A. Benediction (3:16)
A. BENEDICTION (3:16)
16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you.
Paul moves toward his final greeting in this letter in a very Jewish way, by offering the Thessalonians a “wish of peace,” a prayer-wish that is singularly different from the one in his first letter, which focused on their living holy lives. Here Paul’s concern is altogether on their experiencing Christ’s shalom itself.
16 As Paul neared the end of his first letter, he prayed, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you in every way.” But in the present letter, “holy living” as such has not been in focus at any point. Rather, what has been in focus is the coming day of the Lord and shalom within the believing community. Thus the prayer-wish in this case calls on “the Lord of peace” to grant them peace. In many ways this is the most “Jewish” of all the Pauline benedictions; but that is surely not the reason for it. In light of the preceding content (God’s coming judgment on their enemies; the timing of the day of the Lord; and unrest caused by the disruptive-idle), this prayer is precisely what is needed. So quite in keeping with what will become his lifelong habit, the “grace” at the end of the letter focuses altogether on their shalom. And quite in keeping with the overall christological focus in this letter, the prayer is for “the Lord of peace” to give them peace.
As throughout the letter, therefore, this prayer has considerable christological implications that are simply assumed by Paul — and thus of his readers — and therefore not made a point of, as it is necessary for us to do. First, in keeping with the primary focus of the prayers in 2:16 and 3:5, the prayer itself is directed toward Christ, and again as in 3:5 to Christ only. In later letters this prayer is to “the God of peace,”1017 but in keeping with the Christocentricity of this letter Paul addresses his prayer to “the Lord of peace.” The prayer itself is that they will know this peace “at all times and in every way,” the two phrases that embrace all of life, both temporally (“at all times”) and experientially (“in every way”).
It is therefore of some interest that the salutation of 1:2, which embraces both Father and Son as the source of “grace and peace,” at the end of the letter focuses altogether on the Son alone, which becomes all the more noticeable in the follow-up prayer, “The Lord be with you.” This latter prayer is an especially noteworthy, final moment of (seldom noted1018) intertextuality in this letter. In this singular moment in his letters, Paul dips into his Jewish heritage with the traditional blessing, “The Lord be with you”; only in this case, given the nature of the letter, it becomes, “The Lord be with all of you.” In so doing he appropriates language that in the Old Testament was seen as evidence of faithfulness to Yahweh, as the author of Ruth is keen to point out. Thus Boaz greets his workers with: “The LORD be with you”; to which they respond, “The LORD bless you!” (Ruth 2:4).1019 Paul’s greeting once again reflects the (in this case verbless) text of the Septuagint:
Paul: The Lord (be) with all of youRuth: The Lord (be) with you
Thus once more, again in an especially significant way, Paul has appropriated what strictly belonged to Yahweh in an Old Testament passage and applied it directly to Christ.