Readings
- Exodus 34:1–17
- 1 Thessalonians 2:13–20
- Matthew 5:21–26
- Psalms: 50; [59, 60] or 114, 115
Catching up: 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12
I was sick yesterday and missed Wednesday's reading, 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12. A short summary, drawn from the New Interpreter's Bible commentary, before we get to today's text.
In 2:1–12 Paul defends his integrity to the Thessalonians. He reminds them that he came to them despite the "shameful treatment" he had received in Philippi (2:2), that his motives were pure, his words sincere, his conduct blameless. The repeated formula "you yourselves know" ( and its variants, "you remember," "you are witnesses") appears nine times in the letter and binds Paul to the Thessalonians through a foundation of shared knowledge. Paul is not asking them to take his word for it; he is reminding them of what they themselves saw.
The most memorable images in this section are familial. Paul compares himself to a nurse "tenderly caring for her own children" (2:7). The verb behind "caring" is thalpein, "to warm," with an evocation of a mother bird warming her eggs. He then compares himself to a father, "urging and encouraging" his children to lead "a life worthy of God" (2:11–12). In a Greco-Roman culture saturated with patronage and power, Paul reaches for the most low-status caregiving images he can find. That is deliberate. The apostle who could have made demands (2:6) — that's literally what the verse says — chose nursing and parenting as his self-portraits instead.
1 Thessalonians 2:13–20
We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers.
For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins, but wrath has overtaken them at last.
As for us, brothers and sisters, when for a short time we were made orphans by being separated from you — in person, not in heart — we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. For we wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again — but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!
Notes
Three movements today. A second thanksgiving for the Thessalonians' reception of the gospel; a difficult and historically dangerous passage about persecution and the Ioudaioi; and a tender finish in which Paul calls these people his glory.
Verse 13. "When you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers."
This verse has been put to work in ways Paul did not have in view. Some Christians have used it to ground claims about Scripture being inerrant—the word of God at work in you—but Paul is not talking about Scripture here. He is talking about his preaching. The "word of God" he means is the oral proclamation of the gospel about Jesus that he, Silvanus, and Timothy delivered when they were planting the church. Paul has nothing in mind here that resembles a closed canon of texts. Bibliolatry retrojects later concerns onto verses that weren't trying to settle them.
What Paul is saying is striking enough on its own terms: the Thessalonians heard the gospel as God's own address to them, and the word started doing something in them. Energeitai, at work, energizing, present tense, ongoing.
Verses 14–16. "You suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Ioudaioi, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone… wrath has overtaken them at last."
For centuries this passage was read as a blanket condemnation of the Jews, and it has done staggering damage. Two interpretive moves are worth holding here. Neither fully resolves the discomfort, and that is appropriate.
First, Ioudaioi, traditionally rendered "Jews," can also be translated simply as "Judeans," that is, the inhabitants of Judea. The argument Paul is actually making is: the Thessalonian believers are being persecuted by their own compatriots, just as the believers in Judea were persecuted by theirs. The point of comparison is fellow citizens persecuting fellow citizens, not Gentile-versus-Jew. Read this way, Paul is condemning a specific group: the Judean elites who handed Jesus over, killed prophets, opposed the Gentile mission, not the Jewish people as a whole. This is, incidentally, the same posture Jesus takes when he weeps over Jerusalem: not anti-Jewish sentiment but Jewish prophetic critique of Jewish leadership.
Second, some scholars have argued that 2:14–16 is a later interpolation — non-Pauline material inserted after Paul's death. The strongest evidence is the closing line, "wrath has overtaken them at last" (or eis telos, "until the end"), which sounds like it was written after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Paul died in the early 60s. If the interpolation theory is right, the harshest line in the passage isn't from Paul at all. The textual evidence is contested and not decisive, but the theory is real, not fringe.
Either move softens the apparent ethnic condemnation. Christians who keep using this passage as a club against Jewish communities are reading it the way the worst tradition has taught them to.
Verses 17–20. Now Paul turns tender. "When for a short time we were made orphans by being separated from you." The Greek is aporphanizō — to be orphaned, bereaved. Notice the direction of the metaphor. Paul is the child, separated from his parents. He has been comparing himself to a nurse and a father; now he flips and casts himself as the bereaved one. The Thessalonians are who he misses like a child misses his mother and father.
Verse 18. "Satan blocked our way." Striking. We don't know what specifically Paul has in mind but he attributes the blockage to a personal adversary, not just bad luck.
Verse 19. "What is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?" The word for crown is stephanos, not necessarily the royal crown of a king but the victor's wreath awarded to the winner of an athletic contest. Paul says: when Jesus returns and asks what I'm proud of, the trophy I will hold up is not my résumé. It's the people. Is it not you?
Verse 20 simply confirms the answer. Yes, you are our glory and joy.
Questions for reflection
"You accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word." Where in your life have you treated something as a divine word that was actually only a human one — and where have you dismissed as merely human a word that was genuinely from God?
Paul's victor's wreath is the people he has loved into the kingdom. If Jesus asked you tomorrow what's in your trophy case, what would you point at?
