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At the outset, we note that 1 Thessalonians reveals a great deal about
Paul as a person and as pastor for his people from whom he was now
separated. The letter illustrates the ways in which Paul kept in touch with
and supervised his congregations: by sending one of his associates, in
this case Timothy, to re-visit Thessalonica and report on the state of
affairs; by a letter, which responds to the points mentioned by Timothy,
and which offers instruction, exhortation, and prayers for their welfare;
and by a return visit of the apostle, which is planned for in the letter
(1 Thessalonians 3:10), and which actually did take place, even if
after some years’ delay. Paul’s intense desire to re-visit Thessalonica is unmistakable (2:17 –
3:11), even though he has no definite travel plans to announce.
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For a more detailed study of events leading up to the composition of
1 Thessalonians, click on Paul and Thessalonica
(1). |
Paul as Letter Writer
At this point it may
be useful to indicate how Paul arranged his material in this and other
letters. In many respects he follows the conventions of ancient letter
writing. His letters begin with the name of the author, together with the
names of those who join him in sending the letter; these are followed by
the addressees and by a shorter or longer blessing or benediction
(1 Thessalonians 1:1). Then comes a thanksgiving section (in
1 Thessalonians there are two such sections, 1:2-10 and 3:9-13), and
a transition sentence to the body of the letter, usually in the form of a
disclosure statement (1 Thessalonians 2:1). Paul has no standard form
for the letter body. Concluding matters often include travel plans,
personal greetings, and a final blessing. Paul dictated his letters to an
amanuensis or secretary, and he sometimes added a few lines in his own
hand (e.g., 1 Corinthians 16:21-24), though not in 1 Thessalonians.
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What the Letter Offers
As we explore the contents of this slim letter,
we will look in vain
for the rich theological
discussions which later letters offer; on the other hand:
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A
good recent translation such as NRSV will
facilitate a quick “read” of the letter. |
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find Paul
the pastor and friend, brimming with expressions of affection and
appreciation;
• We find Paul
the proclaimer of a monotheistic faith to a pluralistic
religious world, whose gods were empty remnants of a mythic past and whose
traveling philosophers offered little to take their place (1:9);
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find Paul,
the as yet unchastened announcer of the imminent end of the
age,
reinforcing expectations of a sudden appearance of the Lord which he
believed would surely come within
the lifetime of himself and most of his readers (4:15-17; 5:1-2); In
this his earliest letter to have come down to us, Paul reassures his
readers concerning their members who have died before the return of the
Lord: they will be at no disadvantage, but will at the Lord’s coming
rise from the dead; only then will those still alive be caught up into the
air with them, to be with the Lord. (Further discussion of
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, below.)
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Click
on Expectation
for end-of-time hopes during the founding visit. In
his later letters Paul would be obliged to revise this expectation, as the
people in his churches continued to die, and as he faced his own impending
death, his own personal end-of-time. Click on 1 Corinthians
15,
Philippians,
and 2 Corinthians 1-9. |
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• We find an
indispensable reminder, in the midst of this end-of-time enthusiasm, of
what is of prime and perennial importance, “. . . And so we shall
always be with the Lord!” (4:17, RSV);
• We find suggestions
of the existence already of a mission network throughout the Christian
world, rejoicing in the faith and
steadfastness of the Thessalonians (1:7-9);
• We find a
Pauline spirituality with its pervasive mood of ecstatic thanksgiving
(1:2-10; 3:9-13); and
• We find some
terse moral teachings, rehearsing what he had already taught them during
the founding
mission, with only a hint of his later more formal
statements about the centrality of the love principle (3:12; 4:9).
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1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Though this text is by no means Paul’s last word on end-of-time matters,
it is an important bench mark, representing an early stage of his thinking
and arguably also an early stage of New Testament expectation.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 13But
we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who
have died [in Greek, fallen asleep], so that you may not grieve as
others do who have no hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those
who have died. 15For this we declare to you by the word of the
Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,
will by no means precede those who have died. 16For the Lord
himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the
sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ
will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be
caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air;
and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage
one another with these words.
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NRSV, regrettably, reduces the powerful metaphor fallen asleep
to its interpretation. There is a fine line between translation and
interpretation, and the translators here seem to have transgressed. Fallen
asleep is Paul’s way of relativizing death and rendering it
insignificant, and is thus a means of consolation for the grieving.
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For those who have fallen
asleep in Christ, is there a way of participating in the Christian
hope of triumph over evil and death? As we read, we are not expecting Paul
to introduce the notion of the resurrection of believers, and perhaps the
Thessalonians were not expecting this proposal either. But Paul is already
updating his end-of-time
teaching: If not everyone would still be alive at the Lord’s coming,
those who had died could participate by resurrection! They would indeed
lead the procession of those who would meet the Lord, and thus suffer no
disadvantage by their having died.
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The opening
we do not want you to be uninformed (verse 13) seems to be more of a disclosure
statement of something new rather than a reminder of something he
had earlier told them. It is less certain whether this “something new”
is (a) the resurrection of believers, or (b) the precedence which the
dead will enjoy, or both (a) and (b). |
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The apocalyptic scenario in verses 16 and 17 is relatively restrained
(contrast 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; 2:1-12), and stands alone in the
authentic letters of Paul which have survived:
• The archangel’s call and the sound
of God’s trumpet
• The Lord’s descent from heaven with
a cry of command
• The resurrection of the dead in Christ
• The meeting with the Lord in the air,
as the living are caught up in the clouds with the resurrected dead
• Existence in the presence of the Lord
forever
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One may compare this with the scenario of 1 Corinthians
15:22-28, which however turns out to be more Christological than
apocalyptic.
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Undoubtedly Paul’s
readers were consoled with this proclamation, delivered on the authority
of the Lord himself (whether by a tradition circulating in the early
church, or by a direct revelation to Paul from the Lord). For readers at the turn
of the second millenium it is more complicated. Whatever nostalgia one may
feel for the cozy confines of the ancient three story universe, one will
need to exercise a certain discrimination in detecting what is of
permanent religious value in the midst of an obsolete cosmology and an
end-of-time theory refuted by the death of Paul and his readers, by the
subsequent passing of countless generations to their graves, and by the
persistence of human history, stubbornly bumping and blundering its way
along.
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“For this we declare to you by the word of the
Lord . . . .” (1 Thessalonians 4:15)
Rudolf Bultmann in some of his writings undertook this project of demythologizing the New Testament.
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moving away from apocalyptic schemes, finally recognizing that he could
not date end-of-time events during his own lifetime. At the end, as at the
beginning, he could say that the important thing was to be with the
Lord.
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. . . with the Lord:
1 Thessalonians 4:17; Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8-9. |
Meanwhile, in
Corinth . . .
I
do not think we are taking liberties if we connect 1 Thessalonians
with Corinth, the city where it was probably written, and the congregation
where Paul was laboring: We should be surprised if some of these themes in
1 Thessalonians did not appear about the same time in his discourses to
the Corinthian church, themes which would later be elaborated in his
letters to Corinth.
. . . and Back to Jerusalem
Paul’s
stay in Corinth, as with his other mission foundations, is probably to be
reckoned in years rather than months, especially if we allow for his
working to support himself. When he departed, his destination was probably
Jerusalem, where he would take part in the Apostolic Conference, the
occasion of the second Jerusalem visit.
In
his absence, a certain Apollos taught in Corinth, “watering”
where Paul had “planted.” Apollos’ leadership would in time generate a
certain rivalry with Paul’s among the Corinthians.
Galatians 2:1 Then
after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking
Titus along with me.
1 Corinthians 3:4-6 4For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another,
“I
belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5What then is
Apollos?
What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord
assigned to each. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
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The
work of Prof. John C. Hurd, Jr. (1965/1983), is especially
useful here. |
| Revised
June 18, 2003 |
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Click Next
button below to continue to Jerusalem Conference (1).
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