Ii. Prayer Of Thanksgiving (1:2-4) 39
i Paul, Silasa and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace to you.b
1 Every age has had its conventions in letter writing. In our own day we begin by saluting our addressee as "Dear," and conclude with the assurance that we are "Yours faithfully" or "Yours sincerely" or the like. In the first century there was some latitude, but a letter always began with the name of the writer, followed by that of the addressee, and a greeting. Frequently there was then some pious expression, such as a thanksgiving or a prayer that the gods would keep the addressee in health.
It is important to notice that the first words of 1 Thessalonians are in the form usual at the beginning of a letter of this period. I What follows is not a theological treatise, but a real letter arising out of the situation in which Paul and his friends find themselves. Paul retains the conventional form, but he adapts it both to the wider context of the Christian religion and to the narrower one of the particular situation in which he is writing. The opening of this letter is the simplest Pauline form, but in it we have all the elements that we see expanded in the openings of the other epistles.
Paul begins by associating Silvanus and Timothy with himself. Silvanus was Paul's chief assistant on his second missionary journey. When Paul and Barnabas quarreled over Barnabas's suggestion that John Mark should accompany them on a second visit to the churches they had founded, they separated. Paul chose Silvanus (or Silas, as Luke calls him; despite NIV Paul always calls this man Silvanus) as his helper. This man came under notice previously as one of the two who took the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts 15:22, 27). He is called one of the "leaders among the brothers" (Acts 15:22) as well as a prophet (Acts 15:32). He seems to have worked harmoniously with Paul throughout the missionary journey, and Paul later recalled his faithful preaching (2 Cor. 1:19). Among other places, he had, of course, preached at Thessalonica, and this accounts for his association with Paul in the greeting to the church that had come into being as a result of the mission there. After the second missionary journey Silvanus may be mentioned once more, namely, as Peter's amanuensis in the writing of 1 Peter (1 Pet. 5:12; it is not certain that this is the same Silvanus).
Timothy was the son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother. He was not circumcised in infancy (the rite had not been carried out when Paul wanted to take Timothy with him, Acts 16:1-3), but this does not mean that his spiritual education had been neglected. Both his grandmother and his mother were devout (2 Tim. 1:5), and he had been instructed in the Scriptures from his childhood (2 Tim. 3:14-15). He seems to have been somewhat timid in disposition, but Paul thought highly of him. Paul took him on missionary journeys, sent him on missions (Acts 19:22; 1 Cor. 4:17; Phil. 2:19), and included him in the salutations of letters (2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and even the little letter to Philemon). In the account of the preaching at Thessalonica given in Acts 17 Timothy is not mentioned, but since we hear of him earlier and later in the same journey, and since he is joined in the greeting here and in 2 Thessalonians, we may safely assume that he was one of those who brought the gospel to Thessalonica.
There is some difference of opinion as to how far Silvanus and Timothy were concerned in the actual composition of the letter. In a comparable case, Philippians, Paul associates Timothy with him in the greeting, but by verse 3 he is using the first person singular. Though he sometimes returns to "we," for the most part it is clear that the letter came from Paul, his mention of Timothy being largely a matter of courtesy. When we find that "we" is used almost throughout Thessalonians we may well feel that Silvanus and Timothy had a somewhat larger share in the letter than did Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians.2 Yet Paul can use the plural (and even add "alone" in the plural; so the Greek) where clearly he is referring to himself (1 Thess. 3:1). This, taken with the practical difficulty of seeing how three people could combine to write such homogeneous letters as those before us and the fact that the style is that of Paul's other letters, leads to the conclusion that Paul's is the hand behind these writings also. We need not doubt that he consulted the others, nor that they endorsed what he wrote. The steady use of "we" may be meant to associate the others more closely than was usually the case with Paul's collaborators. But Paul was chiefly responsible for the form the letter took.
Paul usually calls himself an "apostle" in the opening of his letters (not in Philippians), but to the Thessalonians he is just "Paul." There is no need to protest his position to these good friends. This letter (like 2 Thessalonians) is addressed to "the church of the Thessalonians," a form of address not used elsewhere. It is difficult to understand why this one church should be addressed differently from all the others.3 Perhaps in this early letter Paul has not yet settled into a regular style of addressing churches. Whatever the reason, this wording directs attention to the group of believers comprising the local church, whereas such a salutation as "to the church of God in Corinth" (1 Cor. 1:2) brings to our minds rather the great universal church as it is manifested in a particular place.4 For "church" see further on 2:14.
The following words, "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," are almost certainly to be taken with "the church,"5 and they bring us the characteristic of a Christian church. Christians are not simply people who have heard about God and trust him. They live "in" him day by day. All their deeds are done in him. Notice the close link between God and Christ: they are mentioned together, one "in" links them, and the church is related to both. It is Paul's usual habit to speak of being "in Christ," though "in God" does occur (Col. 3:3; cf. Eph. 3:9).6 But throughout these two epistles he constantly associates the Father and the Son in the closest of fashions (cf. v. 3; 3:11-13; 5:18; 2 Thess. 1:1, 2, 8, 12; 2:16-17; 3:5; and see the note on 1 Thess. 3:11). No higher view could possibly be taken of the Person of Christ. God is occasionally called "Father" in the Old Testament, but Jesus taught his followers to see God as Father and it is a characteristic designation among the Christians.
"Jesus" is the human name. Wherever it is used by itself it draws attention to the humanity of our Lord. The word is derived from the Latin, which in turn is from the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew "Joshua," an abbreviation for "Jehoshua," meaning "Yahweh is salvation" (cf. Matt. 1:21). "Christ" is from the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word "Messiah" or "anointed one," and though it had become something of a proper name it yet retained its messianic associations. Jesus is the chosen One in whom God is pleased to fulfill his purposes planned from of old. The combination of the three terms into one impressive title8 gives us compactly a view of a Person who alone can be ranked with God.
The greeting is "Grace and peace to you." This is apparently a new form originated by Paul. It is not found before him, and is found in all his letters. "Grace" is from the same root as the salutation commonly employed in Greek letters: it is possible that Paul is taking over and adapting the usual salutation. "Peace" is the usual Hebrew greeting, so that this opening appears to be a combination of the Hebrew and Greek forms. Some interpreters hold that it derives from a form some Jews used in beginning letters, "mercy and peace." This may be so, but it is not easy to derive "grace" from "mercy."
But the change in the Greek form, though slight in sound,9 is great in sense; it is a big step from "greeting" to "grace." Grace fundamentally means "that which causes joy,"10 a shade of meaning we may still discern when we speak of a "graceful" action or of "the social graces." It comes to mean "favor," "kindness," and then especially God's kindness in providing for the spiritual needs of sinners. It comes to signify what is due to grace, namely, God's good gifts to us, especially the power to live as Christians, and finally the attitude of thankfulness that all this should awaken within the Christian. When it is used in greetings the free gift of God is meant, but the word necessarily evokes memories of the free gift on Calvary.
Among the Greeks "peace" was a negative concept (as it often is with us): it meant the absence of war. But for the Hebrews the term was positive. When a Hebrew said, "Peace be to you," he did not mean, "I hope you won't get into a fight," but rather, "I pray that you may prosper." The Hebrew shalom meant prosperity in the widest sense. The root is concerned with "wholeness." The person who enjoys peace is thus the one whose life is well rounded. Peace was seen as a gift of God; there is a definitely spiritual aspect to the completeness it denotes. I I The word order is significant. NIV reads "grace and peace to you," but Paul actually says "grace to you and peace" (as he almost always does in letters to churches). This is all the more striking in view of the common use of "Peace to you" as a greeting. But for Paul grace is primary; it is only because of grace that we have real peace.