A. Salutation (1:1)
A. SALUTATION (1:1)
Although the Thessalonians themselves would not have been privy to our broader knowledge of Paul as a letter-writer, the most convenient way for us to enter into the significance of this salutation is by comparison with the other letters in the corpus. In such a comparison, two matters stand out: its comparative brevity and the unusual designation of the church as “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” We will look at each element in turn.
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(A) The Writer(s). Even though the practice is extremely rare among the extant Greco-Roman letters, Paul frequently includes his present companions with himself in his salutations.20 But this is the only place where he includes two such companions, and along with 2 Thessalonians it is the only place where there is no further identifying designation beyond the names.21
The Latin name Silvanus, which belongs to the man who is mentioned second, is undoubtedly the Silas who first appears in the narrative of Acts as one of the two men entrusted with the letter from the Jerusalem Council to the Gentile churches in Antioch and beyond (Acts 15:22-32), and who subsequently became Paul’s companion on his second missionary tour (Acts 15:40-18:5).22 He and Paul together had been hustled out of Thessalonica during the fateful night recounted in Acts 17:5-10. According to the Acts account, Silas then stayed on in Berea with Timothy when Paul headed south to Athens, and eventually to Corinth, the city where the three of them were reunited (Acts 18:5), at which point he is not further mentioned by name in Luke’s account.23
At issue in Silas’s case is his role (or non-role) in helping to author these two letters. On the one hand, Paul’s shift in 2:18 to the first person singular as personal identification indicates that the letter is ultimately from him (Paul), or at least that he was the one doing the actual dictation. On the other hand, Paul’s here naming Silas as one of the writers, and his basically consistent use of “we,” unique to the two Thessalonian letters, should probably be interpreted as Silas’s having more of a role in the letter than merely sitting by listening to Paul dictate.24 Indeed, it seems altogether likely that he actually penned the letter at Paul’s dictation.
The story of Timothy’s joining Paul and Silas at the beginning of this missionary tour is told in Acts 16:1-5. He is not mentioned again by name until 17:14; but Paul’s letters to the two Macedonian towns (Philippi and Thessalonica) make it clear that Timothy was with them in both places (as is probably to be implied from Luke’s narrative as well). But what is not certain, because of the specific mention of only Paul and Silas both in the Philippian prison account (Acts 16:16-37) and in the nocturnal getaway from Thessalonica (Acts 17:10), is Timothy’s relationship to these two events. Almost certainly he was not included in the Philippian imprisonment; it is at least possible that he stayed on in Thessalonica for a brief while after Paul and Silas left the city, but that cannot be known.
These various data together thus account both for the lack of designation following their names and for the unusual nature of the plurals (“we, us, our”) throughout. The three of them had been involved in the “ministry” together when in Thessalonica, even though Paul clearly took the lead; and their sending Timothy to find out how things were with the Thessalonians (and probably again as the bearer of this letter) means that the letter truly was from the three of them.25
(B) The Recipients. Although the designation of the addressees in this letter is quite abbreviated when contrasted with later letters, what is said here is full of Pauline theological grist. The fact that they are designated as “the church of the Thessalonians”26 indicates that this usage of the Greek word ekklēsia was by now (ca. CE 48) an already established practice among the early followers of Christ. Its origins in the Greek city-state as a designation for the assembly of citizens gathered to deal with city affairs, as well as a term for “societies” of people who shared common beliefs,27 made it the happy choice of the Greek translators of the Old Testament, where it was regularly used to render the Hebrew qahal, referring to the “whole congregation” of Israel.28 The choice of this word for the community of believers in any given locale was thus a natural one. And by the time of this letter, it had already begun to designate all the believers in a given community,29 whether gathered or not — although in Paul it still most often carries its original sense.
Gentile converts to Christianity were no longer members only of Greco-Roman culture. They had entered the “society”30 of a people whose roots were in Judaism and whose story had its origins in the Old Testament, a story which the Thessalonians would have known well in its Greek form — the Septuagint (LXX).31 And the primary term used to refer to this new “society” was that used in the earlier form of the story when referring to Israel as “the gathered people of God.” The new expression of that “gathered people” had now taken deep root in Macedonia.
Only in these two letters is the church described as “of the Thessalonians.”32 The genitive in this instance means simply “composed of people who live in Thessalonica.” It is of some interest that in Paul’s next letter (our 1 Corinthians), he no longer speaks of the church in this way — perhaps because it could so easily carry connotations of possession. Thus in 1 Corinthians they are “the church of God in Corinth,” very likely because some in that church had begun to think in terms of “ownership.”
But the real surprise in our letter comes next. They are “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Indeed, this is the only place in the entire corpus where believers are thought of as having their existence “in God.”33 This is most easily accounted for as Paul’s way of collapsing into one phrase what he elsewhere tends to keep apart. That is, the church’s present position is “in God” the Father, precisely because it is also “in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus both the source (the work of Christ) and goal (God the Father) of their existence as God’s people are expressed together in this compact phrase.
The more significant thing about this phrase, however, is its assumed “high” Christology,34 a Christology that is thoroughgoing in these two letters, and which will be pointed out regularly throughout the commentary. This is the first of many instances where one preposition controls the twofold object of God and Christ, where the two “divine persons” (to use the language of a later time) are seen to be in the closest union regarding divine activities. If this were the only instance, nothing much could be made of it. But in these two letters much can be made of it, since in 1 Thessalonians 3:11 God and Christ are the plural subject of a singular verb as the object of prayer, while in 2 Thessalonians 2:16 the same phenomenon occurs but with Christ in the first position. Furthermore, in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 and 16 “the Lord” (meaning “Christ Jesus”) is the single divine person to whom prayer is addressed.
It is of some importance, then, to note also in this first mention of the deity in the Pauline corpus that God is designated simply as “Father” while Christ is designated as “Lord.” In this regard the lack of the (later) typical “our Father” is perhaps significant, since for Paul God has come to be known as “Father” precisely because he is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who then becomes “our Father” because we are related to him through the Son.35 Hence in this instance the lack of the possessive “our” probably points toward verse 10, where Paul refers to their “awaiting the [Father’s] Son from heaven.”
This designation also suggests that from a very early time Paul (and other believers) had already come to recognize both the Father and the Son in the Greek text of the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4.36 After all, Paul’s clear expression of this in his next letter (1 Cor 8:6) is not argued for, but argued from. Thus the “one God” of the Shema is the Father, while the “one LORD” of the same Shema is Jesus Christ (the “Son” being assumed under the reality of God as Father). It is therefore altogether likely that this first mention of God in the Pauline corpus comes to us with this understanding of the Shema already well in hand.37 And here it indicates the secure position of the Thessalonian believers. They are “in” both the Father and the Son simultaneously. In this letter it will be their existence in “the Lord” that Paul will press on most occasions.
(C) The Greeting. The greeting found here became the standard in all of Paul’s subsequent letters. As pointed out in the commentaries on both 1 Corinthians and Philippians in this series, here is a marvelous example of Paul’s “turning into gospel” everything he sets his hand to.38 The traditional greeting in the Hellenistic world was chairein — the infinitive of the verb “to rejoice,” but in salutations meaning simply “Greetings!” (see Acts 15:23; Jas 1:1). In Paul’s hands this now becomes charis (“grace”), to which he adds the traditional Jewish greeting shalom (“peace,”39 in the sense of “wholeness” or “well-being”).40 Thus instead of the familiar “greetings,” Paul salutes his brothers and sisters in Christ with “grace to you — and peace.”41
It is worth noting that this is the invariable order of Paul’s words, not “grace and peace to you” as in most translations. Very likely there is significance to this order: the grace of God and Christ is what is given to God’s people; peace is what results from such a gift. Hence, “grace to you — and peace.” In a profound sense this greeting therefore nicely represents Paul’s larger theological perspective. The sum total of God’s activity toward his human creatures is found in the word “grace”; God has given himself to his people bountifully and mercifully in Christ.42 Nothing is deserved, nothing can be achieved. The sum total of those benefits as they are experienced by the recipients of God’s grace is “peace,”43 God’s eschatological shalom, both now and to come.44 The latter (peace) flows out of the former (grace), and both together come from “God our Father” and are made effective in our human history through our “Lord Jesus Christ,” so that in all its subsequent appearances, beginning with 2 Thessalonians, Paul adds the source already assumed here, but not expressed: “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”