Abounding Love in Affliction: Its Significance and Its Sources
1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:13
Our Father, by the spirit of wisdom and revelation, enlighten our hearts, that we may know the hope of your calling, the riches of your glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of your power at work in us. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Our passage today in 1 Thessalonians stretches from ch. 2, v. 17, to ch. 3, v. 13. First Thessalonians 2:17–3:13. Hear the Word of the Lord:
Since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.
Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.
But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?
Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
The Word of God. These verses are largely a rehearsal of the recent history of Paul and the Thessalonian church,[1] describing the days following Paul’s departure from the city. After being hastily “torn away” from them, or as the NIV rightly puts it, “orphaned,”[2] Paul had been hindered from returning.[3] But his extended absence is not for lack of desire to reunite, a point repeated over and over.[4] He really wants the church to know how much he loves them and yearns to be with them.[5] “What is our crown of boasting?,” Paul asks: “Is it not you? You are our glory and joy.”[6] Remarkable words, indicating simultaneously Paul’s deep affection for the Thessalonians, and his deep conviction that the Christ in whom he alone boasts, as he asserts in other letters, must be the one ultimately producing their faith and maturity.[7]
But Paul was worried for these Christians whom he loved so dearly, anxious that great afflictions might damage their young faith,[8] or that, as 3:5 indicates, the tempter might prove too savvy and seductive for them. Paul knows, and the Thessalonians know because Paul already taught it to them, that “we are destined for this.” The Christian’s lot in this life is to suffer. In addition to the hardness of life in a broken world of disease and death, Christ’s followers will also face active opposition from the enemy. Expect it. Don’t be shocked when it comes. Receive it as part of your God-given calling. Apparently, that’s a basic, foundational word for Christian life, since Paul made sure it was one of the few things he passed along to the newborn Thessalonian church in his short time with them.[9] It’s a sobering thought. And it was a disquieting thought for Paul in his separation from the Thessalonians, leading to “distress and affliction” of soul and sleepless nights out of concern for their faith.[10]
So, says Paul in 3:1, “when we could bear it no longer,” he sent his beloved Timothy to minister to the Thessalonians’ need and to bring report back to Paul about them.[11] And the report Timothy brought back was nothing short of “good news”: the Thessalonians’ faith and love were unshaken; their love and yearning for Paul was deep; they were standing firm in the Lord.[12] This good news stirs Paul up to thanksgiving and prayer: first thanksgiving in v. 9 about what has happened in the past; and then after thanksgiving, or along with it and fueled and informed by it, prayer in vv. 10–13, which looks to what is to come in the future.
It’s the prayer expressing Paul’s deep yearning for the Thessalonians that I’d especially like to zero in on. This is, I think, a simple way of getting at the main “message” of the letter,[13] since it stands to reason that what Paul wants to encourage in the lives of the Thessalonians by way of writing to them would be directly tied to what he wants God to do in their lives. What does Paul want God to do? He has two basic requests. He prays (1) in vv. 10–11, for reunion with the Thessalonians to see them “face to face”; and (2) in v. 12, for them to “increase and abound in love.”[14] Let’s begin our considerations with that second request—namely, Paul’s plea that the Lord would cause the Thessalonians’ love to abound. Why might the Thessalonians’ love be so important that it’s at the heart of Paul’s prayer for the church? We can highlight three reasons.
First, the Thessalonians’ growth in love is important to Paul because he wants them to be fully assured of their life in God, confident that their faith in Christ is genuine. Reformation Day was last weekend. One of the crucial insights in Reformation thought is that faith alone justifies, yet the faith which justifies is never alone.[15] Saving faith is not a dead faith, but, as Paul says in Gal 5:6, it works through love. It shows itself through love. Faith in Christ is an apple seed truly planted in our souls; love for neighbor is the apple. Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians’ love to abound can be understood as a desire for the Thessalonians’ faith to make itself known.
In 3:10, Paul indicates that he wants to be involved in filling up “what is lacking in your faith.” We could misunderstand that as a backdoor criticism, as if the church is failing somehow or has a deficient faith. It’s no deficiency in an apple seed that in itself it has no apples—rather, it means that the apple seed has yet to grow up into the fruitful life God has made it to enjoy. That’s the kind of lack in the Thessalonians’ faith that Paul wants to help fill up. The cultivation of their faith, the fruition of that faith in love, is what he longs to see.[16] In fact, they have already exhibited love, which Timothy in v. 6 has given an encouraging report of.[17] So Paul prays that they would mature all the more into the love they’ve already made a good start in,[18] so that they might grow all the more assured that their life with God and union to Christ is real.
In this way, Paul is persuaded, the Thessalonians we be prepared for the return of Christ. This is the purpose which Paul expressly states in v. 13 for his prayer: he wants God to cause them to abound in love, “so that he might establish their hearts blameless ... at the coming of our Lord Jesus.” Lives of love, springing from faith in Christ, result in our being strengthened and readied for Christ’s second coming. One day Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Paul wants the Thessalonians to experience what is rightfully theirs in Christ: not dread but an eager, earnest, joy-filled hope for that day. So he prays that they might abound in love now that they may be best prepared to receive the return of Christ.
Here’s a second reason why the Thessalonians’ love is crucial for Paul: he has a passion for God’s mission to all nations. Importantly, the love Paul prays for in v. 12 has not one but two objects: love “for one another, and for all.”[19] “One another” and “all”—who are these two groups? The “one another” seems fairly clear: it’s fellow members in the church. “Love one another” means “love brothers and sisters in Christ.” Identifying the “all” is more complicated, but if “one another” is believers in the church, then I think it makes most sense to view the “all” distinguished from them as the unbelieving world outside the church.[20] We have a special duty to love the church—“the household of faith,” as Paul calls us in a parallel verse in Gal 6:10—but that dovetails with our duty to love everyone else, all the nations among which we sojourn as aliens.
This assumes the ability to distinguish between the church and the nations. In the NT, the distinguishing marks are clear: the right position on today’s hot topics; rituals like wearing masks or not wearing masks, and checking in hourly on current events to stay “well informed”; fighting first, last, and always only for one’s self, one’s bloodlines, and one’s buddies; carefully cultivated speech habits to articulate how those who disagree with us are stupid, unloving, or worse. Of course, the NT nowhere suggests that these are what distinguishes the church from the world. It’s arguable, in fact, that they are what the unbelieving nations use as badges to divide among themselves. The church of God, as a kingdom distinct among the kingdoms of the world, has different identity markers: trust in the wisdom, justice, and mercy of King Jesus; allegiance to the King’s ways as best we can understand them; the rituals of being plunged into the waters that the King mercifully provides and feasting at the table that the King opens up to the undeserving and the outcast; and unshakable hope in his power, goodness, and promises.
Now it (almost) goes without saying that people of wildly different outlooks, dispositions, ages, colors, and zeals can, and always do, exhibit these fundamental traits of God’s family. Remarkably, what marks the church out as distinct among all the nations cuts across the dividing lines that characterize those nations, so that people who aren’t used to getting along and sharing life are thrown into the same household together—which means that loving one another in God’s kingdom is often incredibly hard! No wonder Paul prays for God almighty to help the Thessalonians love one another. It’s not something that comes “naturally” to us. We’re more used to dividing up according to our personal convictions and comfort levels, as if our decisions and desires are determinative of our duties to brothers and sisters in the church not the Father’s electing, adopting love. Wise, active love for everyone who fits under the umbrella of “one another” is not “natural” to our sinful selves, but only comes about by gospel power.
And when it comes about, what a testimony to the nations of a new and better way. I think this is partly why Paul puts love for one another before love for all. Truthful, Spirit-empowered love as a church is part of our truthful love and witness to the world. What an opportunity we have in these days of social chaos to manifest the glory of the gospel, which isn’t mere data but a drama taking shape on the ground, radically altering lives and histories—like it did for the Thessalonians. Warring tribes, which we never dreamed could be at peace, are being reconciled by the blood of the King into one new body, sitting down at one table to share bread and wine, confessing that it’s not their agreeing on everything that makes them one but the crucified and risen Lord. When that happens, then the nations must admit that there’s a God at work in the world, whose name is Father, Son, and Spirit, who does what every worldly kingdom-building project is impotent to do. As Jesus prays, when his people live and love as one, then the nations may be shaken awake to believe that the Father has sent him into the world for peace.
At the same time, what a tragedy it would be if, instead of living into this life, the confessing church chooses to segment itself based on lesser preferences or fears; functionally denying in practice our reconciliation into one body; contradicting, by the disdain in our spirit and rhetoric, our blood-won relationship to brothers and sisters who disagree with us; opting for and even enjoying “amicable separations” rather than learning how to grow into a hard and holy life together. What a tragedy if the life and language and disposition of the church makes it look like the gospel of Jesus Christ makes no difference for the “real world.”
I submit that this will be the most important, history shaping development of these days of unrest—not the outcome of elections, nor the length of pandemics, nor economic depressions or booms, but the success or failure of the church at living into the life Christ won for us, at being a people who lay our lives down in love for one another rather than dividing up into niche markets that mirror the divisions of the nations. If the church owns and practically enters the life that is its proper right in Christ, we might see the gospel bear fruit and multiply among the nations. That would be a development of history-altering proportions for the good.
This is, in fact, a third reason why Paul longs for the Thessalonians’ love to abound: Paul is passionate about the gospel.[21] In v. 6, he says that Timothy “brought good news” about the Thessalonians’ faith in Christ and its outworking in love. The verb Paul uses is virtually a technical term that refers everywhere else in his letters to preaching the gospel.[22] Apparently, Spirit-enabled sanctification is properly connected to the one and only gospel of Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension for our good, so that reporting on the Thessalonians’ growth in faith and love can be properly called “proclaiming good news.” And, as we’ve seen, the abounding of this love of the Thessalonians will also result in the gospel being fruitful and multiplying beyond the walls of the church, making inroads among all the nations. Paul’s deep concern for the Thessalonians’ love is bound up with his passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Abounding in love as a church is crucial. So our next question especially important: how does love come about? We could of course say, “By the grace of God; that’s why Paul prays to God for it.” But as true as that is, to leave it at that is to dodge a critical matter. For the God who strengthens love does so through ordinary means. God is now preserving the life of every one of us, and he’s doing so providentially through the means of oxygen and lungs and bloodstream. Similarly, God will cause the love of the church to abound, and he will do so through ordinary means. What are the means to growing in love? At least a couple are discernible in our text.
Remember, we noted earlier that Paul prays for two things in 3:10–13: he prays in v. 12 for God to cause the Thessalonians love to abound; he also prays in v. 11 that he might be reunited with them. Why does Paul want God to enable such a reunion? Paul wants this, he says in v. 10, in order that he “may complete what is lacking in your faith.” Personal presence is necessary for filling up what’s lacking in faith. It’s one important means God uses to grow love.[23]
The same point could be made by comparing God’s activity as expressed in Paul’s prayer with Timothy’s activity described earlier in the text. In v. 13, Paul prays for God to “establish” the Thessalonians. But in v. 2, Timothy is to “establish” them—same verb as in v. 12.[24] So who’s establishing the Thessalonians in love, Timothy or God? The answer is yes. God strengthens the faith and love of the Thessalonians through the presence and labor of servants like Timothy and Paul. The bodily presence of believers is one of the chief means by which God grows us in love.
The grace of God doesn’t zap us into loving people, or download loving feelings into our brains and hearts. Rather, the grace of God cultivates love by the hand of brothers and sisters who tend our lives day-to-day, who by personal presence can more effectively instruct us in the life of faith and love, who model love on the ground for us to imitate, who offer counsel, affirmation, rebuke, forgiveness and forbearance, wise responsiveness to the ups and downs of life, sharing of resources, and mutual service. If our conception of receiving grace from God doesn’t include these embodied and corporate realities, then we misunderstand God’s grace, and what it means to be human creatures, and what the church is. Ordinarily, God cultivates us to be truthful lovers through the means of the bodily presence and commitment and service of others.[25] In this conviction, Paul prays, “O God, cause the Thessalonians’ love to abound; and let me see them again face to face.”
But there’s a second means to love that appears in this text. It’s thanksgiving. Most commentators rightly note that all of chs. 1–3 is an extended thanksgiving, into which Paul weaves his history with the Thessalonians.[26] Paul begins in 1:2 with, “We give thanks to God always for you,” and vv. 3–10 explain why. After recalling his initial ministry among them in 2:1–12, Paul resumes his thanksgiving in 2:13: “We thank God constantly for this,” the Thessalonians’ reception of the word. Things culminate in our passage with Paul’s eruption in 3:9: “What thanksgiving can we return to God for you”—that is, for God’s work in your lives. Usually Paul’s opening thanksgivings last only a few verses.[27] But 1 Thess begins with a three- chapter-long thanksgiving. This is no accident. It’s an intentional pastoral strategy to equip the Thessalonians for self-sacrificial love in the days to come.[28] For the regular practice of thanksgiving is a crucial means to cultivating vibrant, persevering love. How does this work?
To help explain this, I’ll draw upon what everyone knows is unquestionably the best volume of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy.[29] The Horse and His Boy is a story about Shasta, the runaway orphan journeying to the freedom and hope of Narnia. On the way, he meets all sorts of difficulties, threats, and seeming dead ends, being chased by lions multiple times, spending a terrifying night in a graveyard with jackals all around and nothing but a cat for friendly company, going hungry and left alone repeatedly. The way is hard enough that we don’t fault Shasta for despairing near story’s end as he gets lost in a heavy fog. “I do think,” Shasta muses to himself, “that I must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world. Everything goes right for everyone except me.”[30] Just then, Shasta feels a presence in the fog—a Thing or a Person? Shasta cannot see. Then a Voice, “not loud, but very large and deep,”[31] addresses him. The Voice invites Shasta, “Tell me your sorrows.” And Shasta lets it all spill out: the loneliness, the difficulty, the dead ends, danger from lions, danger of starvation, and now this dangerous unidentified Voice in the fog. Then comes this justly famous dialogue:
“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta ... “There was only one [lion]: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with mouth open and said nothing, the
Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”[32]
It’s a great scene from a great story. My point here has to do with how we grow into realizing the truth of our stories. Before his encounter with the Voice, Shasta thought his life was a long story of abandonment and futility, with fearsome beasts all around. But it was a half-truth at best; actually, it was a wrong interpretation of his story. For through it all, the Lion was present, the only Lion who matters, always pouring kindness and severe mercy to fulfill good purposes. Shasta needed lenses to see what he was seeing in proper focus, for his vision was fuzzy. He only saw blurred forms of man-eating beasts, not a loving, strong, wise Lion.
Let us think of thanksgiving as putting on such lenses and as practice in seeing through them. Thanksgiving is practice in naming the Lion’s presence all around us, when we’re used to only seeing cats. Thanksgiving is not wishful thinking unanchored in reality. Paul isn’t thinking “positive, uplifting” thoughts with his mind. Rather, Paul gives God the thanks he is due since God has really been doing thanksgiving-worthy things, even in the afflictions he and the Thessalonians have experienced.[33] Thanksgiving involves paying attention to the right things, things that truly matter. As Christine Pohl observes in her excellent book Living into Community, “Gratitude and ingratitude are closely tied to what we notice.”[34] We need practice in noticing the right things. Intentional thanksgiving, formed according to the Word, is such practice.
If you’ve never seen the Invisible Gorilla experiment video, you should Google “invisible gorilla experiment” later today to find and watch the video.[35] But I’ll spoil it for you here: it’s a video of a circle of people—some dressed in white, some in black—who are running around passing a basketball. At the outset, viewers are told to count how many times players wearing white pass the basketball. The correct answer is 15, and almost every viewer gets it right. But according to a 1999 Harvard University experiment, only half of all viewers notice that midway through the video someone wearing a gorilla suit walks into the middle of the circle, pounds his chest, and walks away! I missed it when I first saw the video and followed its instructions.
It’s amazing and hilarious. The point of the experiment is to demonstrate what the researchers call “selective attention.” We see what we expect or want to see.[36] Our attention is incredibly selective. We think we’re just “seeing things straight,” oblivious that we are missing tons of things (perhaps even missing reality itself). We are creatures with tunnel vision, a fact that is exasperated by our sinful self-centeredness. But the practice of thanksgiving singles out for our consideration things we might be prone to miss in our selective attention.
Without thanksgiving, our hearts latch on to problems, perceived threats, and our felt powerlessness. Without the practice of thanksgiving, we fail to notice the signs of God’s presence, we begin to feel in our bones that God is not present, then we fall easy prey to fear and despair and rage, and to the gods of this world who are well-skilled at tugging on those heart strings. When we are generally oblivious to what God is doing in our lives, we, like Shasta, become convinced that we’re “the unluckiest people in the world.” When we’re not well-practiced in paying attention to what Christ is always doing to build his church—a church that is not just here and now, but stretches across the globe and the ages—we get well- practiced instead at bemoaning how society is “going to hell in a hand-basket,” and thinking that every major societal event just might be the crisis from which we can never recover. When we fail to notice how God is present to help and defend and accomplish his good purposes for us his beloved Bride, we end up fearful for our good, suspicious of everything outside of us, violently grasping at whatever vestiges of control we think remain, and postured for self- protection and self-defense, building up walls to keep the threats out—that is to say, we are postured for anything but self-giving, self-sacrificial love for one another and for all.
Thanksgiving is a means of freeing us from those fears; it’s part of how hearts freed for Christ-like love are cultivated. Paul gives extended thanks for God’s work in the affliction-filled lives of the Thessalonians, to help them not fixate on the hardship but to discern the Lion who is always present and working for their good.[37] Would that we, Grace Church, join in thanking God in and for all things, that we might be freed and strengthened to love one another and all.
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Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants do give you humble thanks and praise for all your goodness to us, and for your mercies which are new every morning for us and for all. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life. But above all, we thank you for your grace and kindness revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ for our redemption, for the means of grace given for our growth, and for our sure and unshakable hope of glory. What do we have that we have not received? And if received, how are we anything but humble debtors, helpless but beloved children?
We are, indeed, beloved children adopted in Christ. Thus, we are secure in your love and protection. So with hearts freed to turned outward to the need, the unrest, the difficulty all around us, we pray that you would bring peace. Work in our nation, so wracked as it presently is in turmoil. Direct the hearts and intentions of our leaders like a stream of water. Help them to uphold order and justice, and to recognize that they would have no authority except that you give it to them. Humble our hearts to trust you that your wisdom in setting them over us, while inscrutable, is nevertheless good. Yet we also pray, expose corruption, stop the machinations of the wicked, protect the defenseless. Empower us to pursue not our private prosperity and estate-building pursuits, but a quiet and peaceful life that we may be best mobilized to be on mission for “the least of these.” Wean the people of our nation off of the false supports and disordered projects that they are relying on (wean us off such false reliance, wherever it continues to crop up in our own lives); soften hearts to a true King whose way is goodness and truth and peace.
For the sick among us, we pray that you would comfort and heal. For the unemployed among us, we pray that you would encourage and provide in palpable ways even this week. Befriend the lonely. Heal the hurting. Lift up the downhearted. Grant us all wisdom to serve you and love our nearest neighbors, our actual neighbors, well. Build your church, add to our number, that we may give you still more thanks and praise as is right and fitting. May your glory fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen.
Notes:
1. With a view to ancient letter writing categories and practices, this section in Thessalonians, explain- ing past communications and setting forth future anticipations in the relationship between writer and recipient, fulfills a typical function within or at the conclusion of the bodies of ancient letters. It has been called by some a “body-closing” (for discussion, see F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, WBC 45 [Nashville: Nelson, 1982], 54), or an “apostolic parousia” in which Paul both renders present to churches his apostolic authority through messengers/ letters and prepares for his anticipated arrival (R. W. Funk, “The Apostolic Parousia: Form and Significance,” in Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, R. R. Niebuhr [Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967], 249–68). Attending more closely to ancient letter writing generic char- acteristics, Abraham Malherbe describes Thessalonians as an ancient “friendship letter,” most closely parallel in its structure to Philippians in the Pauline corpus (The Letters to the Thessalonians, AYB 32B [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000], 180–81; on the genre, especially as it relates to Philippians, see Loveday C. A. Alexander, “Hellenistic Letter-Forms and the Structure of Philippians,” JSNT 38 [1989]: 87–110; Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 2–39). Along these same lines, we can note that the Thessa- lonian letters are, along with Philippians and also Philemon, the only letters in the Pauline corpus in which Paul does not identify himself as an apostle to his recipients. (The fact that the Thessalonian letters are cowritten is no explanation of Paul’s not identifying himself as an apostle, for he does so clearly in the greeting of Colossians, which he wrote with Timothy.) Paul’s relationship with this church is different than with most of his other chur- ches. The Thessalonians, with the Philippians, are exceptional in causing him unreserved rejoicing (see below on the language of “crown” and “joy”; note also, more generally, 2 Cor 8:1–5).
2. Based on comparable use of the verb ἀπορφανίζω (and cognates) elsewhere, it seems most likely that Paul means to portray himself as orphaned (see G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, IVPNTC 13 [Downers Grove, IL: Inter- Varsity, 2003], 90–91. As Beverly Roberts Gaventa points out, Chrysostom, “who stands far closer to Paul’s Greek than do modern commentators,” was particularly emphatic on the point, expressly rejecting the softening (or de- concretizing) of the language to that of mere “separation” (First and Second Thessalonians, IBC [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1998], 41). Paul has not been shy about using bold metaphors to portray his relation to and affection for the Thessalonian church: in ch. 2, he portrays himself both in v. 7 as a nursing mother caring for the Thessa- lonians and in vv. 11–12 as an exhorting father to the church. Now in v. 17, so great is his love for and interdepen- dence with the Thessalonians, that he portrays himself as an orphaned child as a result of the great upheaval in the city that led to him having to depart from the Thessalonians in haste.
3. According to 2:18, “Satan hindered us” in multiple attempts to return. Though commentators have not hesitated to offer much speculation about just what that hindrance consisted of, Paul gives not a hint about the specifics. This is likely due, in part, to the fact that such details would have been well-known to Paul and the Thessalonians (Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 40; cf. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 187). But granting that assumption, the lack of express reference to historical specifics would suggest more fundamentally that they are not the point, however interesting we may find the speculative endeavor at historical reconstruction (cf. Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 42). The point of importance for Paul is not the nature and specifics of the hindrances he faced in trying to return, nor of the circumstances surrounding Paul being orphaned from the church; rather, what the text actually and emphatically expresses is the earnestness of attempt made by Paul, and thus also the earnestness of his love for the Thessalonians.
4. The repetitiveness and emphatic assertion is to the point of syntactical awkwardness and run-on sen- tences (Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 54; Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 40). Beale thinks that the insistence “to the point of awkwardness” may be indirect indication that Paul’s affection for the Thessalonians was being called into question by some (1–2 Thessalonians, 90, see also 101). But these expressions and assertions may be ade- quately understood as less self-aware and defensive than that. They are better read as the genuine, if syntactically cumbersome, overflow of Paul’s affection. Or differently but relatedly, it may be that such expressions are some-
what conventional in a letter of this sort (i.e., a “friendship letter”; note, e.g., the parallel expression of being sep- arated “in body only” in Ps.-Demetrius, Epistolary Types 1, cited in Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 181; see also 182). Thus, Paul might be less on the defensive against supposed criticisms and more in the mode of truthful and epistolographically proper declaration of good will (see further ibid., 181, 186–87).
5. It is an open question whether Paul’s “we” language in this passage (and throughout the letter) is generally editorial or actual. Those who incline toward historical reconstruction tend to take the first person plu- rals as indications of the presence of Paul’s partners/co-authors with Paul, and thus track the shifts between first plurals and first singulars as indications of a change in historical circumstance (e.g., Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, passim). Malherbe is representative of those who take the “we” as editorial (see, e.g., The Letters to the Thessaloni- ans, 185). For our purposes, I will treat the passage as indicative of Paul’s personal orientations and intentions. If nothing else, this is something of a lowest common denominator.
6. Bruce proposes the re-accenting of ἢ to ἦ in v. 19, so that the question interrupting the initially begun rhetorical question is not an alternative question but an answer (1 and 2 Thessalonians, 53; followed by Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 185; this reading is reflected in the ESV but not the NASB 2020). As he does for the Thessalonians in these verses, Paul also calls the Philippians his “joy and crown” in Phil 4:1.
See, e.g., 1 Cor 1:30–31; Gal 6:14.
The meaning of σαίνεσθαι in 3:3 has perturbed many interpreters, and led to many suggested emendations (see Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 59, 62).
9. In 3:4, Paul uses an uncommon and complex construction (present of μέλλω + present infinitive; a mere future would have been simpler) to emphasize the certainty/actuality of the matter (Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 194).
10. On “all our distress and affliction” as referring to something “more psychological than physical,” see Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 67.
11. Malherbe observes how great a loss the sending of Timothy likely was for Paul, as may be indicated by the use of the verb καταλείπω in 3:1 (The Letters to the Thessalonians, 190). More generally, Malherbe notes that Paul may be pastorally seeking to demonstrate empathy: he knows the Thessalonians’ plight of being afflicted and feel- ing alone (even “orphaned”) in a hostile environment (ibid., 196).
12. Strikingly, Paul says in 3:7 that he was comforted “through your faith.” As Gaventa comments, “Faith is not something that belongs to the individual or even the local congregation or church. Faith is public in that the beliefs and actions of individuals influence others” (First and Second Thessalonians, 47).
13. Zeroing in on what Paul prays for has an added advantage. Our fundamental longings and allegiances are shown forth in our moments of desperate, earnest, and regular prayer. Considering what Paul prays for specifically is a good way to focalize Paul’s fundamental longings and allegiances, the deepest yearnings of his heart. Paul has already in this letter commended the Thessalonians for imitating him (1 Thess 1:6). If we want also to imitate Paul, we would do well to see what drives and animates him as it is revealed in prayer.
14. Technically, v. 10 belongs together with the thanksgiving report of v. 9, and the prayer proper begins in v. 11. But since v. 10 also indicates the content of Paul’s praying, and since that content is basically the same as what is directly prayed for in v. 11, I will treat v. 10 together with the prayer proper in 3:11–13. This prayer has been called a “wish-prayer” due to its optative mood (see Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 70–71; also Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 45). It might be better named a benediction (see Robert Jewett, “The Form and Function of the Homiletic Benediction,” ATR 51 [1969]: 18–34, at 20–25). While there may be “no difference in principle” between the imperative prayer form and the optative benediction form (Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 74), we may rightly suggest differences of illocutionary action and communicative context. As Jewett notes, the form suggests a homiletical context (“The Form and Function of the Homiletic Benediction,” 22), and thus more generally a liturgi- cal context. The point would be underlined if “Amen” is the original reading at the end of 3:13, though the weight of external evidence is pretty evenly divided with perhaps a slightly greater degree of diversity of witness for its omission than for its inclusion. Whether original or added, its presence in the manuscripts highlights the liturgi- cal flavor of the benediction, since either Paul himself punctuated the benediction with the expected “Amen,” or later scribes, feeling the inherent force of the benediction, added an “Amen” reflexively. Though we will not spend time on the matter, the liturgical nature and function of this section (and of the letter as a whole, which was to be read in the public church assembly; see 5:27) is of great significance in “applying” the scriptural testimony to our present lives as the body of Christ.
15. The saying is often attributed to Martin Luther. While the judgment is surely present in many places of Luther’s writings, I have not (in my admittedly limited reading of Luther) found it in his writings. It was, how- ever, stated expressly by John Calvin: “I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. (Galatians 5:6; Romans 3:22.) It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justi- fies is not alone” (Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote, in vol. 3 of Calvin’s Tracts, trans. H. Beveridge [Edin- burgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1851], 152, emphasis added).
16. Since earlier in 3:6, Paul speaks of the good news of the Thessalonians’ faith and love, but doesn’t complete the expected triumvirate with hope (cf. 1:3), Gaventa wonders whether it is specifically strong or knowl- edgable hope that is “lacking” in their faith (3:10). The remaining chapters (esp. 4:13–18; also 5:1–11) certainly would then seek to address this lack (see Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 45). Malherbe is unconvinced (The Letters to the Thessalonians, 206). I, too, think that while strengthened hope is not unrelated to the maturing of the Thessalonians’ faith, nevertheless it is unnecessary to reduce the point to that. Rather, I am more inclined to see the two parts of Paul’s prayer in 3:10/11–13 as complementary and mutually interpretive—what is lacking is what Paul prays to see in abundance.
17. Also, Paul has already given thanks for their “labor of love” in the opening words of the letter in 1:3.
18. So similarly, later in 4:9–10, Paul will acknowledge that the Thessalonians have no need of anyone to exhort them concerning “brotherly love,” since apparently it is already present in abundance among them. Paul writes simply to urge them “to do this more and more.”
19. This twofold focus of our love is apparently really important to Paul, since he basically repeats the matter again at the conclusion of the letter in 5:15: “seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”
20. Admittedly, there’s some debate on the matter. Bruce thinks that this is surely not a reference, as has been suggested in the past, to the church as a whole in contrast to one group (the Gentiles) within it; rather, it refers to all humankind (1 and 2 Thessalonians, 72)—thus, Paul seeks love not really for two distinct groups but one group progressing to a larger whole which subsumes the first group. But for Beale, the contrast is indeed between two groups of Christians, but not within the Thessalonians community; rather, in comparison with 4:9–10 and 5:15, Paul wants love to abound for “one another” in the local church at Thessalonica and also for Christians of other places (1–2 Thessalonians, 109–10). Still differently, Malherbe thinks that Paul is thinking of love for one another (Christians) in Thessalonica and for “pagans who were present in the Christian assemblies” (The Letters to the Thes- salonians, 213). I’m inclined more toward Malherbe, since this seems to fit best with the closest parallels in 5:15 and Gal 6:10.
21. Really, this is simply a combination of the first two reasons considered above, or a proper naming of what they are about and accomplishing.
22. Bruce suggests that εὐαγγελίζομαι in 3:6 has a “non-technical sense,” but he fails to mention that this would be the only non-technical use in Paul’s letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians, 66). On the whole, Beale’s reading fol- lowed above is preferable (1–2 Thessalonians, 103–4), since there were plenty of other verbs of report that Paul could have used, and, on Bruce’s reading, we are left to wonder why Paul would choose a potentially misleading one (see also Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 200–201). Furthermore, in the immediately preceding con- text, Paul has especially focalized his preaching of the “gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον in 2:2, 4, 8, 9; 3:2; see also 1:5), so that when εὐαγγελίζω appears in 3:6, we expect it to have direct connection to the preceding focus.
23. Cf. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 108.
24. In fact, the same infinitive construction is used in 3:2 and 13: εἰς τὸ στηρίξαι ὑμᾶς/ὑμῶν τὰς καρδίας. This observation, and what we will make of it below, bears on the meaning of Paul’s description of Timothy as a συνεργὸν τοῦ θεοῦ in 3:2. I take it that Paul is calling Timothy God’s coworker in God’s work, understanding συνεργὸν τοῦ θεοῦ as a genitive of association (see also Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 61; Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 198–99). Beale, fearing a misunderstanding that Timothy is God’s equal, prefers the rendering “our co-worker for [or under] God” (1–2 Thessalonians, 96; in this Beale is not far from the motivations likely in play for the variants to συνεργὸν τοῦ θεοῦ in many manuscripts). But the language of “establishing” (εἰς τὸ στηρίξαι) ver- bally links God’s work with Timothy’s work, and we may understand God to be working through Timothy. Timothy may be properly called God’s coworker, not because he is God’s equal but because he is God’s instrument/means.
25. The modifier “ordinarily” is important. As the Westminster Confession of Faith acknowledges, “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure” (5.3, emphasis added). The aim above is to awaken us to our creaturely design and to warn us against presump- tion, not to limit God and render us innocuous to surprise.
26. For example, Malherbe describes chs. 1–3 as Paul’s “extended autobiographical thanksgiving” (The Letters to the Thessalonians, 179; cf. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 107). In this light, the prayer of vv. 11–13 can be under- stood as transitional—both the logical end/conclusion of chs. 1–3 (cf. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 111–12), and an anti- cipation/introduction to the parenetic section of the letter. What we have in 3:9–13 is, then, a convenient summa- ry of the content and structure of the letter, as well as an important reflection on the nature and dynamics of responsive prayer: taking thanksgiving (i.e., what God has been doing) as its cue, Paul prays for God to continue doing the very things he has been and is committed to doing among the Thessalonians, which prepares the way for Paul to take up his calling to play a role in that work in the chapters ahead.
27. See, e.g., Rom 1:8–15; 1 Cor 1:4–9; Eph 1:15–16; Phil 1:3–11; Col 1:3–8. Something similar to 1 Thess may also be at work in 2 Thess (note 1:3ff. and 2:13–15), though not a few scholars think that 2 Thess is somehow copying 1 Thess. For discussion and for a detailed examination of the related question of authorship, see Ernest Best, A Commentary on the First and Second Letter to the Thessalonians, HNTC (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 50–57; and Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 349–75.
28. On the pastoral nature and function of 1 Thess, see esp. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, pas- sim (e.g., 78, 80, 373). As Malherbe comments, “The pastoral dimension of Paul’s writings, which was appreciated by the ancient commentators, in particular John Chrysostom and Theodoret, deserves more attention from mod- ern scholars than it has received” (ibid., xi).
29. This is not only self-evidently true, but it is also confirmed by the authority of the internet: Tyler Huckabee, “‘The Horse and His Boy’ Is the Best Narnia Book and It’s Not Up For Debate,” Relevant Magazine, October 8, 2018, https://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/the-horse-and-his-boy-is-the-best-narnia-book-and-its-not-up-for-debate/.
30. C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy (New York: Harper Trophy, 2000), 161, emphasis original.
31. Ibid., 163.
32. Ibid., 164–65.
33. The point here is twofold. First, the speech act of thanksgiving is a necessarily and meaningfully different act than mere “thinking positive thoughts” and having an optimistic disposition. Paul is not just articu- lating an orientation, but speaking forth thanks addressed to God. The difference of action is crucial. Second, Paul’s honest acknowledgement that his and the Thessalonians’ lives are, indeed, affliction-filled (3:3–4, 7) and subject to attack from the enemy (2:18; 3:5) also protects his thanksgiving from being unanchored in reality (or being a species of what we’ll call below “selective attention”). Thanksgiving to God in everything (see 5:18) and for everything (see Eph 5:20) is not to be equated with fatalism or quietism or resignation/ignorance about the evil in the world and in our lives. Paul is able, in one breath, to acknowledge that God is at work for his good and that in these same circumstances “Satan hindered us.”
34. Christine D. Pohl, Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 19.
35. It’s available at http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html.
36. In Annie Dillard’s wonderful words, “My eyes account for less than one percent of the weight of my head; I’m bony and dense; I see what I expect” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1st Perennial Classics ed. [New York: Harper- Collins, 1998], 20).” As Dillard importantly goes on to immediately to observe, “The lover can see, and the knowl- edgeable.” We can be apprenticed in seeing well. In this context, thanksgiving is part of that apprenticeship, and this assumes (though this is only implicit above) that we must be led in this practice.
37. Thus, we can describe Paul’s pastoral strategy in chs. 1–3 as exercising the Thessalonians’ ability to properly and theologically interpret their experience. For example, with respect to the Satanic hindrances he expe- rienced (2:18), Gaventa notes that Paul’s retrospect does not resort to socio-political or psychological explanation; rather, “Paul interprets this situation theologically,” as an instantiation of the great apocalyptic battle of which he is a part (First and Second Thessalonians, 42; see further 47, with respect to Paul’s prayer). While this is, for Paul, an exercise in apostolic authority (though perhaps it is telling that 1 Thess lacks self-designation as an “apostle” in the greeting; also true of Phil; 2 Thess; Philem), Paul’s effort overlaps with a crucial exercise in Christian friend- ship—namely, narrating the Thessalonians experience and situation according to the biblical story (for discussion of this important understanding of “friendship,” see Stephen E. Fowl, Philippians, THNTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], 220, 222–23).
This resource is part of the series In All Circumstances – A Theology of Gratitude. Click Here to explore more resources from this series.
Dan Brendsel is Associate Pastor, College & 20s Life Minister, Mission Training Academy, and Corporate Worship Minister at Grace Church of DuPage in Warrenville, IL. He holds a PhD in New Testament and Biblical Theology from Wheaton College. Dan is a member of the St. John Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
