A few years ago during the Christmas season, I got the mail from our mailbox, and as is so typical at Christmas, the mail that day included numerous Christmas cards. I opened them one by one, glancing at the pictures. As I looked one card’s picture, I thought “I have no idea who this is.” I wondered if maybe my wife knew them from her work. I looked at the envelope just to see where they lived, and I noticed the delivery address. The envelope was not addressed to Michelle and me; it was addressed to our neighbors!
I had just opened my neighbors’ mail! It felt a little scandalous. I was looking at and reading something that wasn’t meant for me! I was embarrassed, told my neighbor, and they laughed. Honest mistake. As we begin this blog series studying the New Testament book of 1st Thessalonians, we’re reading mail meant for other people.
As we learned in the previous posts here and here, Paul hasn’t seen his friends in about six months. He’s heard good news about how they are doing, but he misses them. He wishes he could be with them in person. He wants to tell them how he is feeling about them, so he decides to use technology. It is a very ancient form of technology, but it is technology, nonetheless. Paul decides to use an ancient form of email. It’s called writing a letter.
In that letter, 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 27, Paul writes,
“I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.”
That letter is what you and I call 1st Thessalonians. It is First Thessalonians, because there is also a Second Thessalonians. This winter and spring our sermon series will study the First letter to the Thessalonians. I blogged through 2 Thessalonians in Advent 2021, starting here.
Some scholars believe 1st Thessalonians was the very first New Testament document written. If it wasn’t first (Galatians is also in the running for that title), 1 Thessalonians is likely written second.
Paul’s custom when he wrote letters was primarily to dictate. He would speak while a ministry associate would serve as a scribe. Once the letter was finished, Paul would send it with someone on what could be a long journey to get the letter to its destination. There was no postal service. No stamps. You had to hire a letter carrier. Or like Paul, a friend could take it. And the trip from point A to point B could be a long one.
We believe Paul writes the letter of 1st Thessalonians from Corinth. A trip from Corinth to Thessalonica could take days. About 360 miles on today’s roads. How far can you walk in a day? If you are in good shape, pushing hard, and taking hardly any break time, 30 miles. If you could keep that pace, you could travel on foot from Corinth to Thessalonica in 12 days. There is a sea route, which could be a lot faster, and more expensive.
When my wife and I were in college, in the summer between my junior and senior year, I did a 13-week missionary internship in Guyana, South America. Internet, cell phones, and even regular landline phones were not an option in that area at that time. So we relied on handwritten letters and the postal system. It took 10-14 days for our letters to get to one another. Same for Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.
When the letter would arrive, they would gather up the Christians in a house church, find someone who could read, because many people could not read, and they would together, publicly listen to the letter as it was read to them. Likely, it was the letter-carrier who did the reading, and because that person was often one of Paul’s ministry associates, the ministry associate would not only be able to read the letter but also do some Q & A. What did Paul mean by this or that? The ministry associate could help answer their questions because that person spent a lot of time with Paul and knew his thinking.
Then the letter was sent to the next house church in the city and that house church would gather, hear the letter and do Q & A with the reader. And on and on the letter would go, making its rounds to the various house churches in the city.
Therefore, as we study 1 Thessalonians, we are reading other people’s mail. The letter was not originally written for us. If we want to properly interpret the message of Paul’s first letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, it is important that we keep in mind the letter was originally meant for a group a Jewish and Greek men and women who lived in that Greco-Roman city right around the year 50.
These people were very new Christians. They had spent only a short time with Paul. What will he say to them to encourage them? Tomorrow we begin to study what Paul writes in his greeting.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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