2 Thessalonians - Introduction

Introduction

This is going to repeat the introduction to 1 Thessalonians with a few words added.

1 and 2 Thessalonians are thought to be two of the earliest letters written by Paul. Paul first went to Thessalonica after the miraculous escape from prison in Philippi. We read about this in Acts 17:1-9. Thessalonica itself was a busy seaport city. Paul started, as usual, by preaching the gospel in the synagogue, preaching Jesus as Messiah. He attracted some Jews, and a large number of God-fearing Gentiles, and this included a significant number of “prominent women”. With the God-fearers we can see that God was using the Jewish religion to start to draw people into the kingdom. The church was probably predominant;y Gentile, with only a few Jews. At the same time there was the backlash from other Jews who whipped up a riot. As a result Paul and Silas were sent away by the believers to Berea. So the converts had experienced the nature of opposition to the gospel from the word go. This is in stark contrast to the approach we often take today. It is the Spirit of God who converts a man or woman, they are born again through the Spirit. We all too easily rely on methods or music or gimmicks to “convert” someone, and, of course, this is not successful. 

1 Thessalonians was written from Corinth, a view attested to by early church fathers (AD 140). The Pauline authorship was never doubted by the early church, and even scholarship has generally accepted it as Pauline. The date of writing was about AD 51. Paul had had not time to properly set up a church in Thessalonica, so was greatly concerned for them (1 Thess 3:1). The aim of the letter was to help establish the Christians there. There seemed to be great concern about the second coming, and this matter figures again in 2 Thessalonians.

There have been some who have questioned the Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians, but their arguments are frankly silly and not worth bothering with. 2 Thessalonians has a very high level of attestation from the early church fathers. The letter seeks to encourage the Christians in difficult circumstances, and to give them proper teaching on the return of Christ, and also to exhort them to proper Christian living now.