1. We should not award 1 Thessalonians the honor of being the first Christian letter. At the least, the short letter of James as president of the Jerusalem Council preceded it by many months (Acts 15:23–29). His letter followed a pattern that would characterize later letters: a written document that was carried by envoys who could also propound and apply its message (see Acts 15:25–27, 30–35; 16:4–5). Beyond that, Paul already had perhaps fifteen years of experience behind him when he arrived in Macedonia, and may have written other letters; see too Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 32B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 13. Malherbe even speculates that Paul wrote a letter, now lost, to the Thessalonians and says that it is probable that they had written back, all before Paul penned 1 Thessalonians. See Abraham J. Malherbe, “Did the Thessalonians Write to Paul?” in The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn (ed. Robert T. Fortna and Beverly R. Gaventa; Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 255.
2. S. T. Carroll, “Tacitus,” ABD, 6:306.
3. There exists no direct proof for a first-century synagogue in the excavations or inscriptions of Thessalonica. The earliest reference to any synagogue there dates from the fourth century AD at the earliest, and it is not Jewish but Samaritan. So Helmut Koester, “Archäologie und Paulus im Thessalonike,” in Frühchristliches Thessaloniki (ed. Cilliers Breytenbach and Ingrid Behrmann; Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 1–9; also H. L. Hendrix, “Thessalonica,” ABD, 6:527. Despite this lack of evidence, the best conclusion is that there was a synagogue of indeterminate size in Thessalonica and that it had been there since the late second or early first century BC. See Christoph vom Brocke, Thessaloniki—Stadt des Kassander und Gemeinde des Paulus (WUNT 2: 125; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 217–33.
4. Taken from Paul’s contemporary, Philo, Decalogue 65 (trans. Jonge).
5. See comments on 1 Thess 4:1–12. We do not know if it is coincidental that Paul’s writings about homosexuality occur in two passages: in a letter sent from Corinth (Rom 1:18–32) and a letter sent to Corinth (1 Cor 6:9–10).
6. See the fine article by G. W. Peterman, “Marriage and Sexual Fidelity in the Papyri, Plutarch and Paul,” TynBul 50.2 (1999): 163–72.
7. Karl Paul Donfried, “The Cults of Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,” NTS 31 (1985): 336–56. Also Robert Jewett, The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety (FF; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 127–32. Jewett draws out some rather fantastic conclusions based on a small amount of evidence, for example, that the Cabiri cult has strong parallels with Paul’s gospel and therefore paved the way for its positive reception. Vom Brocke, Thessaloniki, 117–21, replies that the more this cult is studied, the more tenuous our understanding of it appears. Another recent work, which shows the influence of Rome in Thessalonica, is by Christopher Steimle, Religion im römishen Thessaloniki: Sakraltopographie, Kult und Gesellschaft 168 v. Chr.–324 n. Chr. (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); an older article by Charles Edson is still of some value, “Cults of Thessalonica (Macedonia III),” HTR 41.3 (1948): 153–204.
8. Helmut Koester, “Archäologie und Paulus im Thessalonike,” 2.
9. The author of Acts may imply that he was with them in Troas and crossed with them to Philippi, but then did not meet up with the team until some years later. This is the most logical reading of the so-called “we-passages,” which begin in Acts 16:10–17. Then the use of “we” ceases, to begin anew in 20:5.
10. See on this Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 60–61; Gordon Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 6.
11. For information about the “politarchs” or city authorities in Thessalonica and elsewhere in Macedonia, consult the full article by G. H. R. Horsley, “Politarchs,” ABD, 5:384–89. They formed a group of around five members in larger cities.
12. Concerning Jason’s role in all this, see F. M. Gillman, “Jason,”ABD, 3:649. Many Jews in the Diaspora used “Jason” as a Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua, implying that Jason may have been one of the Jewish converts mentioned in Acts 17:4.
13. F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians (WBC 45; Waco, TX: Word, 1982), xxvi.
14. The whereabouts of Silas during this period are vague. Allan Wainwright proposes that he had to return to Galatia in order to clarify certain points about the Jerusalem decree. His hypothesis must remain just that. See “Where Did Silas Go? (And What Was His Connection with Galatians?),” JSNT 8 (1980): 66–70.
15. So Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 130–31.
16. So Paul assumes in 1 Thess 4:11; it is implicit in 1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:6–13 as well.
17. Richard Ascough tries to reconstruct a situation in Thessalonica, in which Paul evangelized and met together with other leatherworkers. That is, the church arose out of an association of artisans. This might explain why Paul speaks so frequently about manual labor. Ascough must make many leaps of logic in order to arrive at his conclusions. See Richard S. Ascough, Paul’s Macedonian Associations (WUNT, Series 2, 161; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 165–76.
18. Larry W. Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship: The Context and Character of Earliest Christian Devotion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 40.
19. See the full study by Trevor J. Burke, Family Matters: A Socio-Historical Study of Kinship Metaphors in 1 Thessalonians (JSNTSup 247; London: T&T Clark, 2003). He quotes a third-century AD complaint by Minucius Felix (174) that Christians “indiscriminately call each other brothers and sisters.”
20. People of the lower classes, from artisans downward, were thought incapable of appreciating philosophy. “Plying a trade was denigrated as it left no time for building friendships or developing one’s virtue. Thus, artisans were considered incapable of attaining virtue or they were viewed as uneducated” (Ascough, Paul’s Macedonian Associations, 172).
21. Hence a Christian woman would have discarded the principle that was later written down in Plutarch: “A wife ought not to make friends of her own, but to enjoy her husband’s friends in common with him. The gods are the first and most important friends. Wherefore it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods that her husband believes in” (Plutarch, Mor 140D; trans. Babbitt [LCL]).
22. About a century after 1 Thessalonians, Justin Martyr would write: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things” (1 Apol. 67, ANF 1:186, emphasis added).
23. See J. F. Watson, “Secundus,” ABD, 5:1065. Watson says he was a Gentile, but offers no proof.
24. Vom Brocke, Thessaloniki, 232–33.
25. Walter Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics (trans. John E. Steely; Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 123–218.
26. Earl J. Richard, First and Second Thessalonians (SP; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1995), 11. He divides 1 Thessalonians into an “Earlier Missive” (2:13–4:2, excluding 2:14–16), a “Later Missive” (1:1–2:12 + 4:3–5:28), and a non-Pauline interpolation (2:14–16).
27. Birger A. Pearson, “1 Thessalonians 2:13–16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation,” HTR 64 (1971): 79–94.
28. Ibid., 82–83. The main recent commentator to reject the authenticity of 2:14–16 is Richard, First and Second Thessalonians, 17–19. He points to supposedly non-Pauline vocabulary and ideas, stating for example (17) that “imitation” in 2:14 “is not used properly.” His comments have the unintended result of revealing how difficult it is to excise this passage from the letter.
29. Jon A. Weatherly, “The Authenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2.13–16: Additional Evidence,” JSNT 42 (1991): 79–98.
30. As also Ben Witherington III, 1 and 2 Thessalonians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 82–83; Karl P. Donfried, Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 200.
31. The interpolation theory can point to no external evidence. All manuscripts of 1 Thessalonians include these verses. The only textual variant worth noting is that some manuscripts of the Vulgate omit the very end of 2:16, that God’s “wrath has come upon them unto the end.”
32. We will not enter into all the many details of the debate, but direct the reader to Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 364–70; D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 536–42.
33. Wolfgang Trilling, Untersuchungen zum zweite Thessalonicherbrief (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1972).
34. The reader should consult the standard introductions; also Robert Jewett, A Chronology of Paul’s Life (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 38–40; Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 71–74; and especially Rainer Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology (trans. Doug Stott; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 157–211.
35. Gerd Lüdemann, Paul Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology (trans. F. Stanley Jones; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 238.
36. Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 37–45.
37. See especially Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 361–64.
38. George R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Future: An Examination of the Criticism of the Eschatological Discourse, Mark 13, with Special Reference to the Little Apocalypse Theory (London: Macmillan, 1954), 232–34. His observations should be compared with the detailed chart by Béda Rigaux, Saint Paul: Les épîtres aux Thessaloniciens (EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1956), 98–101. There is an inherent flaw in Beasley-Murray’s approach, namely, that he favored Markan parallels over the parallels that are found in Matthew or Luke, even when the other gospels seem to be closer to Paul. He has to conclude that the Pauline eschatological material comes from Mark “helped out by Q” (234).
39. Our viewpoint is not dependent on any date for the final publication of Matthew’s gospel. One supporter for the Matthean view is J. B. Orchard, “Thessalonians and the Synoptic Gospels,” Bib 19 (1938): 19–42, esp. 37–38.
40. Other Matthean passages that may have influenced Paul’s theology in these letters are Matt 10:23; 13:20–21.
41. Schmithals, Paul & the Gnostics, 163–64.
42. See C. L. Mearns, “Early Eschatological Development in Paul: The Evidence of 1 Corinthians,” JSNT 22 (1984): 20. See the brief discussion by Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 164–65. Mearns’s revisionist interpretation runs counter to another theory, that Paul’s viewpoint evolved from an eschatological resurrection toward a mystical one. For further information see Ben F. Meyer, “Did Paul’s View of the Resurrection Undergo Development?” TS 47 (1986): 363–87.
43. W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (4th ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 291.
44. Joseph Plevnik, “The Taking Up of the Faithful and the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18,” CBQ 60 (1984): 274–83; later, “The Destination of the Apostle and the Faithful: Second Corinthians 4:13b–14 and First Thessalonians 4:14,” CBQ 62 (2000): 83–95; Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 166.
45. See I. Howard Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 120–22; Gene L. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 213–15; Seyoon Kim, “The Jesus Tradition in 1 Thess 4.13–5.11,” NTS 48 (2002): 225–42.
46. Some say that with the destruction of Jerusalem and with the failure of the parousia to materialize, the church reached for Jewish apocalyptic symbols in order to make sense of the intervening period, and that the (pseudepigraphical?) epistle of 2 Thessalonians dates from that period. L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte, “The ΚΑΤÉXON/ΚΑΤÉΧΩΝ of 2 Thess 2:6–7,” NovT 39/2 (1997): 138–50, states that a pseudepigraphic author of this letter gestures toward some unknown “restrainer” without identifying him, because—according to Peerbolte—the author himself does not know who the restrainer could be.
47. See Robert L. Thomas, “Imminence in the NT, Especially Paul’s Thessalonian Epistles,” MSJ 13/2 (2002): 191–214. Like Thomas, some use the term “imminent” to mean “it could happen at any moment, without intervening signs, but that could mean immediately or in a thousand years.” Nevertheless, this definition of “imminent” is not the accepted meaning of the English word, which is “impending threateningly, hanging over one’s head, ready to befall or overtake one; close at hand in its incidence; coming on shortly” (OED). One cannot legitimately use the English word to mean “it will not necessarily come soon, but could happen any moment and must be without intervening events.”
48. Paul nowhere links the “work stoppage” in 2 Thess 3:6–15 with eschatology. When we study this relevant passage, we will attempt to demonstrate that the problem of work had nothing to do with any eschatological misperception.
49. There is a superb comparison between the eschatology of Jesus and of Paul by Ben Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
50. The reader should consult the useful volume: Richard R. Reiter, ed., Three Views on the Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-tribulation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984). D. Edmond Hiebert, The Thessalonian Epistles: A Call to Readiness (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), 200–203, promotes the pretribulational viewpoint. We leave to one side the question of whether anyone prior to the nineteenth century ever taught a pretribulational rapture. As far as I can see, if anyone taught the doctrine, they left no impact in the historical record. I am taking into account the reference that is falsely attributed to Ephraem of Syria and is thought by some to teach a pretribulational rapture.