First and Second Thessalonians Page 5

  How do we know that God chose you? Because our preaching wasn’t just talk. God enabled us to preach with power, by means of the Holy Spirit, and with confidence. We also know that God chose you because you became imitators of us and of the Lord by receiving the word in the midst of great affliction with joy from the Holy Spirit.

  Paul believed that there were clear signs of divine assistance when he was working in Thessalonica. He did not come in word alone. God displayed power and filled the apostles with conviction.12 It is possible that this “power” refers to God working through Paul’s preaching (Gal 3:1–5), or it may refer to miracles that accompanied his words. Paul describes himself as a miracle-worker on other occasions, such as when he tells the Romans that it is his duty to “lead the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit” (Rom 15:18–19; see also 2 Cor 12:12). Theodoret of Cyrus puts it this way: “We didn’t just offer you instructive words. We demonstrated the truth of the words by performing wonders.”13

  LIVING TRADITION

  Joy in Suffering according to St. Catherine of Siena

  In 1:6 Paul briefly mentions the Thessalonians’ joy in the midst of suffering as a sign that the Holy Spirit has enabled them to imitate Jesus. The startling image of Jesus being filled with joy on the cross is at the heart of St. Catherine of Siena’s understanding of Christ’s passion. Here are two excerpts from her letters that show how she draws especially on John’s Gospel to explain Christ’s suffering this way:

  He joyously shouts, “It is finished!” [John 19:30]. Yes, those seem to be sorrowful words, but they were words of joy to that soul aflame and consumed in the fire of divine charity, the soul of the incarnate Word, God’s Son. It is as if the gentle Jesus wanted to say, “I have completely fulfilled what was written of me. Fulfilled too is my painful desire to redeem the human race. I am happy, exultant, that I have finished this suffering.”a

  [Breaking into prayer while writing a letter] Oh fire, oh abyss of charity! You are a fire ever burning but not consuming. You are filled with gladness, with rejoicing, with gentleness. To the heart pierced by this arrow, all bitterness seems sweet, every heavy burden becomes light.b

  a. The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, vol. 1, trans. Suzanne Noffke, OP (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1988), 88.

  b. Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, 80.

  [1:6]

  The Thessalonians were gripped by the Holy Spirit, who empowered them to become imitators of the apostles by accepting the gospel with joy, though they were suffering great affliction at the hands of other inhabitants of the city (2:14). For Paul, joy in the midst of suffering for the gospel is a clear sign that God is at work in a person (see 2 Cor 8:1–2). Through their joy in suffering the Thessalonians became imitators not only of the apostles but also of the Lord himself.14 What does this mean? St. John Chrysostom notes that Paul must be referring to Jesus’s willing self-emptying in his passion: “How were they imitators of the Lord? Because he also endured many sufferings but did not grieve. Rather, he rejoiced, for he came to this gladly. For our sakes he emptied himself [Phil 2:7].”15 Paul does not retell here the full story of how Christ emptied himself for our sakes, but it is important to note that his words presuppose that the Thessalonians understand what he means. The new Christians in Thessalonica know that those who rejoice in suffering imitate Jesus, who “died for us” (1 Thess 5:10). This was part of the gospel message that they received when Paul was with them, as was the news that those who follow Jesus will also experience suffering (3:2–3).

  Figure 3. St. Catherine of Siena by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. [Public domain / WikiArt.org]

  [1:7–8]

  The Thessalonians have not been Christians for long, but already the news of their joyful reception of the gospel has spread all over Greece and in every place. Even if we assume that Paul is exaggerating a bit in his exuberance—“Everyone is talking about it!”—we understand that the young Thessalonian church has made a big impression. They have become a model for all the believers in the region. The word translated as “believers” is one of Paul’s favorite ways of describing members of the church. By choosing this translation, the NABRE highlights the importance of “believing” in the claims of the gospel. The word translated as “believe” is pisteuō; the corresponding noun is pistis. “Believe” is one possible translation of pisteuō, but pisteuō can also denote faith, trust, or faithfulness, among other things. There is a world of difference between mere belief—simply thinking that something is true—and faithfulness, which requires not just belief but faithful action as well. The only way to decide how these Greek words should be translated in a given case is to study their context. Paul sometimes uses pistis and related words to refer to belief or intellectual assent (Rom 10:9). There are many occasions, however, when Paul’s pistis language is best translated with the word “trust.” When we say we trust someone—say, a friend or a spouse—we mean that we rely on that person to be good to us.16 To trust someone is to give oneself over to that person and (to one degree or another) make oneself vulnerable to him or her. A good example of pistis as trust appears in 1 Cor 10:13, where Paul uses the adjectival form pistos while warning the Corinthians not to fall into idolatry: “God is trustworthy [pistos]: he will not leave you to be tempted beyond your strength but with the testing he will make a way out so that you will be able to endure it” (my translation). Paul encourages the Corinthians to trust God to stand by them in their times of temptation. Here in 1 Thessalonians Paul describes the church as those who rely on God in times of suffering. Arguably, then, “the faithful” or “the trusting” would be a better translation here than “believers.”

  Reflection and Application (1:5–8)

  For modern people, it is an insult to be called an imitator. We are frequently told how important it is to “be yourself.” As Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it, “Insist on yourself; never imitate.”17 In striking contrast, Paul reminds the Thessalonian church how they learned to imitate him (1 Thess 1:6) and the churches in Judea (2:14). Did Paul expect the Thessalonians to be pleased when they heard this? Isn’t this tantamount to calling them weak-minded followers with nothing to offer? How would the people in your local church respond if the pastor commended them for “imitating me”?

  In order to understand Paul, we must grasp an important difference between his culture and ours. In Paul’s day popular teachers frequently appealed to imitation as a path to growth in virtue. In contrast, since the late eighteenth century, Westerners have been increasingly convinced that everyone must find his or her own way. To discover your own unique path, we are told, you must search inside yourself rather than conforming to expectations imposed on you from the outside, whether from religion, family, or the wider society. To quote Emerson once again, “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. . . . The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.”18 Or, as ads for cars, clothing, and beer sometimes put it, “Express yourself.”

  There are serious problems with the “be yourself” approach to life, one of which is a naïve individualism that imagines that we can live good lives on our own. The Thessalonian Christians were embarking on a new life of worshiping the living God. Having only recently turned from a life of “lustful passion” (4:5), they needed to learn new habits to sustain a life of chastity (4:1–8), sobriety (5:1–8), and care for the weak (5:14), but they couldn’t do this on their own. Like us, they needed examples to show them what it means to follow Jesus. This is what they found in Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. Today we have many similar examples both among those we know personally and through the lives of the saints, a “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1) that has continued to grow.

  The Living and True God (1:9–10)

  9For they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God 10and to await his Son
from heaven, whom he raised from [the] dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.

  OT: Ezek 7:19; Zeph 1:15–18; Sir 5:6–7

  NT: Matt 3:7; Luke 3:7; Rom 1:18–32

  Catechism: the living God, 205

  [1:9–10]

  This short description of what people are saying about the Thessalonians is packed with important hints about the identity of the Thessalonian converts and about the gospel message that they received from Paul. The mention of turning away from idols suggests that the converts were Gentiles or non-Israelites. We don’t know as much about religious life in ancient Thessalonica as we would like because the bustling modern city of Thessaloniki makes archaeological research difficult. We do know that Thessalonica was the home of many cults dedicated to a number of different deities, such as Isis, an Egyptian goddess and giver of immortality, or Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and fertility.19 Among the deities that arguably would have caused the most trouble for the new Christians in Thessalonica were the Roman emperors themselves. When Augustus became emperor of Rome, he had his adopted father, Julius Caesar, declared divine. As Caesar’s son, Augustus was called the son of a god. Thessalonica traditionally was loyal to Rome, and the city seems to have embraced worship of both deceased and living emperors. Coins from Thessalonica bear the image of Caesar and the word “God” (Greek theos). During Augustus’s reign a temple was built in Thessalonica for the worship of the emperor. An inscription from the time refers to the appointment of a priest of “Emperor Caesar Augustus son of god.”

  Figure 4. Divus (Divine) Julius Caesar with ΘEOC inscription (obverse) and Octavian with ΘECCAΛO-NIKEΩN (reverse). Struck circa 28/27 BC in Thessalonica, Macedon.[Lot 23296 / Numisbids.com]

  Figure 5. Divus Julius Caesar with ΘEOC inscription (obverse). Struck circa AD 14 in Thessalonica, Macedon. [Lot 208 / Numisbids.com]

  Figure 6. Divus Julius Caesar with ΘEOC inscription (obverse). Likely struck in Thessalonica, Macedon, between 27 BC and AD 14. [CNG 108, Lot: 449 / CNGcoins.com]

  Paul heightens the difference between Jewish monotheism and pagan worship by contrasting idols with the living and true God. In biblical and postbiblical traditions, the phrase “the living God” is used to express God’s superiority to pagan deities, which are by implication dead or false gods. In Dan 14:5, King Cyrus asks Daniel why he refuses to worship Bel. Daniel responds, “Because I do not revere idols made with hands, but only the living God who made heaven and earth and has dominion over all flesh.”20 The phrase “the living God” also frequently connotes God’s power to punish those who oppose Israel. For instance, before crossing into the promised land Joshua tells the Israelites, “By this you will know that there is a living God among you: he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites” (Josh 3:10 [my translation]).21 The mention of coming wrath hints at something similar here. Paul warns that at an unknown time a day of judgment will arrive (1 Thess 5:1–5), calling to account all evildoers.

  Paul’s description of the one he calls God’s Son in verse 10 shows that he had taught the Thessalonians that Jesus, a flesh-and-blood human being who had recently been killed in Judea, was God’s Son (1:5–6; 2:14–15; 5:9–10). God raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus now resides in heaven with God, where he acts jointly with God the Father on behalf of the Church (1:1; 3:11). The Thessalonians accepted this message, turned from idolatry, and now have the privilege of serving God while they await the return of Jesus from heaven. By reminding the Thessalonians of their shared belief, Paul prepares them for his further instruction on the fate of those who die before the Lord’s return (4:13–18).

  Reflection and Application (1:9–10)

  It is difficult for many of us to know how to feel about Paul’s insistence that God’s “wrath” is coming. Paul mentions it almost in passing here, but he picks up and develops this theme repeatedly in the letters to the Thessalonians. How could a good God be the source of wrathful judgment? How is it possible to worship such a God? One way of thinking about this question is to imagine its opposite. What would it mean if God never brought judgment? What if God’s final response to all human behavior was a shrug of the shoulders—or, worse, an affirmation that all the evil we have inflicted on one another is just fine? It is curious that we have become uncomfortable with divine wrath in an age in which humans have unleashed evils on one another unlike any the world had seen before. C. S. Lewis gets to the heart of the matter:

  When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some “disinterested,” because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. . . . Not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.22

  If there is no divine wrath, it is hard to see how there could be divine love. The scandal of God’s wrath is inherent to the gospel itself.

  1. The scribe could have been a fourth, unnamed person. See, e.g., Rom 16:22, where the previously unnamed scribe Tertius greets the Romans. Some have suggested that Silvanus himself was the scribe, noting that 1 Pet 5:12 names a Silvanus as the one through whom that letter was written.

  2. Rom 16:21–23; 1 Cor 1:1; 16:19–21; Phil 1:1; 4:21–22; Col 1:1; 4:7–14.

  3. Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 115.

  4. See, e.g., the letter of the Jerusalem church in Acts 15: “The apostles and the presbyters, your brothers, to the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia of Gentile origin: greetings [chairein]” (v. 23).

  5. Homiliae in epistulam i ad Thessalonicenses (PG 62:393 [my translation]).

  6. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, IBC (Louisville: John Knox, 1998), 14.

  7. Homiliae (PG 62:394 [my translation]).

  8. BDAG.

  9. In 2:17 the NABRE translates the verb aporphanizō as “we were bereft” rather than “we were orphaned.” There is an important †textual variant in 2:7. Paul may have described himself as “gentle” rather than as an infant. See the commentary on that verse for a discussion of the variant and of the surprising image of Paul as an infant.

  10. Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 30.

  11. Charles Cardinal Journet, The Meaning of Grace, trans. A. V. Littledale (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1962), 58–59.

  12. The words “much conviction” might refer to the Thessalonians’ conviction. See Abraham J. Malherbe’s argument to the contrary in The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 32B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 112–13.

  13. Interpretatio in xiv epistulas sancti Pauli (PG 82:629 [my translation]).

  14. On “imitation,” see also 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; Gal 4:12; Eph 5:1; Phil 3:17.

  15. Homiliae (PG 62:395 [my translation]).

  16. When a bank extends someone credit—from credo, the Latin word that frequently translates pisteuō in the Vulgate—it does so because it has reason to trust that person to pay it back.

  17. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” in Emerson’s Essays on Manners, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Nature, Friendship (New York: Longmans, 1915), 54.

  18. Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” 31. For an illuminating discussion of how the sentiments expressed by Emerson and other Romantics have become ubiquitous in the last fifty years, see Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 473–504.

  19. Karl P. Donfried, “The Cults of Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,” NTS 31 (1985): 336–56.

  20. See also 1 Sam 17:26, 36.

  21. See also Deut 5:26; 2 Kings 19:4 // Isa 37:4.

  22. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr., New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 39–40.

  Paul’s Behavior in Thessalonica

  1 Thessalonians 2:1–8

  In this section Paul continues to retell the story of his relationship with the Thessalonians.1 In these verses and on into 2:9–12, Paul has much to say about what he, Silvanus, and Timothy were not like in Thessalonica, denying that they were greedy, deceptive, pushy, or sycophantic, among other things. Paul insists that he and his companions treated the Thessalonians like family. Scholars have not come to a consensus regarding why Paul spends so much time explaining what he did and did not do. There are two main explanations on the table. The first, which was dominant in modern scholarship until about thirty years ago, argues that Paul is defending himself against some unnamed detractor, an opponent from within the church or outside it.2 The second view, which owes much to the work of Abraham Malherbe, reads 2:1–12 as †paraenesis, reminding the Thessalonians of how the apostles behaved and exhorting them to follow the apostolic example.3 Which interpretation has the better argument? Though it certainly is possible that there were rumors around the city of Thessalonica that Paul was a charlatan, there are good reasons to doubt that Paul’s principal concern is to defend himself against attacks. This passage is quite similar to other first-century descriptions of how a good teacher should behave (see sidebar, “Dio Chrysostom,” p. 53), and the rest of the letter gives no indication that Paul is on the defensive. On the contrary, Timothy reported that the Thessalonians continued to hold the apostles in high regard (3:6). Perhaps the strongest evidence that this section should be read as moral exhortation is the fact that most of the behaviors described in 2:1–12 resurface later in the letter when Paul discusses the areas in which the Thessalonians need to improve. He highlights the apostles’ courage despite persecution (2:1–2), their attempt to please God and be found blameless (2:4, 6, 10), their avoidance of “impurity” (see 2:3), their hard work to avoid being a burden on others (2:9; see also 2:5), and their love for the Thessalonians (2:8) and gentle admonishment of them (2:7–8, 11–12). All of these issues come up again in the letter—often using the very same words—but in reference to the Thessalonians’ own moral progress.4 When reading 2:1–8 as well as 2:9–12, therefore, one ought not imagine Paul feeling hurt and defensive (see 2 Cor 11 for a good example of that). Instead, it is best to read this passage like the rest of the letter—that is, as an attempt to build up the Thessalonians’ faith by strengthening his relationship with them and by giving them an example to imitate.