Ii. Occasion And Purpose Of 1 Thessalonians 6
In response to the vision of the man from Macedonia Paul turned his back on Asia Minor and became the first known Christian missionary to preach in Europe. It is probable that this step did not seem so momentous to him as it does to us, for he simply passed from one province of the Roman Empire to another. But it set the course of Christianity westward. In time Europe would become Christian.
Associated with Paul were Silas, Timothy, and Luke. There may have been others, but if so, we have no knowledge of them. The little band followed Paul's usual practice of seeking out strategic centers from which the new faith might radiate out to the surrounding districts. They preached with success in Philippi, a Roman colony, and the most important town in the district adjacent to their landfall. The mission there concluded with something very similar to a riot (Acts 16:22). The preachers were scourged and imprisoned. Their jailor was dramatically converted after an earthquake in the middle of the night. In the morning Paul and Silas as Roman citizens refused to accept summary release, and the incident ends with the lordly praetors bringing the humble preachers out of their prison and requesting them to leave the city.
The preachers' then made for Thessalonica. They passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia (Acts 17:1), but there is no record of preaching in either center. It is clear that Paul was seized with the importance of Thessalonica and wished to establish the church there. This was the largest and most important city in Macedonia and the capital of the province. Its situation halfway between the Adriatic and the Hellespont and at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, coupled with its fine harbor, made it the natural outlet for the trade of Macedonia and a center where many roads met. The great Via Egnatia, the Roman highway to the East, passed through it. As Meletius said long ago, "So long as nature does not change, Thessalonica will remain wealthy and fortunate." 2 To this day it is a flourishing center.3
The city had a long history. In early days the hot springs had given the name Therma to the settlement alongside them. In 315 B.C. Cassander named the place Thessalonica, after his wife who was half sister to Alexander the Great. It is possible that he renamed the old city, but it seems more probable that this was a new foundation near to Therma, for Pliny the Elder speaks of the two cities as existing together. But in time Thessalonica became increasingly prosperous and swallowed up the older center. When the Romans conquered Greece they recognized the importance of the city by making it the capital of one of the four parts into which they divided Macedonia. When they later altered the system and made a single province, Thessalonica became the capital of the whole. During the first civil war the city was Pompey's headquarters, but in the second it was wise enough, or fortunate enough, to side with Antony and Octavian. When they emerged victorious Thessalonica was rewarded by being made a free city. Its rulers were called "politarchs," as Luke tells us in Acts 17:6, 8, and as we know from inscriptions. While many Romans were undoubtedly there, the city remained basically Greek. Included among the extraneous elements in the population was a strong Jewish community. The Jews had a synagogue, whereas in Philippi there was only a proseuche, which probably there means an open-air place where worshippers were accustomed to meet for prayer.
Thus Thessalonica had everything we would expect to attract Paul from what we know of his missionary methods .4 It is not at all surprising that he made his way there soon after coming to Macedonia. As was his custom, he began by attending the synagogue and preaching there (Acts 17:2). This he did for "three Sabbath days," which sets before us the problem of the length of his stay. The impression we get from Acts 17 is that it was at the end of this period that the riot took place that ended Paul's activities in Thessalonica. But while he was in the city Paul worked hard with his hands (1 Thess. 2:7-11), which might well indicate a longer period. So also the Philippian church sent gifts to the apostle while he was in Thessalonica (Phil. 4:16). The usual interpretation of this passage is that they sent twice, but it is not probable that they would do this within the period covered by "three Sabbaths." Allowing for some days before the first Sabbath and after the third, this would give us rather less than a month.
Most commentators find a solution to the difficulty in thinking that the three Sabbaths refer to the period of Paul's activities in the synagogue. After that the apostle continued his mission, preaching elsewhere, and he may have been in the city as long as six months.5 This may be so. The chronology of Paul's life is difficult, and there are many points about which we cannot be certain. But it seems that the period may well have been just short of a month, as Acts tells us.6 In the first place, the preaching was in the nature of a short campaign; it was not a prolonged affair.? It is clear from the epistles that, while Paul had given a good deal of teaching, there was much that he had not been able to say. In the second place, Paul may well have had to go to work even if his stay was only about a month. We have no reason for thinking that he was a man of means, and to have a month without income is a luxury that not all can afford. In the third place, it is not at all certain that the Philippian passage means that the friends at Philippi sent help to him twice. The expression may well mean "both [when I was] in Thessalonica and more than once [when I was in other places] you sent ..." (see the commentary on 1 Thess. 2:18). Even if it does mean "twice," it is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that this should take place within a month, though admittedly unlikely. In the fourth place, Acts gives careful information about the circumstances of Paul's preaching in places like Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome. It tells us in each case when he turned from the Jews to the Gentiles. It is not impossible that this was overlooked at Thessalonica, but Luke's method makes this unlikely.
It seems, then, that we cannot say with certainty how long Paul and his companions preached in the city. But it was certainly a short period and may have been as little as about a month. The preaching was strikingly successful. From Acts we learn that it centered on the necessity for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and on the identity of Jesus with this Christ. "Some" Jews were converted, as were "a large number" of "God-fearing" Greeks and "not a few" of the chief women (Acts 17:4).8 The largest group among the converts was thus derived from the Gentiles who had attached themselves loosely to the synagogue. These people were dissatisfied with the moral laxity and the intellectual absurdity of polytheism, and in their search for something better many turned to Judaism. At this time they were to be found attending Jewish synagogues in most places. It was among this group that Christianity everywhere found its most ready adherents. In this new faith they found the satisfying monotheism and the lofty morality that attracted them to Judaism, without the intense nationalism, the legalism, and the ritual requirements that they found so uncongenial. In Thessalonica, as in other places, this group gave the gospel a ready welcome. Nothing is said, either in Acts or the Thessalonian epistles, about the social class of the converts, except that some of the "prominent women" believed (Acts 17:4). But from Paul's stress on manual labor, and from the fact that he does not find it necessary to warn the Thessalonians about the perils of riches, we might fairly deduce that most of them were from the lower classes. Not all were, however, for we may justly reason that someone must have been wealthy enough to own a house big enough for the church to meet in.
In recent times scholars have given attention to the way Paul would have evangelized the Gentiles, and this is relevant, for "you turned to God from idols" (1 Thess. 1:9) is not a description of converts from the synagogue. Abraham J. Malherbe points out that this may well have been done in working among households. He draws attention to the insula, "a type of apartment house that served the vast majority of people in the large cities of the Roman Empire." He goes on, "A typical insula would contain a row of shops on the ground floor, facing the street, and provide living accommodations for the owners and their families over the shop or in the rear. Also on the premises would be space for the manufacturing of goods sold in the shops and living quarters for visitors, employees, and servants or slaves." Such a household provided Paul "with a relatively secluded setting and a ready-made audience as well as a network along which his influence could spread."9 In some such way Paul extended his influence far beyond the synagogue and made converts from among the Gentile population.
The members of the synagogue reacted to the success of the Christian mission with violence. They gathered "some bad characters from the marketplace" (Acts 17:5) and stirred up a riot. They attacked the house of a certain Jason, expecting to find the preachers there. When they were unsuccessful they dragged Jason and some of the believers before the politarchs. They accused Jason of harboring "these men who have caused trouble all over the world" (Acts 17:6), and went on to complain that they affirmed Jesus to be king. This was the kind of accusation that might well proceed from the Jews with their understanding of the royal functions of the Messiah. It may also reflect some of the second-advent preaching of the apostles. It was a very damaging accusation to be made in a free city, for the countenancing of treason might lead to the loss of all its privileges. That there was no substance in the allegations was plain, for the politarchs simply took security of Jason and others and released them.' The believers promptly sent Paul and Silas away to the next large town, Berea.
It is not easy to make out just what was implied in the taking security" of these men. It is usually held that Jason was no longer to shelter Paul and his company, but Acts does not say this. The big difficulty in the way of this view is that it is plain that Paul anticipated that he would return (1 Thess. 2:17-18). Therefore it does not seem possible that Jason had agreed to keep him away. It is more probable that Jason and his friends were bound over in general terms. They were to keep the peace, and in the circumstances of the moment all agreed that Paul and his companions had better leave the city quickly. This explains the sudden departure as well as Paul's expectation that he would return.