The Message of 1 and 2 Thessalonians

Preparing For The Coming King

John Stott

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781783590667
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblische Studien

How do two brief letters to a church in first-century Macedonia speak to us today? John Stott demonstrates that Paul's letters to the Christians in Thessalonica offer three key messages to churches at the beginning of the twenty-first century: - a model for ministry, as Paul's self-giving, prayerful love for the church challenges Christian leaders
- a vision for the local church, as the apostle touches on evangelism, pastoral care, ethical standards, fellowship, worship, obedience and future hope;
- an affirmation of our faith, as he repeatedly returns to the foundation facts that 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.' Characterised by John Stott's customary clarity and perception, this exposition illuminates aspects of Christian life and service that are at the heart of God's purposes for this people today.

Part 1

The message of 1 Thessalonians

The gospel and the church

1 Thessalonians 1:1–10

1. Christian evangelism or How the church spreads the gospel

1. Introduction (1:1a)

It was customary in the ancient world for all letters to begin in the same way. Correspondents would announce first themselves, then the person(s) to whom they were writing, next a greeting, and lastly (though not always) either a thanksgiving or a wish for the reader’s welfare. Paul follows the same pattern, but Christianizes it.

As we have already seen, Paul, Silas [as he is called in Acts, although the Greek here has the Latin form ‘Silvanus’] and Timothy were the missionary team who evangelized Thessalonica. It is natural, therefore, for Paul to associate Silas and Timothy with him in both his letters to the Thessalonians. This does not necessarily mean that they shared in composing them; it is more likely to have been a courteous gesture, since Silas and Timothy were so well known in the Thessalonian church, together with a general indication that they were in agreement with what Paul wrote. See the ‘Additional note’ on Paul’s use of ‘we’ (pp. 50–54).

We also notice that in associating Silas and Timothy with him, Paul does not distinguish himself from them by calling himself an apostle, which they were not. He probably omitted a reference to his apostleship here because what was being challenged in Thessalonica was his behaviour, not his authority. In other letters, however, if his special commission was being questioned, he both asserted and defended his apostleship, and in so doing distinguished himself from those he mentioned in the address. Already in Galatians, while including ‘all the brothers and sisters with me’ in his greeting, he called himself an apostle who owed his appointment not to any human source but to Jesus Christ and to God the Father.1 Similarly, in his two Corinthian letters he deliberately contrasted the designations ‘apostle’ and ‘brother’. In both cases he styled himself ‘Paul, [called to be] an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God’ and then added ‘and our brother Sosthenes’2 or ‘and Timothy our brother’.3 There is no reason to suppose that the situation was different in Thessalonica; it is simply that he saw no need to spell out the distinction.

In this first chapter Paul refers to both the church and the gospel. He begins by describing the church of God, which the gospel has brought into being (1–4), and goes on to describe the gospel of God which the church has received and is spreading (5–10). Thus the gospel creates the church, which spreads the gospel, which creates more churches, which in their turn spread the gospel further in a repeating cycle. This is God’s plan for continuing evangelism through local churches.

2. The church of God (1:1b–4)

It is truly remarkable to read Paul’s comprehensive picture of the Thessalonian church. It is only a few months old. Its members are newborn Christians, freshly converted from either Judaism or paganism. Their Christian convictions have been newly acquired. Their Christian moral standards have been recently adopted. And they are being sorely tested by persecution. You would expect it to be a very wobbly church in a very precarious condition. But no. Paul is confident about it, because he knows it is God’s church, and because he has confidence in God. He sets it out in three ways.

a. The church is a community which lives in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (1:1b)

We notice in passing the entirely natural way in which Paul brackets God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, as being together the source of the church’s life. Later (in verse 10) he will call Jesus the ‘Son’ of God. Already within twenty years of the death and resurrection of Jesus the coupling of the Father and the Son as equal is the universal faith of the church. This simple fact is enough to undermine the teaching of those who claim that the New Testament nowhere attributes deity to Jesus.

The Greek word for church is ekklēsia, which means ‘an assembly’. In those days it was used in a variety of contexts, religious and secular. As Chrysostom wrote, ‘there were many assemblies, both Jewish and Grecian’.4 What, then, was distinctive about the ekklēsia to which Paul is writing? It is this. It is in the Father and the Son. What kind of relationship has he in mind by the preposition ‘in’? It is certainly not spatial, as if the church were somehow ‘inside’ God. Nor does it seem to mean that the church is ‘founded on’ God (jbp) or that its members ‘belong to’ God (reb) or simply that they ‘have God as Father and Jesus Christ as Lord’,5 true as all these statements are. Nor does it seem natural to take ‘in’ as instrumental and translate the phrase ‘brought into being by’ God.6

If the phrase had been only ‘in the Lord Jesus Christ’, without reference to the Father, commentators would probably agree about its meaning because to be ‘in Christ’ is a familiar and favourite expression of Paul’s, and because in 2:14 the churches of Judea are described as being ‘in Christ Jesus’. Two New Testament metaphors explain this usage, the first developed by Jesus and the second by Paul. Jesus spoke of his disciples being ‘in’ him as branches are ‘in’ the vine,7 while Paul sees us as being ‘in Christ’ as limbs are ‘in’ the body.8 In both cases the relationship in mind is a vital, organic union which makes possible the sharing of a common life. The fact that Paul here adds ‘in God the Father’ seems no reason why the ‘in’ relationship should mean something different. Elsewhere Paul describes our new life as ‘hidden with Christ in God’;9 is this not almost the same as saying that the church is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ? Perhaps, then, we should paraphrase the preposition ‘in’ as meaning ‘living in’, ‘rooted in’ or ‘drawing its life from’.

In later letters Paul’s description of the church would be the other way round, namely ‘the church of God in Corinth’.10 He might therefore have written to ‘the church of God in Thessalonica’, since he referred to ‘God’s churches’ in Judea (1 Thess. 2:14) and in other places (2 Thess. 1:4). Instead, he wrote to the church of the Thessalonians in God (see 2 Thess. 1:1 too). Both accounts of the church are true. For God’s church was living in Thessalonica, and the Thessalonians’ church was living in God. To be sure, the preposition ‘in’ has a different nuance in these statements, since the church is ‘in’ God as the source from which its life comes, whereas it is ‘in’ the world only as the sphere in which it lives. Nevertheless, it is still correct to say that every church has two homes, two environments, two habitats. It lives in God and it lives in the world.11

Why, then, did Paul choose to describe the Thessalonian church in the way he did? Since he does not tell us, we can only guess. But it is at least plausible to suggest that, because he knew the insecurity felt by a young and persecuted church, he wanted to remind them that in the midst of their trials their security was in God. It is from him, from the Father and the Son (‘through the Spirit’, we might wish to add), that every church derives its life, strength and stability.

To this church Paul now sends his greeting Grace and peace. It seems to be a combination of the Jewish greeting shalom (‘Peace!’) and the Greek greeting chairein (‘Rejoice!’ or ‘Hail!’),12 now Christianized as charis, ‘grace’. It is as if Paul is saying ‘We send you the new greeting with the old.’13 Still today we can desire for the church no greater blessings than grace and peace. God’s peace is not just the absence of conflict, but the fullness of health and harmony through reconciliation with him and with each other. ‘The entire gospel is involved in this word,’ writes Ernest Best.14 And God’s grace is his free, undeserved favour through Christ which confers this peace and sustains it.

b. The church is a community which is distinguished by faith, hope and love (1:3)

After identifying the letter-writer and the recipients, and sending a greeting, ancient correspondents, as we saw, normally continued with an expression of thanksgiving, a wish or a prayer. Paul Christianizes this custom too. He tells the Thessalonians that he, Silas and Timothy – whether together, separately or both – (1) always thanked God for them all, (2) mentioned them in their prayers, and (3) continually remembered them before God (i.e. in his presence). Thus memory, thanksgiving and prayer belong together. Perhaps we need to pray and work for better memories. For it is when we remember people (their faces, names and needs) that we are prompted both to thank God and to pray for them.

What Paul and his companions especially remembered about the Thessalonians were the three most eminent Christian graces (faith, love and hope) which characterized their lives. Apart from Galatians 5:5–6 where they are mentioned, though not in a recognizable triad, this verse (with 5:8) is their first occurrence in Paul’s letters. He will refer to them again in varying degrees of clarity,15 and elaborate them in 1 Corinthians 13. They also occur in Peter’s first letter and in the letter to the Hebrews.16 Two aspects of these Christian qualitie...