1. Background
1. Background
Thessalonica in the first century was the capital of Macedonia and its largest city. The geographical importance of its site may be gauged from the fact that Thessaloniki (until 1937, Salonika1) is still an important city. It is usually said that the name of the city in earlier days was Therma (from its hot springs), and that c. 315 BC it was renamed by Cassander after his wife Thessalonica, half-sister to Alexander the Great. But as the elder Pliny refers to Therma and Thessalonica as existing together,2 it would seem that Cassander founded a new town which in due course extended and swallowed up the more ancient one nearby. Under the Romans it was the capital of the second of the four divisions of Macedonia, and when these were united to form one single province in 146 BC it became the capital, as well as the largest city of the province. Thessalonica was a free city, and inscriptions confirm the accuracy of Luke in calling its rulers ‘politarchs’. It was strategically situated on the Via Egnatia, the great Roman highway to the East.
To this city came Paul in company with Silas and Timothy. The former was Paul’s partner on his second missionary journey, chosen after the great apostle had separated from Barnabas. We first read of him when he and Judas Barsabbas, ‘leaders among the brothers’ and ‘prophets’ (Acts 15:22, 32), were sent to Antioch after the council of Jerusalem to convey to the believers there, both by letter and by word of mouth, the decisions the council had taken. He accompanied Paul on that apostle’s second missionary journey, and Paul makes approving mention of his preaching (2 Cor. 1:19). In later times he was associated with Peter in the writing of 1 Peter (1 Pet. 5:12). It is interesting that Paul and Peter both use the more formal name Silvanus, while Luke calls him Silas (perhaps Latin and Greek forms of a Semitic name, BDF, 125 (2)).
Timothy first comes under notice when Paul met him at Lystra and had him circumcised as a preliminary to his accompanying the apostle for the remainder of his second missionary journey (Acts 16:1–3). He came to be closely associated with Paul, as we see from the joint salutations in 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Philemon. From the general tone of references to him we gather that Timothy was somewhat timid in disposition (cf. 1 Cor. 16:10). But he was high in Paul’s confidence, for Paul sent him on missions (Acts 19:22; 1 Cor. 4:17; Phil. 2:19), and could link his preaching with his own (2 Cor. 1:19). Paul speaks warmly of Timothy’s attitude to those to whom he ministered and to Paul himself (Phil. 2:20–22).
The three men preached at Philippi, but were compelled to leave after the imprisonment of Paul and Silas (Acts 16). They then came to Thessalonica, where Paul followed his usual practice of going to the synagogue. He preached there on three (apparently successive) sabbaths (Acts 17:2), with some success. His converts included some Jews, ‘a large number’ of devout Greeks, and ‘not a few’ chief women (Acts 17:4).3 The chief success of the mission clearly lay among those Greeks who had attached themselves to the synagogue. These people were dissatisfied with the low standards of pagan morality and with the idol worship that fostered them. They were attracted by the monotheism and lofty morality of Judaism, but repelled by its narrow nationalism and ritual requirements. In Christianity they found a faith that satisfied. Some of the converts came of high-class families, but it is probable that most were from the lower classes, for Paul stresses his refusal to be dependent on them in any way (1 Thess. 2:9), and his letters to them contain no warnings about the dangers of riches.
The Jewish community did not take kindly to losing a considerable number of adherents. They reacted with violence and incited the rabble to attack the house of Jason, Paul’s host (Acts 17:5). The mob took Jason before the politarchs, complaining that he had lodged those who ‘have caused trouble all over the world’ (Acts 17:6), and that the preachers had acted contrary to Caesar’s laws in declaring Jesus to be another king (Acts 17:7). This is the first record of such an accusation since Jesus was brought before Pilate. It may be an echo of Paul’s preaching of the second coming, which would agree with what we read in the epistles. The politarchs took security of Jason and some others unnamed, and let them go.
It is not clear to what Jason and the others were bound. T. W. Manson and others think it was ‘not to harbour seditious persons’;4 but this goes beyond what Acts says. K. and S. Lake think of Paul as having in effect ‘jumped his bail’5 when he left the city, but this is pure assumption. Frame is of the opinion that the security had nothing to do with Paul’s absence, since the converts were surprised at his failure to return.6 But the evidence for this surprise does not seem at all adequate, though it should be said that Paul envisaged a return (1 Thess. 2:17–18), which makes it unlikely that Jason undertook that he would stay away. Our best conjecture is that Jason and the other Christians were bound over to keep the peace, and that, in the troubled state of the moment, all were agreed that it would be better for Paul and Silas to leave immediately, at least for a time.
From Thessalonica they proceeded to Berea, where their preaching was successful until Thessalonian Jews followed them and stirred up such opposition that Paul had to leave (Acts 17:13–14). He went to Athens, then Corinth, where Silas and Timothy joined him (Acts 18:5). Timothy had previously come to Paul in Athens and then been sent back to Thessalonica (1 Thess. 3:2). It was on his return from this second visit to the city that he joined Paul at Corinth.
Up to this point Paul had had little to encourage him. In four successive centres there had been discouragement: a promising beginning had been followed by forcible disruption in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea, and he had had little success in Athens. Small wonder that he began his preaching at Corinth ‘in weakness and fear, and with much trembling’ (1 Cor. 2:3). But when the messengers came from Thessalonica they brought such a report of the continuing steadfastness of the converts that Paul saw that the blessing of God had after all rested on his work there. His spirits rose and he gave himself much more energetically to his preaching. This appears to be the meaning of ‘Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ’ (Acts 18:5). Out of this sense of relief and reassurance the apostle wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians.
There are some later contacts with this church. Paul sent Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia (Acts 19:22), and he himself made two visits to the region (Acts 20:1–3). Some of the Thessalonians became his travelling companions, for example Aristarchus (Acts 19:29; 20:4; 27:2), Secundus (Acts 20:4), and perhaps Demas (2 Tim. 4:10; Phlm. 24).