1 Thessalonians 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy open a letter to the church in Thessalonica with a greeting and thanks to God for them. They recall the Thessalonians' faith, love, and hope, and how the message came to them with power and conviction. Though they suffered, they welcomed the message with joy and became an example to believers across Macedonia and Achaia, so that reports of their faith spread everywhere, telling how they turned from idols to the living God and now wait for his Son from heaven.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • The letter is from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy.
   • The letter is addressed to the church of the Thessalonians.
   • That church is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.
   • Grace and peace are wished to the recipients.
   • That grace and peace come from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. 1:2
   • We give thanks to God always for all of you.
   • We make mention of you in our prayers.
3. 1:3
   • We remember your work that comes of faith.
   • We remember your labor that comes of love.
   • We remember your endurance that comes of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
   • This remembering is without ceasing.
   • This remembering is done in the presence of God our Father.
4. 1:4
   • The addressees are brothers loved by God.
   • We know that God has chosen you.
5. 1:5
   • Our gospel did not come to you in word only.
   • Our gospel also came in power.
   • Our gospel also came in the Holy Spirit.
   • Our gospel also came in much full assurance.
   • You know what kind of men we proved to be among you.
   • We were such men for your sake.
6. 1:6
   • You became imitators of us.
   • You became imitators of the Lord.
   • You received the word in much affliction.
   • You received the word with joy given by the Holy Spirit.
7. 1:7
   • As a result you became a pattern to all who believe in Macedonia and in Achaia.
8. 1:8
   • The word of the Lord sounded out from you.
   • It sounded out not only in Macedonia and Achaia.
   • Your faith toward God has gone out in every place.
   • As a result we have no need to say anything.
9. 1:9
   • Other people themselves report about us what kind of reception we had among you.
   • They report how you turned to God away from idols.
   • You turned in order to serve the living and true God.
10. 1:10
    • You turned in order to wait for God's Son from heaven.
    • God raised his Son from the dead.
    • That Son is Jesus.
    • Jesus rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

Silvanus is the same companion Acts calls Silas; Silvanus is the fuller Latin form of the name. Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia, a busy port on the main highway running east from Rome, so news traveled through it quickly. The word translated "church" never means a building in this period: it is the everyday Greek word for an assembly of people summoned together, here the body of believers in that city. Ancient letters opened with a fixed formula, "A to B, greetings"; this one keeps the shape but replaces the usual greeting word with "Grace be unto you, and peace," pairing a Greek word for undeserved favor with the ordinary Jewish greeting shalom.

1:2

To pray means to talk to God.

1:3

"Patience" in 1611 English meant staying under a weight without giving way, endurance rather than a calm temperament; and "labour" here translates a word for exhausting toil, the kind that leaves you spent. The three phrases are compressed in the Greek and can be read either as work that faith produces or as work that consists of faith, and the same for love and hope; the original leaves the relationship open.

1:4

"Your election of God" reads backward to a modern ear, as though the Thessalonians had elected God. In 1611 the phrase meant God's choosing of them. "Election" here is simply the noun for being picked out, with no connection to voting. "Brethren" was the standard address to a whole congregation, men and women together.

1:5

"Holy Ghost" is not eerie: in 1611 "ghost" was an ordinary English word for spirit, and it translates the same word later Bibles render "Holy Spirit." "Assurance" here means full conviction on the speakers' part, not a guarantee offered to the hearers. "Gospel" is itself an old English word meaning good news, a public announcement of something that has happened.

1:6

"Followers" translates a word meaning imitators, people deliberately copying a pattern set before them; the English word has since drifted toward the weaker sense of someone who tags along. "Affliction" means pressure applied from outside, the squeeze of hostility or persecution, rather than illness or private distress.

1:7

"Ensamples" is an older spelling of examples. Macedonia and Achaia were the two Roman provinces that between them covered Greece: Macedonia the north, including Thessalonica and Philippi, and Achaia the south, including Athens and Corinth. Naming both is a way of saying the whole country.

1:8

"Sounded out" renders a verb used of a trumpet or a loud ringing peal, a sound that carries. "To God-ward" is old English for toward God, and "spread abroad" means spread widely; neither phrase has anything to do with foreign travel.

1:9

"Shew" is the old spelling of show, used here in the sense of report or tell. "What manner of entering in we had unto you" asks what kind of reception the visitors were given, not how they got into the city. Idols were not a marginal matter in a Greek city: images of household and civic gods were part of ordinary life, and festivals, trade guilds and public business were bound up with them, so abandoning them was a visible social break.

1:10

"The wrath to come" is a fixed phrase in Jewish and early Christian writing for a future day of judgment on the world. "Wrath" translates a word for settled anger and legal condemnation, not a burst of temper.