Morna Hooker: Introducing Paul, part 2a - 1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians is probably the earliest of Paul’s letters (although it might be Galatians instead). How do we date the letters? Tricky. We could do it according to the development of Paul’s theology, but this is very subjective. We could do it by references to Paul’s itinerary, but we know that he didn’t always stick to his original plans. In the end, we usually have to fall back on what Acts tells us. According to Acts, Thessalonica was the first place Paul visited, which makes sense in terms of its geographical location. Paul was probably only there for about two weeks before getting kicked out – not a long time in which to start a church.

Why does Luke tell us that Paul started out preaching in the synagogue if Paul himself is so insistent that he’s an apostle to the Gentiles? Well, Paul would have needed a base during his time in Thessalonica, so it would probably have made sense to find one in the Jewish community from which he could preach to the ‘righteous Gentiles’ - the non-Jewish people who hung around the synagogue. Eventually, Paul got kicked out of Thessalonica and would have left a very new group of newly converted ex-pagans. Understandably, he was a bit worried about having to leave them, so sent Timothy to check on them. Timothy returned with a good report, but Paul was still nervous, so wrote them a letter. Chapters 2 and 3 remind the Thessalonians of Paul’s last visit and what’s been going down since. The letter as a whole is mostly ‘a long sigh of relief’ because they haven’t regressed to their naughty pagan ways, but it also addresses a couple of points Paul’s still concerned about: eschatology and ethics.

1 Thessalonians follows the classic Greek letter form:

Name of sender: Paul and his team

Recipient: The church in Thessalonica in God the Father. The ‘in’ (‘en’ in Greek) is a bit odd – it can mean in, by or with, taking its meaning from the context. It probably means that the Thessalonian church was brought into being by God the Father and Jesus Christ.

Greeting

Thanks: This is the Christianised version of the Greek letter form, thanking God instead of the letter’s recipient.It's meant to remind the Thessalonians what it is they just converted to and is possibly the earliest summary of the basic Christian message we have on record. Some scholars think that Paul’s using a standard formula he got from somewhere else, but Hookers not convinced – it’s a little bit odd as a pure gospel summary, and there’s no reason why such a formula would have been circulating at the time anyway, not least because no one except Paul and his posse were preaching to pagans at that point in time. Paul isn’t reminded the Thessalonians of the gospel, but rather of their response to the gospel. Why? Partly because it’s still part of his thanksgiving to God, and partly because the conventions of Greek letter writing meant that the thanksgiving also served as a ‘contents page’ for the rest of the letter, so here Paul raises his two big themes: ethics and eschatology.