Introduction and Background

Introduction — Background to the Letter and the Greeting (1:1–2)

A. What Is So Attractive About the Thessalonian Church?

So what is so attractive about the Thessalonian church? Let me read — we’re not going to do this section today; next Sunday. But here’s what he says about them. In verse 6 of chapter 1 [1 Thessalonians 1:6–8], he says, “You became followers of us and the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all of Macedonia and Greece who believed. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Greece, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.”

Keep that in mind as we look at these verses. And we’re going to look at the background today — the background in geography and the background in the text.

B. The Background Geographically — Acts 15:36–18:11

1. Paul and Barnabas Part Ways — Acts 15:36–41

Background geographically. Paul’s first contact with the city was right after he came out of Philippi, as you remember. We’ll talk about that. Paul was planning the second missionary trip when there arose a problem between him and Barnabas. You remember Barnabas went with him on the first missionary journey. And they had a problem, so large that they split up. And Paul chose Silas. And Barnabas took John Mark, but they went different directions. Still missionaries, but in different ways.

2. Timothy Joins the Team — Acts 16:1–3

Anyway, while visiting the churches of the first journey, South Galatia, Paul heard about one of his converts from the first time. It’s great to do that. You go back to a place where you were, and there’s one of your converts. There’s somebody you helped, somebody you taught. And they’re going on — they’re going great. Well, he learned about Timothy there, and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Well spoken of. He’s a young man, maybe even a teenager, late teens. But he was there, and so Paul said, “Oh, I’ll add you. Why don’t you go along?” So he went along.

3. The Spirit Closes Doors and the Macedonian Call — Acts 16:6–10

And then Paul traveled west to Asia Minor, modern Turkey, and went through there. Didn’t need a passport at the time. And he traveled; he was trying to go minister somewhere in there. He hadn’t been there before. And the Holy Spirit kept saying, “No, you don’t go that way. Don’t go south. Don’t go north. Just keep going west.” So he went west. And he came to Troas. And when he got to Troas — well, the water is there; the Aegean Sea is in front of me. What do I do now? And he had a dream. And in that dream, he saw a man from Macedonia saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” So they took that as being from the Lord and went over there. And Paul went to Philippi. Philippi was one of the chief cities in Macedonia. And he began to preach the gospel.

4. Philippi: The Slave Girl, the Jail, and the Gospel — Acts 16:16–34

a. The Demon-Possessed Girl

There was a demon-possessed girl. Do you remember this from Acts, probably? There was a demon-possessed girl that followed them around. And she kept saying, “These men are from the Most High God.” Well, that’s great. That’s what they were. But Paul said, “No, we don’t want that kind of publicity.” And so he expelled the demon from her. And now she could no longer do what she was doing. And they hauled him into court, and they threw him in jail.

b. Midnight Songs and an Earthquake

Now, we remember while he was there in jail, with his feet in the stocks, an earthquake came. They were singing — singing praises to the Lord. Somebody said, “Let’s sing.” “Okay, somebody pass out the hymnbooks. I’ve got to have the hymnals. You can’t sing without hymnals.” No, no. They knew the hymns. They knew probably the Psalms, and they knew that, and they sang them. And while they did, an earthquake came.

c. The Jailer’s Question and Paul’s Gospel

And the jailer was responsible for all those people. The doors of the jail came open, and there they were. He assumed that everybody was gone. Why wouldn’t they be? And we found out: oh no, they’re still there. Paul said, “Do yourself no harm; we are all here.” Well, and then the jailer asked Paul a question. You knew where I was going with this. “What must I do to be saved?” he said.

Remember, Paul in his first epistle said, if anybody brings you any other doctrine, any other gospel than that which we have delivered to you, let him be accursed [Galatians 1:8–9]. Well, what is Paul’s gospel? Well, I’m going to follow around and find out what he says when somebody says, “How can I be saved?” What’s Paul going to say? Let’s listen. This is it. This is the true gospel. And Paul said, “You don’t.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your household.” If they believe, they’ll be saved.

So that was the gospel. And that’s the gospel that we preach. And that’s the gospel he preached when he went into Thessalonica. There it was. So he left there, because it was better for him to go than to stay there and be a problem for the church. So he left there and went to a couple of other places, but he wound up in Thessalonica — traveling west on the Egnatian Way, and that’s the main highway between Rome and the east. So he went down that road to Thessalonica.

5. Thessalonica: Three Sabbaths — and More — Acts 17:1–9

Now, when he got there, he ministered the Word as usual. And it says [Acts 17:2], as his custom was, he preached three Sabbaths in the synagogue. Now that’s only three weeks. And for that reason, some people would have said, “Oh, he was only there three weeks.” I don’t think so. He was in the synagogue three weeks. And so he taught both Jews and Gentiles, because Gentiles were there as proselytes in the synagogue. So Scripture says in Acts 17:4, “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.”

Well expansion, growth, can be a problem. And the next thing you know, the Jews — the synagogue — became antagonistic to him. They moved the meetings to Jason’s house right next door to the synagogue. That wasn’t good enough, and so they still made problems for him while he was there. And he wasn’t there long, but he was there more than that three weeks.

He taught them prophecy. “Can’t have prophecy in church. People don’t understand that. Why should we have prophecy in Sunday school? What are you doing?” Well, these people had just come to know the Lord, and Paul was telling them Jesus is coming, and preaching that to them, and it strengthened them — we’ll see.

6. Berea, Athens, and Corinth — Acts 17:10–18:11

So Paul had to exit again. And he left — all of them, Paul, Silas, and Timothy — went on to Berea. Remember them? They were more noble than anywhere else, because they searched the Scriptures to see if the things that Paul said were true. That’s a great thing to do. I’d like nothing better than somebody coming to me and saying, “What you said was this. I don’t understand that. Is that true? Can you show me?” I don’t say anything up here that I can’t show you in the Bible. I would not do that. And that’s what they were saying to him: “Paul, this is —” “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re right, Paul.” Reading the Scriptures.

So Paul had trouble there too. And so Paul went on alone, because the Thessalonians came down to Berea — it was more south there — and they said . . . Paul left there. And they took him down, and took him to a ship, and he went on down to Athens. And from Athens he went to Corinth. All that you see in chapter 17. And then in 18 he was there, and they joined him — Timothy and Silas joined him. And it was there that Paul wrote both epistles. And we don’t know how long, but he was there probably more than a year in Corinth. That’s the background of the book. That’s how Paul came to Corinth and decided to write back to these Thessalonians.

C. The Background in the Text — 1:1–2

So now we come to the text.

1. Paul and His Companions — 1:1a

And the text — we see, first of all, Paul and his companions.

a. Paul — Not “the Apostle,” Just Paul

Now I find it very interesting that Paul says “Paul.” What? Not Paul the apostle, not Paul the one God sent to you at all. No, just Paul. He writes “Paul the apostle” when he writes to the Galatians — they have some doctrinal errors. And to the Corinthians — they had some personal errors, some errors in conduct. And Paul wrote, “Paul the apostle. I’m going to tell you what to do, and you’d better do it. I’m an apostle.” Not here. Here, it’s Paul. Paul, their friend. Paul, the one they loved.

b. Silvanus — The Senior Member

And then also Silvanus — that’s Silvanus, or Silas. He was the senior member of the church — of the group.

c. Timothy — The Leader in Training

And I like this one: Timothy. He was a leader in training. He was a very AWANA-like person. Later, he was dispatched by Paul to Philippi to help them. And then later on, he was pastor — pastor at Ephesus. But here, he’s in training. And Paul — remember, Paul wrote the pastoral epistles; two of those letters went to Timothy at Ephesus, First and Second. Oh, Timothy. So that’s Paul’s companions; that’s who they were. First part of verse 1.

2. Paul and the Congregation — 1:1b–2

And then Paul and the congregation, in the rest of verse 1 and verse 2. He starts off with a very proper reading. He says, “To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

a. The Church — 1:1b

The church. That’s a special term, “church.” Do you know that it’s really a secular word? It’s been used even in the Old Testament. It’s used of any assembly of people. In fact, in Acts 19:32, it referred to the worshipers of Diana of the Ephesians — that those heathen worshipers got together, and it was called a church: an ekklēsia.

Well, how did it get to be used as the church? Jesus did it. Jesus took this secular word, and He said, “I will build My congregation; I will build My church.” In Matthew 16:18 He says — remember — “On this rock I will build My church,” the church universal. That includes every believer from Pentecost to the Rapture. “I will build My church” — universal. But then later, in Matthew 18:17, He said — remember, if a person has a problem, the last thing we do is take it to the church. What church? Not the universal, not worldwide. No — to the local church. So there’s that church.

And he says this is the church in Thessalonica. This is called a local church — the church that was there in Thessalonica.

b. In God Our Father — 1:1b

So he describes the church this way: in God the Father. This church is in God the Father. And that gives it security. It gives it love — the love of the Father. It gives it the strength of the Father. That’s “in God the Father.”

c. And the Lord Jesus Christ — 1:1b

But it’s also in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the Son is also divine. He’s called the Lord. This is a term for Jehovah, a term for God in the Old Testament. He’s called Kyrios — the title of deity. So He’s the Lord.

But He’s also Jesus. It’s the Old Testament word Joshua, which means salvation, deliverer — deliverer. And that’s His human name. So He is God, He is man, but He also has a Messianic name, which is the Christ. He is Lord Jesus Christ. And “the Christ” means Messiah, and it means the Anointed One. And He is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament to come to the Jewish people and to the world. So that’s who the church is.

d. The Greeting: Grace and Peace — 1:2

He gives them the greeting: “Grace to you.” Sounds like a radio program. “Grace to you.” Unmerited favor — or, I think probably better, favor in spite of demerit. It isn’t just that we don’t deserve His grace. It’s that we deserve His fury. We deserve His judgment, and He gives us grace.

And then there’s the peace. The Greek word eirēnē — we get our name Irene from that. Irene should be a very peaceful lady. Shalom, of course, is the Old Testament word for peace. It means wholeness, prosperity, welfare. That’s the word peace. So “grace to you and peace to you,” he’s saying.

e. The Source of the Greeting — 1:2b

D. Closing: A Church That Stands Out

The church of Thessalonica was a great church. I think that maybe, from what we see in Scripture, it is probably the finest work that Paul did — the Lord did through Paul. We need to see that. And we’ll see a lot of things here, especially next Sunday. We’ll see how they worked and what they did. Just pagans coming to know the Lord, and then opening up and becoming the church that stands out in the New Testament.

Lord, thank You.