Thankful Remembrance
THANKFUL REMEMBRANCE
1 THESSALONIANS 1:1-3
Commitment to Christ must be demonstrated every day.
Thessalonica was the most important and populous center in Macedonia in the first century. Situated on the inmost bay of the Thermaic Gulf, it was the chief seaport of the district and the seat of the provincial government. It was a free city, boasting a popular assembly for the transaction of public business and civil magistrates elected by the people (Acts 17:6,8). The presence of an established Jewish community with a synagogue was especially attractive to Paul, who arrived in Thessalonica in AD 49 or 50: During his stay in the city he made the synagogue the focus of his mission but met with only moderate success (Acts 17:1-4). The real thrust of the mission occurred in the market and on the streets where a number of Gentiles unreached by the synagogue were persuaded to abandon idolatry and to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus (1:9f.).
In 1 Thessalonians the writer is clearly Paul (note the emphatic use of the first person singular in 2:18; 3:5; 5:27; see also 3:1, “alone”). Yet he associates with himself, as the senders of the letter, Silvanus (the Roman form of Silas; see also Acts 17:4,10) and Timothy, and makes use of the first person plural (“we”, “our”, “us”) throughout. More is involved in this than the mere acknowledgment of the part played by Paul’s companions in the evangelization of Macedonia and the establishment of the church at Thessalonica. The apostle is acting on the ancient law of testimony which demanded that the truthfulness of a statement be established by the agreement of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15). Silas and Timothy stand with Paul as witnesses to the truth content of what he has written both in the first and second letters to the church. Both letters were addressed from Corinth where the three missionaries had found a good reception of the gospel.
The association of grace and peace in the initial greeting (1:1) reflects the core of the ancient high priestly blessing (Numbers 6:24-26). Paul thanks God that the Thessalonians have displayed a trio of Christian virtues in their lives: faith, love and hope (1:3; see also 5:8). They had rightly seen that a personal relationship of trust and loyalty to Christ was inseparable from action. The result was an active faith in ordinary affairs, an involvement in the more costly service of love in missionary labor and an endurance of hardship inspired by Christian hope. We agree with Calvin who saw in 1:3 “a short definition of true Christianity.”