Summary: Bible - Book of 1 Thessalonians

The GIST

1 Thessalonians, a letter in the New Testament of the Bible, is attributed to Paul the Apostle and addressed to the church in Thessalonica, a city on the Thermaic Gulf in what is now Greece, then part of the Roman Empire. Paul had visited the city, preached there and won converts, and this letter is what he sent back to them. Most scholars date it to around 49 to 51 AD, during his stay in Corinth, which makes it one of the first books of the New Testament to be written and, by wide agreement, the earliest Christian text that survives.

That alone would make it worth reading, but its charm is its tone. This is a letter of encouragement more than of argument. Across five short chapters Paul thanks a young community for its faith and love, recalls how he behaved among them, tells of his relief at good news brought by Timothy, and then gives practical guidance on how to live, how to grieve, and how to wait for the return of Christ. It is a window onto a church only months old and onto the affection of the man who founded it.

What It Says

Chapter 1: Thanks for a faith that made noise

The letter opens in the names of three men: Paul, Silvanus and Timotheus. Paul begins with gratitude. He remembers the Thessalonians constantly in prayer, and he names three things about them in a phrase that has become famous: "your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope."

He recalls how the message first reached them. It came, he says, "not unto you in word only, but also in power." They received it in the middle of much affliction and yet with joy, and the result was that they became examples to believers throughout Macedonia and Achaia. News of their faith had travelled so far that Paul hardly needed to tell anyone about it. People everywhere were already telling the story of how the Thessalonians "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God," and how they now wait for his Son from heaven, Jesus, whom God raised from the dead.

Chapter 2: How Paul lived among them

Paul then turns to his own conduct, and the chapter reads like a man reminding friends of what they saw with their own eyes. He had come to them after being shamefully treated at Philippi, and still he spoke boldly. His appeal, he insists, did not come from deceit or impure motives. He did not flatter, and he did not use his work as a cover for greed. He sought no glory from them or from anyone else, though as an apostle of Christ he might have been a burden to them.

Instead he offers two family pictures. First a mother: "we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children." Then a father, who exhorted, comforted and charged each one of them to live in a way worthy of God. Between the two images comes a striking statement of affection. Paul and his companions were willing to share with them "not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us." He reminds them that he worked night and day so as not to be a charge on any of them while he preached.

He gives thanks again that they received his preaching "not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God." They have since suffered at the hands of their own countrymen, just as the churches in Judaea suffered, and Paul speaks in sharp words of those who opposed him and tried to stop him speaking to the Gentiles.

The chapter closes with longing. He was separated from them, he says, in presence but not in heart. He tried to return more than once, "but Satan hindered us." And he tells them what they mean to him: "For ye are our glory and joy."

Chapter 3: Timothy's report

Unable to bear the silence any longer, Paul chose to be left alone at Athens and sent Timothy to strengthen and comfort the church. He had warned them beforehand that trouble would come, and it did. His fear was that the tempter might have shaken them and that all the labour might prove to have been in vain.

Then Timothy came back with good tidings of their faith and their love, and with word that they remembered Paul warmly and longed to see him as much as he longed to see them. The relief pours out in one of the letter's most heartfelt lines: "For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." He asks what thanks he could possibly give God for the joy they bring him, and says he prays night and day to see them face to face and to supply what is still lacking in their faith.

The chapter ends in prayer. May God direct his way to them. May the Lord make them "increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men," and establish their hearts in holiness at the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Chapter 4: Holiness, quiet work, and those who have died

Now the guidance begins. Paul urges them to keep living in the way he taught them, and to do so more and more. He names God's will plainly: "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification." That means abstaining from sexual immorality, each person exercising self-control in holiness and honour, and no one wronging or defrauding a brother. God's call, he says, is to holiness, and whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting God, who has given his Holy Spirit.

On brotherly love he says they hardly need a letter, because they have been taught by God to love one another, and already do so throughout Macedonia. Still, he asks for more. And he adds a piece of down-to-earth advice: "study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands." The aim is that they behave honourably toward outsiders and lack nothing.

Then Paul comes to the question that seems to have weighed on the church: what about believers who have died? He does not want them to be uninformed, so that they will not grieve "even as others which have no hope." His reasoning starts from the heart of their faith. If Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

Paul lays out the order of events as a word from the Lord. Those who are alive at the Lord's coming will have no advantage over those who have died. The Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, "and the dead in Christ shall rise first." Then the living will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord." The purpose of the teaching is pastoral, and the chapter's last verse says so: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Chapter 5: Children of the day

As for when all this will happen, Paul says they need no instruction. They already know "that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." When people are saying "Peace and safety," sudden destruction will come, like labour pains upon a woman with child.

But believers are not in the dark, to be surprised by that day. "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day." So they should stay awake and sober, dressed for the daytime in armour: "the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation." God has not destined them for wrath but for salvation through Jesus Christ, who died so that, awake or asleep, they might live together with him. Again the conclusion is mutual care: encourage one another and build each other up, as they are already doing.

The letter then gathers speed into a string of brief instructions. Respect those who labour among them and lead them in the Lord. Be at peace. Warn the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, and be patient with everyone. Never repay evil with evil. Then come some of the shortest and best-known verses in the New Testament: "Rejoice evermore." "Pray without ceasing." Give thanks in everything. "Quench not the Spirit." Do not despise prophecies. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

Paul ends with a blessing, praying that the God of peace will sanctify them wholly, and with a promise: "Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." He asks for their prayers, sends a holy kiss to all, and gives a solemn charge that the letter be read to all the brethren. The last words are a wish of grace.

Why It Matters

1 Thessalonians is one of the Pauline epistles, and its place at the very start of Christian writing gives it special weight. A majority of modern New Testament scholars date it to Paul's eighteen-month stay in Corinth, during his second missionary journey, only months after he left Thessalonica. Some early manuscripts carry a note saying he wrote it from Athens after Timothy returned from Macedonia. The original is lost, and the oldest surviving copies include Papyrus 46, from around AD 200, and the great codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus.

Most scholars accept the letter as truly Paul's, because its style and content match his other accepted letters and because 2 Thessalonians affirms it. A number of scholars in the mid-nineteenth century contested that, and two passages are still discussed. The harsh words in chapter 2, verses 13 to 16, were once proposed to be a later insertion, though the consensus since the late twentieth century is that they are Paul's own. Some also suggest that the opening of chapter 5 was added later as a correction to the expectation of an imminent return in chapter 4.

Scholars also notice what the letter leaves out. It does not dwell on justification by faith or on relations between Jews and Gentiles, themes that appear in Paul's other letters, and some take this as a sign that it was written before Galatians. There is debate, too, about who the converts were. Acts describes Paul preaching in a synagogue, yet the letter itself says they had turned from idols, which suggests that they were not Jewish before he arrived.

Finally, the passage on the dead and the living has shaped Christian hope about the Second Coming. As scholars read it, Paul wrote expecting to be among the living when Christ returned, and later in life came to consider that he might die first.

Who Should Read It

Read 1 Thessalonians if you want to hear the earliest surviving Christian voice speaking to real people it loved. It is ideal for anyone new to Paul, since it is short, personal and free of heavy argument. Those who are grieving will find its words on hope written for exactly that purpose, and anyone curious about how the first churches lived, worked and waited will find a vivid picture in a letter that can be read in fifteen minutes.