Silvanus, we must be on guard against a premature conclusion about the plural, "apostles."  Paul may have been alarmed by the idea that Thessalonians can apply to the title "apostles of Christ," to his two companions as well as himself.

           

Far from making some importance of his authority, Paul had been in the midst of the Thessalonians full of gentleness and goodness, as a mother who covers with tender nursing her own children.

Masson reads, `epioi' rather than `enpioi'.  The internal evidence is clearly in favour of `epioi'.

`Douceur' - sweetness, gentleness, kindness.

 `Solicitude' - solicitude, care, concern.

           

2:8-12.  The paternal solicitude or care of the apostle.  In this passage, more than in a lot of others, the first person plural expresses less the sentiments of the three missionaries than those of the apostle who gave to them their love.  Paul was full of affection for the Thessalonians, that he was ready (pret) to make a gift to them not only of the Gospel of God (which was his mission, 2:4), but also his life, which love alone can bring him to do.  We saw how the `outos' in the beginning of verse 8 itself referred to the figure of a mother, who in tenderness for her children, gave herself to them, not merely care, time, grief, in a total renouncement of herself. 

           

2:9.  In this renouncement, of which love does not have awareness (or conscience), Paul cites a trait  which he is sure that the Thessalonians will remember; they had seen the travail of his hands, night and day, to gain his bread and not to be a charge to any of them.  When we remember how manual labour was despised in the Graeco-Roman Society, founded on slavery, it was truly a beautiful testimony of love.

           

`Omeiresthai'.  See Job.3:21. LXX.  See also Bauer - to nourish tender sentiments towards someone. 

`Peine' - punishment, pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, anxiety.

The infinitive `metadounai' expresses the continual gift that Paul makes  of himself to the Thessalonians and not the sacrifice of his life.

For "lives," - `Psuchas', see 2.Cor.12:15.

`Haleine' - breath, wind.  `Taut d'une haleine' - in the same breath; at a stretch; running.  `Se propse' - 1/ to offer oneself, 2/ to resolve, intend, mean.

           

2:10.  Continuing  in the same breath: "you are witnesses and God also," Paul resolved to establish the reality of his love for his spiritual children in reminding them of another aspect of his ministry among them.  Indeed, he goes to evoke or call up his proper pastoral ministry among the new converts of Thessalonica.  He reminds them that his conduct among them had been irreproachable as agreeing with Divine righteousness rather than human law.  Such a person he had been as a preacher of the Gospel (v.5-9); such a one he had been among those who had been brought (amenes) to the faith by his preaching.  He reminds them in verses 11-12 with what care he had guided their first steps in the Christian life.  He was a model evangelist (2:1-9). 

           

2:10-12.  The model pastor. 

The phrase "night and day,"   not "day and night," - is  of Jewish  usage.

`Osios kai dikaios', piously and righteously.  These two words were commonly associated by the Greeks with conduct or a deed, agreeing to a Divine law, and to the human law.  A behaviour so defined is irreproachable.

           

2:11.  Paul had preached the same Gospel to all, but he soon found various differences among the believers, so each case needed individual care, with the clear-sightedness, the firmness and love of a father who knew each of his children, and knew how it was necessary to act.  Paul insists on the individual character of this spiritual counsel.  Sometimes the common teaching is not sufficient and each must be guided if they are to take their particular medicine.

2:12.  To believe is not everything, it is necessary to live the faith, and it is then the difficulties begin.  It is then that the ministry of the evangelist or missionary becomes the ministry of the pastor: the teaching exhortation and care of the soul take the place of the preaching of the Gospel.  He exhorts those who had been gained or won by the preaching, to live their faith, to walk in a manner worthy of God, because the Christian life is a walk or march, according to an image dear to Paul (Rom.5:4; 8:4; 13:13, etc.).  The immobility is to him fatal.  Those who already walk in the new direction, after having broken with their past, the apostle encourages them, and those who had no conscience of the moral demands of their faith, those who still remained prisoners of their past and their circumstances, he would adjure (marturomai).

           

`Marturomai', points to an exhortation particularly pressing, to demand, adjure.  Such he adjures to complete the necessary breaks and to bind themselves on the new life defined in the words, "to walk in a manner worthy of God who has called you to His kingdom and glory."  The Christian life has its beginning in the call of God, who has made the believer to be born in the faith, and has placed him before his true destiny, until then ignorant; to participate in His kingdom and power.  Believers according to Paul, called not only to enter the kingdom of God and in it to know the glory of it, but more precisely to participate in Christ in the sovereignty of God over all creation, and in His glory in the Biblical sense of power, (Rom.6:4; 8:18,21).  But it is necessary that believers live in a manner worthy of God who has in His free grace, called to so high a destiny.

           

2:13.  Renewal of Thanksgiving. 

`Dia touto' - "on account of this," refers to contents of verses   1-12, as the motive of the unceasing thanksgiving of the missionaries.  Indeed, they have preached the Gospel as men who hold their mission from God (v.2-4), and they have behaved among the Thessalonians with the disinterestedness and love that it requested (v.5-12).  Also they can give thanks to God that the brethren of Thessalonica had received their preaching as the Word of God.  If this had not been the case, then, their coming among them had been in vain, (2:1). 

           

The second `kai' - "and also," bears on `eneis' - "we."  "We, for our part, in this which we are concerned," indicates that Paul returns to the thanksgiving of 1:2, after having testified to his readers the authenticity of his ministry among them.  The occasion of his thanksgiving is that they had received from the missionaries the Word of God preached by them.  They have received it, not as the word of men such as they can hear everyday on every street corner or in the halls where orators and preachers of every stamp, solicit the public attention, but as the Word of God, which it is in reality. 

           

The moment when the hearer of the preaching recognizes in it, the Word of God, and receives it as such, is the main point, it is the moment when he hears the call of God, when faith is given to him, when he himself realises the election of which he has been the object in Christ (1:4). 

           

The faith of the Thessalonians in response to his preaching inspired Paul to continually give thanks; it is the second part of the work of God of which the preaching is the first, it completed the work commenced by the preaching.  If the coming of the missionaries had not been in vain (2:1), it is because the missionaries have been truly the workmen of a work of God in preaching the Gospel, and in lovingly conducting the Church in its first steps, it is of the other part that the Thessalonians have believed and are open to the action of the Word in receiving it by faith.

           

Some commentators see in 2:1-12 an apology or defence by Paul for his ministry, but Paul seems mainly aiming to show that his preaching and stay among them had not been in vain (2:1), and to justify his thanksgiving (2:13).  The word of the Lord heard in Thessalonica and preached in such a manner and received in such a fashion (2:5-7), and that attested the election of the believers in Thessalonica, is first and final a motive for thanksgiving of the apostle for them. 

           

Paul would bring his readers themselves to recognize the Divine work accomplished among them, and which justified his thanksgiving.  The more we are convinced that it has not been inspired by the anxiety for a personal apology, but the anxiety to give glory to God for the building up of the Church.  `Souci' - care, anxiety, concern, trouble, solicitude.

           

2:13,12-16. Fidelity of the Thessalonians and the hostility of the Jews.  Serves the transition between the recollection of the ministry of Paul in Thessalonica (2:1-12), and the little fragment which he shall introduce in remembering the circumstances in which he has written the Epistle 2:17-3:10. `Evocation' - raising up, recall, recollection; (law) removal.   `Morceau' - morsel, fragment.

           

2:14.  Already the Thessalonians had suffered for the word of God.  In this they are able to recognize the Word of God.  They had victoriously suffered for it and this was a testimony of His activity among them.  They now shared in a new solidarity, one that the faith of Jesus Christ created between all believers, and all the churches; they have been the imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus.  A new solidarity in suffering for the sake of Christ, wrought by the Word of God. A token of the power of the word.

           

Again, like 1:6, it is less a question of deliberate imitation, than the adoption of a same attitude in similar circumstances: the believers of Thessalonica have undergone the same violent opposition from their own countrymen as the believers of Judea have from the Jews.  Judea is here, as in Rom.15:31; 2.Cor.1:16, the land of the Jews, the whole of Palestine, seen from the point of view of strangers who do not know the different parts. 

           

Paul thinks first of the church at Jerusalem, but not of it only.  "The churches of God," (1.Cor.11:16; 2.Thess.1:4), are the churches that God has gathered (rassembler) and belong to Him.  The complement, "in Christ Jesus," recalled the condition that they ought, in the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ.  We are badly informed on the persecutions that these churches had under-gone.  The fact that the Thessalonian church had undergone the same thing, was a singular sign of the authenticity of their faith, and which ought to remove the opposition met by its whole unusual character.  Before the Thessalonian church, the first, the more ancient churches of God, in the land of Judea, which had been the scene of the activity of Christ Jesus, have endured the same hostility from the people, to whom he had been sent, the Jews, see Acts  8:1-3.  Paul lays bare the hostility of the Jews, and exposes their true character in history.

           

2:15.  At that moment, the hostility of the Jews against the Church had become for the apostle an example of their continual revolt against God, of whom they have beat the messengers, they have killed both the Lord and the prophets, who have had a mission to make the word of God to be heard in the course of the history of salvation.  The Greek text is very expressive, "who have killed the Lord in the person of Jesus."  How could they have killed the Lord, if He had not come into their midst in the person of a man who bore the name Jesus? 

           

In accusing the Jews of being the murderers of the prophets, Paul uses an accusation formulated by Jesus, Matt.23:37; Lk.13:34, and also used by Stephen, Acts 7:52.  Even if the Jews have not slain all the prophets, that generation in Paul's eyes, were the sign of a spiritual attitude which they constantly bore.  Were not these crimes remote to the position of the Thessalonians?  But they too could testify to the same hostility against God and His messengers. - "They have persecuted us." - Making allusion to the events which occurred recently at Thessalonica and in Beraea.  They do not seek to please God - this seems paradoxical to Rom.10:12, but they refuse to believe the Gospel, they refuse to give a reason to God against themselves. This could be the only manner in which they could please God. 

           

They show themselves the adversaries of all men, and would forbid the Gospel to be spoken to the pagans that they might be saved.  In raising every kind of obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel to pagans, they are enemies to men.  They do all they can to stop the message of salvation coming to them.  The Pagans often thought of Jews as enemies of all men, but Paul supplies theological motives for asserting this.

           

2:16.  By this opposition to all men, born of their opposition to God, have always put to the full measure their sins.  In each dispensation of God in the history of salvation, they have responded by their unbelief and disobedience, filling always to the full measure of their sins, unless God in His mercy, definitely withdrew His grace.  But, says the apostle, the wrath has seized them in the end. 

The sense of `eis telos' is much discussed.  This phrase can signify - "in the end."  Luke 18:5;  "until the end,"  Matt.10:22; 

"For always." Psa.9:19; 76:9; "completely, perfectly."  (Josh.8:24; 2.Chron.12:12; Job.6:9.  Masson, prefers "in the end."  It is an eschatalogical text.

           

2:17-3:13.  Mutual fidelity of Paul and the Thessalonians.  Separated and the prayer of the apostle.  The first part of the epistle (1:2-2:16) is governed by the thanksgiving of Paul for the conversion and fidelity of the Thessalonians (1:4-10; 2:13), the result of preaching the Gospel among them; the second part is completed by the prayer of the apostle for the church, (3:11-13), that he has vainly sought to join them (2:17-3:5), and become fully assured of their fidelity by the news brought by Timothy (3:6-10).

           

2:17-20.  The vain effort of the apostle to again see the Thessalonians.  After this outburst against the Jews, Paul returns (revient) to the situation created for him and for the Thessalonians by the furious opposition.  Pursued from Thessalonica, he finds himself suddenly (soudain) in the position of a mother (2:7) or of a father (2:11) deprived of their children.  A cruel position and which is hard to endure.  It was a little time.  Paul insists on the brevity of the time of separation.  They were separated in face, not in heart.  And Paul would make every effort to put an end to this separation. 

           

They may have doubted his desire to come to them, so he insists, "Yes I Paul, have several times sought to come to you."  But each time he encountered an obstacle he could not surmount.  He does not tell us the exact nature of the obstacle, but this silence may be from prudence. 

           

The circumstances in which he had hastily left Thessalonica (Acts 17:5), leads us to think that a return to that city would uselessly put his life in danger.  Paul discerned in this obstacle, which brought sorrow to his heart and shackled (entrawait) his apostleship in a church too soon left to itself, the action of Satan, the great adversary of Christ and His Church.  `Precipitament' - hastily.  `Tot' - soon, quickly.

           

2:19.  Finally, to establish and to show that he had really sought to join the Thessalonians, Paul asks if it is conceivable that he abandoned of his full will, a church in which he has the best reasons to hold?  Indeed, in the perspective of the near coming of the Lord in His glory, the Thessalonians are his hope, because he hopes to be present with them before the Lord, and not have laboured for nothing (3:5); his joy, because he sees in them the work of the Lord by his own ministry (2:13), and he rejoices in the thought that they shall be his joy; the crown with which he shall be glorified, because they shall bear witness to the victories of Christ in his campaigns in His service (Rom.15:17).

           

"You also," - they were not the only ones who inspired him with a similar hope, (Phil.4:1.  But Paul recognizes that the Thessalonians have a priority, for they confessed their faith amid suffering, and he concludes (v.20), "yes, it is you who are our glory and joy."

           

Parousia.    `E parousia' means (a) `presence', (b) `coming'.  It is employed at the time in Hellenistic Greek of the appearing of a divinity or god, his manifestation by a miracle, or in the cult, on the other hand and more currently, the official coming of an illustrious personage, of the king or emperor himself.  It is often employed in a technical sense in the New Testament to designate the Coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven, the coming of the Lord for the salvation of the Church and the judgment of men.  The expression the parousia of the Lord is met six times in the epistle to the Thessalonians, (1.Thess.2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2.Thess.2:1,8,)  and once in 1.Cor. 15:23 - the coming of  Christ), and not elswhere in the Pauline epistles.

           

Where did the term come from?  The Old Testament, and Judaism spoke of the coming of Jehovah to judge the world and to initiate His reign, or the coming of their Messiah, but without using the term corresponding to the New Testament usage.  It seems then that the term parousia had been borrowed from Hellenism  by primitive Christianity.  It has its first appearance in 1st.Thessalonians, the most ancient part of the New Testament.  We conclude that it was introduced into the language of the Church by Paul.  But it had its roots in the sayings of Jesus, who announced the Coming of the Son of Man. 

           

`Maranatha' (1.Cor.16:22, translated into Greek in Rev.22:20), testifies to their waiting for the coming of the Lord in the first days of the Church.  The `Parousia of the Lord' occupied a central place in the eschatology of the early Church.