Your Assignment

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 (Common English Bible)

Greeting

  1 From Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. 

   To the Thessalonians’ church that is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

   Grace and peace to all of you.

Thanksgiving to God

 2 We always thank God for all of you when we mention you constantly in our prayers. 3 This is because we remember your work that comes from faith, your effort that comes from love, and your perseverance that comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. 4 Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God, and we know that he has chosen you. 5 We know this because our good news didn’t come to you just in speech but also with power and the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know as well as we do what kind of people we were when we were with you, which was for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord when you accepted the message that came from the Holy Spirit with joy in spite of great suffering. 7 As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The message about the Lord rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place. The news about your faithfulness to God has spread so that we don’t even need to mention it. 9 People tell us about what sort of welcome we had from you and how you turned to God from idols. As a result, you are serving the living and true God, 10 and you are waiting for his Son from heaven. His Son is Jesus, who is the one he raised from the dead and who is the one who will rescue us from the coming wrath.

This coming Sunday, we begin reading First Thessalonians. Paul may have written many letters to the churches he founded and visited, but we only have seven letters that are undisputedly from Paul himself. First Thessalonians is said to be the first letter we have by Paul, and is also said to be the oldest document in the New Testament. Scholars disagree on time and place of writing, some say written from Corinth about 51 A.D.

As with all of Paul’s letters, First Thessalonians is occasional, that is to say, it was written for a reason or reasons. If we explore that a little bit before reading the actual letter and hearing the Sunday Snippet, the letter is clear instead of murky. It isn’t murky at all if you know what’s going on.

As our first and oldest Christian document, First Thessalonians does a couple of things. First, it sets the format and standard for all epistles that follow, whether Paul wrote them or not. 

Second, it crosses a threshold and signifies change. The good news about Jesus was being passed along informally by word of mouth (which is how the Gospels got started, as oral traditions). That has now changed: First Thessalonians shows the first establishment of churches with formal organization and authority: these folks at Thessalonica look to Paul as their leader and he has gone on to establish more such churches in other cities. 

Paul had come to Thessalonica with his companions, perhaps rented a room, plied his trade, got to know folks. He told them that the end of the world was at hand, and with it the terrible wrath of God. Everyone would be raised into the air and judged, and sent to either punishment (not defined) or blessing. The blessing would be eternal life in the kingdom of God that would follow. In order to be saved and receive the blessing, you must be under the lordship of the God of Israel. Jesus had been sent as the Son of God, crucified to take on himself the sins of all, raised from death by God, taken into heaven to be with God; and would return at the judgment to be Lord of God’s everlasting kingdom.

Paul taught that you don’t have to become Jewish to come under the God of Israel, just hear and accept the good news. Abandon your pagan ways of idol worship and place yourself under the God of Israel, the only true God, the Creator of all that is. All are welcome and invited. But you must decide and change right now, because the wrath of God is at hand, Jesus’ return is imminent, and tomorrow may be too late. 

Paul tells this to the Thessalonians with whom he comes into contact. Those who believe Paul, and are interested, start meeting every week under Paul’s leadership, for a meal and to pray and worship the God of Israel, possibly to read from the Hebrew Bible, and to hear more about Jesus -- maybe share some of the oral stories going round that later will be collected into the gospels. This little group is the beginning of what we call the house church.

Paul gets them started, then moves on to another city to start over. But he wants to keep in touch, he wants to come back for another visit, and he wants to be sure his little Thessalonian church stays on track and faithful.

Word comes to Paul that the members of the Thessalonian church are being harassed, even persecuted by their neighbors. Why? In those days, everybody was expected to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods to keep them satisfied and from becoming angry. If your neighbor won’t worship this pagan god and the god gets angry, the angry god will punish everyone. And if you refused to sacrifice to Caesar, the authorities would come round up everybody in the neighborhood and their families and that could be the end of you. So, no wonder the neighbors were upset.

Paul sends Timothy to check on them and make sure they’re not “falling away” from God and the salvation offered through Christ Jesus, and returning to their pagan ways.

Timothy returns with a good report, tells Paul that the folks at Thessalonica are hanging in there. He also brings the sad news that some of the folks in the Thessalonian church have died, and that those who are still living are afraid their dead loved ones have missed out on the kingdom of God. 

So, Paul writes a letter 

• praising the Thessalonians for accepting his good news about the salvation available, from the coming wrath and judgment, through Jesus, and asserting his, Paul’s, authority as God’s messenger;
• praising them for continuing in spite of harassment, 
• encouraging them to continue in the faith;
• assuring them that they need not worry about those who have died, because they also will be raised at the time of the coming End Time and saved into God’s kingdom; 
• encouraging them as to how to live as God’s people;
• and sending them his blessings

That’s what First Thessalonians is about. Paul praises, encourages, and assures the Thessalonians. Eschatological and apocalyptic, Paul is certain that the End Time is coming, and his letter is just as assuring to us as it was to them that God will give us the victory over death.

First Thessalonians is short enough to sit down and read this morning, all in one reading as Paul meant, and just as it was read to the folks at Thessalonica. For anyone willing to accept it, that’s the assignment. It’s not possible to understand this wonderful and historic letter by hearing just the Sunday Snippet.

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