Tiptoeing into Thessalonians - 1

As you know, we concluded our preaching series through the book of 2 Corinthians last Sunday, and today we are entering into a study of 1 Thessalonians, which is a great deal shorter than either of the Corinthian epistles. It only contains five chapters as compared to 16 for 1 Corinthians and 13 for 2 Corinthians. And 2 Thessalonians only has three chapters, so putting the two together, eight chapters, you have only half as much as in one of the Corinthian epistles.

So this study is not going to take us nearly as long, but I pray that by the grace of God it will be just as rich and maybe even more rich to nourish our souls. What is our goal for studying 1 Thessalonians? Well, of course, in one sense it's the same goal we have for every portion of God's Word that we open. We desire to receive the Word of God.

We desire to understand it. We believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and all of it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And therefore, we approach this portion of God's Word with a reverent attitude, asking God to help us understand it and apply it and live in the light of it, to be sanctified by it, and for those who are outside of Christ to be saved by the power of these divine words. But beyond that, I'm hoping that it will enable us to become better acquainted with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Thessalonica in the first century. And we don't normally think of them as being our brothers and sisters in Christ, but they are. And every time I go through a book, particularly these epistles, I feel like I come away with at least some personal relationship to the people to whom that epistle is addressed.

You can't really live in that book for months without not only coming away with the truths that are revealed therein, but with a sense of connection to the people who are involved in those truths as they were given in that first century setting. And so I trust that the same thing will prove to be true in the Thessalonian epistles. So as we have come in some way, not a close way, but in some way, have come to know, to become acquainted with the Corinthian believers, we now want to become acquainted with the Thessalonian believers who are now enrolled in the church triumphant while we remain in the church militant.

You're familiar with those terms, I'm sure. The church triumphant is made up of all the saints who have finished their earthly journey. They have gained the victory. They are triumphant forevermore in heaven. And they are rejoicing with the Lord, and their trials and pitfalls and dangers are past.

They are beyond the possibility of falling away. They're beyond the possibility of bringing reproach to the Savior. They are the church triumphant.

They have already triumphed. We, however, who are here in this world are part of the church militant. Militant, of course, means battle, warrior, fighting. And we are doing that. And as much as anything, we're fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil. We're fighting the sinful propensities which are within our own hearts. We're fighting against sinful thoughts. We're fighting against sinful deeds. We're battling and fighting day by day and month by month and year by year and longing for that day when the fight will be over and when we shall join the church triumphant.

And one day, all God's people will gather in one place, and all will be part of the church triumphant, the one true church of the Lord Jesus Christ. But while we are looking forward to joining the Thessalonian believers and the Corinthian believers and all born-again believers who have gone before us in heaven, we will persevere on earth and we need God's word in order to do that. And so today we are tiptoeing into Thessalonians.

We're just sticking our toe in a little ways as we get started in this study. And today, most of what we're going to do is study the background of Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians because knowing something about the background will help us to understand more of the contents of the epistle. And so number one, let's consider a few things about the city of Thessalonica itself because that is important to understanding the book.

Let's consider its location, its description, and its selection. Where was Thessalonica? Where is Thessalonica? It's still there today. I remember, and it's larger today than it was in Paul's day.

I remember about 25 years ago when Marty and I had the joy of traveling to Israel and then at the end of that trip, the end of that program, there was a three-day program, shorter program, visiting in Athens and in Turkey and around the seven churches of Asia Minor and so forth. And I still remember, to my surprise, as I was, I guess, riding around in the city of Athens, probably in a tour bus, seeing a highway sign to Thessalonica. Several long ways from Athens, but it is a major city in Greece even today, and so just like we see a city that says Atlanta, 350 miles or something like that, it was similar to that. It has a slightly different name. I think it may just be Thessalonica today, but 350 or 400 miles north of Athens. It's still there today. Well, Thessalonica is in Macedonia.

We keep hearing that word a lot. We heard it a lot in the First Corinthian and Second Corinthian Epistles. Macedonia, you remember, is the northern portion of what we call today Greece. And Thessalonica was on the east coast of Macedonia, the east coast of northern Greece, on the Aegean Sea, 100 miles south of Philippi. Paul and his missionary team landed first in Philippi when they traveled across the Aegean Sea from Asia to Europe. But they eventually ended up in Thessalonica, 100 miles further south. Thessalonica is situated on an excellent harbor, and if you have the opportunity to look at a map, you ought to see what a well-protected harbor is in the water in front of Thessalonica.

That's about the only way I know how to put it. Thessalonica is on the shore of this natural harbor and is one of the three major ports on the Aegean Sea. And what are the other two? Ephesus and Corinth.

Those are familiar names. Three major ports on the Aegean Sea, both sides. And they are Ephesus on the east side, Asia side, Turkey side, and Thessalonica, northern Greece, Corinth, southern Greece.

We'll figure into something else we'll notice in a moment. But a final piece of information about Thessalonica is that it was situated right in the middle of the Ignatian Way, one of those major Roman roads, this one from Rome going east, and it went right through the city of Thessalonica. What can I tell you by way of description of the city itself? The population in the first century was estimated to be about 200,000 people, making it the largest city in the province of Macedonia. It is now about twice that size today, 400,000 people, but it was the largest city in Macedonia in Paul's day. And in regard to its ethnic makeup, the majority of its inhabitants were Greeks, they were also Romans and Jews and people from a good many other surrounding countries. There was a good blend of ethnic peoples in that large city, which was wealthy because of commerce. It had both the commerce that came into its port, a major port on the Aegean Sea, as well as the commerce that flowed to it because of its position on the Ignatian Way.

And that tells me something. I don't think it had come to me with quite the same clarity until I was studying this portion this week. But when Paul writes to the Corinthian church, as he did in 2 Corinthians, that the churches of Macedonia gave to the project offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem, that they gave out of their poverty, there must be some other reason for the poverty of the churches in Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, than the poverty of the region in which they were located because actually Thessalonica was considered to be a fabulously wealthy city. So why was the church impoverished? Why were so many of the people in that church struggling financially? And the only answer that I can lay hold of is that it must have been because of persecution. That's why the saints in Jerusalem were impoverished. That's why the saints in Thessalonica were impoverished.

We don't know much, if anything, about that, do we? Once in a while we'll have small incidents where we might be discriminated against on the job, passed over for a promotion, demoted, even fired for some pretext, but we know that the real reason is because we are Christian and they just don't want us around. So it does happen to us in a lesser sense, but how many of the saints of God in that first century suffered genuine impoverishment for the sake of Christ and were willing to do so? They were willing to endure that. They were willing, if necessary, to give up their former comfort financially and accept in its place this financial hardship because they'd rather have Jesus and be true to him than they would to have the comfort of a solid financial standing.

But Thessalonica was Macedonia's not only its largest city but its most important city, and in the passing of time it became the capital of the province of Macedonia. But it was, like all of the cities in that area, idolatrous. The people were religious, like the Athenians. Paul said, I looked around, I see evidences of your religion. You're a very religious people.

I see all the statues, the idols, the gods that you worship. Well, that was just as true in Thessalonica as it was in Athens, as it was in Corinth. So that means not only were they idolatrous, but they also lived in the midst of typical pagan lasciviousness, immorality. Evidently not quite to the extent, as in Corinth, that had a reputation for that.

Even in that society they were so bad that they were considered to be excessively lascivious. But Thessalonica wasn't far behind. Philippi wasn't far behind.

Maria wasn't far behind. That's just the way things were in that day. If we think things are bad in the United States and getting worse, and they are, I don't know how we can deny it. I don't know how we can pretend that it isn't so. I'm talking about the moral climate as we slide further and further into declension. As William Bennett put it, slouching towards Sodom.

Is that what he called it in his book several years ago? We are slouching towards Sodom, no question about it. And yet I don't think that we're as bad as Corinth and Athens and Thessalonica and Philippi and Maria yet, that we have some aspects of immorality that they didn't know and couldn't know because, of course, they didn't have the kind of electronic media that we have today that spreads that kind of stuff so widely. But nevertheless, if we think we're struggling under difficult circumstances and we say, oh, Lord, it's so hard and I don't see how we can make any progress and I don't see how we can triumph and I don't see how we can live for the Lord in a world like this and I don't see how we can rear our Christians to love the Lord in a climate like this, stop it.

It's not as bad yet for us as it was for them. And they did a pretty admirable job, as we shall see, as we work our way through this first epistle to the Thessalonians. But I furthermore, still talking about the city, asked the question, why was Thessalonica chosen to plant a church by the Apostle Paul? And there's two answers to that question.

The first one is out of necessity and the second one is as a matter of strategy. And out of necessity, I'm simply referring to the fact that persecution drove Paul out of Philippi. If he had not been driven out, he would have stayed there longer, no doubt. We have no way of knowing how long. And we don't know what would have been his direction after that. There's no way to know. We can't make suppositions about what didn't happen.

We can only make observations about what did happen. And he was driven out of Philippi and in running from the authority, so to speak, well, he wasn't really running from Philippi. He had an agreeable departure, as we'll see in a moment. But nevertheless, departing from Philippi, he ended up next in Thessalonica. And so there was a certain measure of necessity that took him to that location, but there's something far more important than that. It's very obvious that Paul chose Thessalonica as a matter of strategy. We'll see that more clearly when we turn in a moment to the Book of Acts. But if you follow the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul and take the time to get a good Bible dictionary and look up the names of the cities, you'll find that inevitably every one of them were significant cities. Paul bypassed the smaller towns, the smaller cities, paid no attention to the villages and out-of-the-way places, and invariably focused his attention upon major cities like Athens, like Corinth, like Philippi, like Thessalonica. It was a matter of strategy. Paul believed that if he could plant gospel churches in these major centers where people were coming through all the time, where people traveled to these cities for commercial reasons, where people went from these cities traveling to other places in order to ply their commercial interests, Paul was convinced that when some of those people became Christians that they would then spread the gospel out from those population centers to the surrounding areas, and indeed that seems to exactly be the case.

That is what happened. Paul's strategy seems to have been a very sound one. He expected the gospel to spread from these major cities, and he was correct in that expectation. We move, however, from our consideration of the city of Thessalonica to the church, that was established in Thessalonica, and for this we do need to turn to the book of Acts, chapter 16 and 17. We're going to spend a little bit of time here, so please turn. Let me hear those pages rustling.

I don't need to hear your electronic device beeping, but I would like to hear the pages rustling. Well, as we've already mentioned, Paul was driven out of Philippi, and I'm going to pick up at Acts 16, verse 35. And when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers saying, Let these men go.

This is after Paul and Silas had been imprisoned in Philippi. And the next day, after their imprisonment, after their beating, and all that took place with the Philippian jailer and his salvation and his whole household, the magistrates sent to the officers saying, Let these men go. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent to let you go.

Now, therefore, depart and go in peace. But Paul said to them, They have beaten us openly, Uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly?

No, indeed, let them come themselves and get us out. And the officers told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. Then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out and asked them to depart from the city. So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed, chapter 17, verse 1. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded.

And a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and, gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren and the rulers of the city, crying out, These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them. And they are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, There is another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. What about the establishment of this church in Thessalonica?

Well, it started with a magistrate's decision in Philippi to let them go from jail. But when the word of their release came to them, Paul said, Wait a minute! Not so fast! You'd think he would have said, Let's get out of here. It's not very comfortable here. I'll get out as quickly as I can.

But Paul said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This isn't right. You commanded us to be beaten, which was against the law.

We, being Roman citizens, it is illegal to beat us before we've had a trial and been found guilty and have a legal sentence that we are supposed to be beaten. And you did all that illegally. And you did that all openly, publicly, humiliated us in this way. And now you're going to come secretly and tell us, Please just go away quietly?

I don't think so. You marched down here, you magistrates, you marched down here publicly where everybody can see what's happening. And you let us go in a public way so that everybody knows that we are innocent of the charges that weren't even proved in court and which caused our beating. We want to be exonerated in this matter, which, of course, threw fear into the hearts of the magistrates because apparently, until Paul said that, they didn't know that Paul was a Roman citizen. They assumed he was not. Not very many of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were actually citizens and had the much greater level of rights and privileges and protections that only citizens had. But Paul was a Roman citizen. But apparently the magistrates didn't know it until then, and now they were afraid because they could get in trouble with higher authorities for mistreating a Roman citizen. Now the question that comes to my mind is, if Paul was a Roman citizen, as in fact he was, obviously was, why didn't he pull the citizen card out of his sleeve a little bit earlier and avoid the beating in the jail? He was beaten.

Their feet were put in stocks. They were mistreated. They were treated in a way the Roman citizens are not allowed to be treated unless they are justly tried and a sentence has been passed. So why didn't Paul use the citizen card a little bit earlier and avoid this mistreatment? And I can't give you a definitive answer because the Bible doesn't explain, but it seems to me that everything Paul did, Paul did with a purpose in mind, I think that he found this to be a strategic move. He thought in this particular case he could make better use of his citizenship by waiting until they had violated his rights and that would give him greater leverage for the cause of the gospel and the establishment of the church in Philippi.

I'm assuming that's why he waited because on another occasion he pulled that card out quicker to keep from being beaten. You can read about that later in the book of Acts. You mean, if I'm correct about this, you mean Paul was willing to endure a beating unnecessarily in order to help the cause of the gospel?

Why not? He was willing to endure a lot worse than that for the cause of the gospel. And so if he thought that might be helpful, apparently he was willing to do it again.

How ashamed are we, how little suffering we're willing to endure, how much we complain about little, little things that happened to us and notice how much Paul was willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. Well, the magistrates came down and said, Dear Sirs, we are sorry. We apologize. Please forgive us. You are right.

We are wrong. And if it would please you, Sirs, to go someplace else, that might keep the peace in our city secure. So if you wouldn't mind considering that as a possibility, we would really appreciate it. And so Paul said his goodbyes to Lydia and the church, and away they went. The missionaries departed. But there's another interesting aspect, and you can learn a lot by reading between the lines what isn't there. You can't always learn everything for certainty that way.

But it causes you to think and to explore a little bit more. And what we know is that when Paul arrived in Philippi from Troas across the Aegean Sea, there were at least four members in his missionary team. There was Paul, there was Silas, there was Timothy, there was Luke.

But now we learn that when the team left the city and headed south toward Thessalonica, it was half as large. When they got to Thessalonica, it was only Paul and Silas. Where are Timothy and Luke? Well, again, the only answer that I can come up with for that is they stayed behind because they weren't as prominent.

They were able to do that without causing an uproar. And even though Paul and Silas left, they didn't leave the church without leadership. They didn't leave the church without teaching. They didn't leave the church without some help. They left behind some faithful gospel workers that could continue to strengthen the church at Philippi even as Paul and Silas went on their journey. But considering the ministry at Thessalonica and how it all developed as we read about it in chapter 17, I pointed out to you that Paul and Silas skipped two named cities on their way to Thessalonica. We don't know how many unnamed ones. A hundred miles, there probably were a good many other towns and villages that they went through, and Paul didn't stop and preach the gospel in Amphipolis, Paul didn't stop and preach the gospel in Apollonia, Paul didn't stop to engage in gospel preaching until he got to Thessalonica because, as we read here, Thessalonica had a synagogue.

Now, that's important in two ways. Number one, because Paul always had a reception for preaching in synagogues, and he knew that and he utilized that. But number two, because that also indicates the size of the city. Synagogues were only established where there was a sufficiently large Jewish population to support a synagogue. Interestingly, even Philippi, which was a large and major city, though not quite as large as Thessalonica, but it didn't have enough Jews for a synagogue. Remember, Paul went looking for a synagogue and there wasn't one, but he found some women, Lydia and other women, who were worshipping the God of the Bible by the riverside.

They had found an outdoor place where they could worship on the Sabbath, but there was no synagogue. But Paul knew there was a synagogue in Thessalonica. I can't prove this either, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't some kind of a directory of the synagogues throughout the Roman world. Because Jews were going, traveling everywhere, and they probably had a list.

You can find a synagogue here, you can find a synagogue here, you can find a synagogue here. Paul knew he could find a synagogue in Thessalonica. I'm sure he knew about it.

How he knew about it, I don't know. But he came, and sure enough, there was a synagogue there, and he utilized it. And he preached on three Sabbaths, we're told. And he preached from the Scripture showing them that the Christ, not Christ, that's the way we usually would refer to the Lord Jesus Christ if we were just using the word Christ. We would generally call him Christ, but here the word, the definite article is used, how the Christ, because he's not talking now about Jesus, he's talking about the Jewish Messiah, the Christ that they all knew about, that they were looking for, that was promised to them in their Scriptures. And Paul showed them from their Scriptures how the Christ, that is the Messiah, must suffer and die, something that they hadn't given much consideration to.

Because strangely, though maybe not so strangely, the Jews of the first century focused on all of the promises relating to the Messiah that had to do with his glory, his might, his victory, his ruling and reigning, his elevating the nation of Israel to a position of prominence, and somehow they just sort of skipped lightly over and pretty much ignored other Scriptures, also referring to the Christ that talked about his suffering and dying, and even by implication some indications that he would rise from the dead. They skipped those over. They didn't study those carefully. They didn't give them any consideration, just like we do if we're not careful. With our Bibles, how long did some of you skip over the sections in the Bible that deal with the doctrine of election and the sovereignty of God and salvation and some of those things you just sort of, it's kind of like you just flint right by them, didn't even see them, they're not there. Yes, they are.

They're as much God's word as the rest. Some of you are still struggling with that, not many of you, but some of you. Well, I don't know about that.

Well, why don't you? Have you got eyes in your head? Where have you been? You might have had an excuse before you came here, but you've been here long enough. You've had these scriptures pointed out to you.

I'm kind of like Paul. I'm showing you this aspect of scripture, how that salvation began in eternity past with the electing grace of God and then worked its way out in time with the coming of Jesus Christ and so forth. And of course it's true that those who are saved must exercise faith in Christ. They must believe in Christ.

They must, if you want to use that language, make a decision for Christ. But you only know half of it until you understand why those who make a decision make a decision, why those who actually believe do believe, why those who are saved come to be saved. You can't understand that completely until you get all the information, just like these Jews couldn't understand everything about the Messiah until they got all the information. And Paul showed to them out of their Bible that their scriptures indicated that the promised Christ must suffer and die. And I'm sure many of them were shaking their heads with bewilderment, but they opened their eyes and they looked at the portions that Paul was teaching and they said, Well, there it is.

I never saw that before. And we read, Some of them believed, Jews, and a great many devout Greeks, a bigger number of those, these are Gentiles who were worshiping with the Jews in the synagogue, hearing the same scriptures. So some of the Jews, they were a little more hard-headed than the Gentiles, so most of them didn't. But some of the Jews believed, a great many Greeks believed, and not a few prominent women, wealthy women, socialite women, women who were married to the political officials and the commercial kingpins in the town of Thessalonica, and not a few of those were saved as well.

This is a pretty good group of people to start a church with. But immediately Jewish opposition arose and they were determined to squash this testimony to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. He's already come. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead.

He ascended back to heaven. We're going to drive that out, these Jews said, but we're told that as much as anything their motive was, did you catch it, envy. They were envious that Paul could come in here and preach for three weeks and have a large following of people.

They've been working on this thing for years and years and years, and he just took half or more of their crowd just like that. They're envying his ability, his power, which Paul of course understood wasn't his. It was given to him by God, but they didn't understand that. But if you'll make a careful note, you'll notice how many times that word envy comes in to the opposition that we find in scripture to the people of God. How many times it comes into play in regard to the crucifixion of Christ. Why did the religious leaders crucify Christ? Because of envy?

The Bible tells us that. They envied him, his success, his appeal, his popularity with the crowd. The Jews envied Paul and his missionary team at their amazing success by the work of God's Spirit. And so they dragged people before the magistrates and created quite a ruckus. Paul and his team had to make a hasty nighttime departure out of Thessalonica, and they went down the road a little bit further down the Ignatian Way to Berea. But the question is, how long were Paul and Silas in Thessalonica before they were driven out? And here they were driven out. In Philippi, they were escorted out. If you'd be pleased to go, sirs. In Thessalonica, they were driven out.

If you don't go, we're going to beat you to death. How long were they in Thessalonica before this happened? Well, if you read what I read to you a moment ago, you would say three weeks. But I'm going to say no.

It was longer. Why do I say that? Well, keeping in mind, as I show you this other evidence, keeping in mind that we've already learned that Dr. Luke, the historian who wrote the book of Acts by the direction of the Holy Spirit, does not record all the elements and events. That was starkly apparent when we read about all of the persecutions that Paul listed in 2 Corinthians, all the things that had happened to him, the number of beatings, the number of jailings, the number of floggings, both by Gentiles and by Jews. And we say, wait a minute, I didn't see half of those.

I didn't see a third of those in the book of Acts. Because Luke doesn't record everything. He can't. He doesn't have time. He doesn't have space. How big do you want the book of Acts to be?

I mean, well, it's exactly the size it ought to be by the perfect design of the Holy Spirit of God. But no, he doesn't claim to have reported everything. And I think there's plenty of evidence that he didn't report all that went on in Thessalonica before they were driven out.

What other evidence do we have? Well, do you remember what Paul said to the Philippians when he wrote his epistle to them, thanking them for the offerings that they sent to him? And he said this in chapter 4, verse 15, Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only, for even, listen, verse 16, Philippians 4, 16, for even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. How many times total was Paul in Thessalonica? Once. He never came back.

He wanted to, but he never made it back. So when did this aid come from Philippi to Paul in Thessalonica? During this time we're talking about right now when he planted the church there. Well, how often could they send aid in a three-week period? They probably didn't even get the first support check there by courier in the matter of the first three weeks. It took them a little while to find out where Paul was and what he was doing.

They couldn't pick up the phone and get this information. Somebody had to go the hundred miles back to Philippi and say Paul's in Thessalonica carrying on a work and he could use some help and they had to get their money together and get a courier and send it back down to Thessalonica and then a little bit later they got word from a messenger, his funds are running out, if you'd like to help him some more it would really be a blessing and they got some more money together, sent a courier down and brought aid again. It's almost impossible to fit that into a three-week time frame. And then when you consider what Paul says, and we'll see this as we move into 1 Thessalonians, when you see what Paul says in his description of the time that he was with them and what he did with them and how he related to them, you're going to say, wow, I don't see how he could have done all that in three weeks and I don't either. And so the conclusion that most Bible scholars come to is that he was there a minimum of three months and probably longer, somewhere between three and six months would fit into what we know about the whole chronology of the ministry of Paul at this time. But at some point the Jews finally said enough is enough and they figured out that they were going to run him out of town. Well, I come quickly to the epistle itself.

Just a few facts about it. When was it written? Around 51 AD, which makes it one of the earliest epistles that Paul wrote that's included in the New Testament. Where was Paul when it was written? Where was Paul writing from when he sent this first epistle to Thessalonica? And almost all Bible scholars, even though we're not given this information directly in the Bible, we can bring together the bits and pieces of information that you can draw from other places, almost all Bible scholars are agreed that he was in the city of Corinth. When Paul was in Corinth, where we were studying last several months, during that time he wrote this epistle to Thessalonica, which gives us this tie between Corinth and Thessalonica. There are a lot of ties. We found references in the Corinthian epistles to the churches of Macedonia.

Now, there's probably this tie as well. Paul wrote to Thessalonica from Corinth. Interestingly, as far as we know, he didn't write to Philippi from Corinth. There is a Philippian epistle, but not from Corinth. The Philippian epistle is one of the what? Prison epistles. He wrote that from prison in Rome much later. We don't have an epistle to Berea, even though he went there and established a church. Now, it's possible that he could have, in fact, likely he wrote other epistles that are not included in our New Testament, in our canon, to use a technical term.

But this one is. It came from Corinth. What does the epistle reveal to us about the condition of the church at Corinth? Because even if Paul was there three months or longer, that's a mighty short time to establish a strong and healthy church. Paul was in, what did I say, Corinth.

I meant Thessalonica. Because Paul was in Corinth for a year and a half, and that church was riddled with problems. Paul was in Thessalonica for three plus months. So what kind of shape was this church in where Paul was driven out and couldn't stay and establish it properly? Well, interestingly, from the evidence of the epistle, it was a very strong, healthy church with very few problems.

No condemnations, no sharp corrections, many commendations. The only conclusion you can draw is that the church of Thessalonica was strong and healthy in that short period of time. That's the work of the Spirit of God, clearly. Well, if I ask the question, why did Paul write this epistle then, he wasn't writing to address problems in the church, what was he doing? Well, I can tell you that the five chapters of 1 Thessalonians are basically divisible into two parts, and this is a generalization. But the first three chapters we could call personal, and the last two chapters we could call doctrinal.

A lot of personal conversation in the first three chapters. Chapter 1, Thanksgiving for God's grace manifested, and he encourages the Thessalonians with this. Chapter 2, reminders of Paul's presence with them, he talks about how he ministered to them, what his attitude was, what his procedure was while he was with them. Chapter 3 records Timothy's visit, when Paul sent Timothy back to visit and check on them, and asked for Timothy to come back to Paul and give him a report on how things were going in Thessalonica.

And the report was good, and all of that is contained in the first three chapters. And then in chapters 4 and 5 we get into some exhortations for godly living in chapter 4, and then the last part of chapter 4 and the good part of chapter 5, most of you know, has to do with information about the second coming of Christ. In fact, every one of the five chapters in 1 Thessalonians concludes with a reference to the second coming of Christ. That is a major, major, major doctrine that is dealt with in this epistle, so we're going to have an opportunity to study that carefully. So why was the epistle written? Number one, obviously, to encourage the saints at Thessalonica. Number two, to strengthen Paul's relationship with them.

He couldn't be there with them, but he wrote in such a personal way so that they would feel this personal connection. Number three, to strengthen the saints' resolve to live righteously, for no matter how strong they were, they still needed these reminders and exhortations. Don't you? Don't we?

Of course we do. And number four, to correct what were obviously some misunderstandings about the second coming of Christ. And this is really the only corrections in the epistle.

It does seem that some of them either had wrong ideas or incomplete ideas. What happens to our loved ones who have already died if they miss the rapture of the church and so forth? And so Paul says, I don't want you to be ignorant of those who have gone to sleep. And he describes what the coming of the Lord will be like, and he tells them about the second coming of Christ. Well, that was the first, second, and third section of my sermon today, and I had a fourth one, but I think I'm going to have to hold on to that one. We've looked at the city. We've looked at the church. We've looked at the epistle in general terms, overview. And I'll just read the salutation. I was going to study this in some detail, but we don't have time. But just verse one, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will get into the contents of this epistle, Lord willing, next Sunday, shall we pray. Father, enlarge our appetite, enlarge our understanding, enlarge our desire to understand, and our ability to receive and benefit from your word. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.