Toward Understanding Thessalonians

Toward Understanding ThessaloniansThe message of the New Testament books becomes more meaningful for us if we are acquainted with the setting out of which they came. Unless we know the essential factors in the background of the various documentsthe circumstances which called them forth and the object which the writers had in viewwe cannot grasp the full force of their contents. There are important reasons why the Epistles to the church at Thessalonica are a challenging area of

The message of the New Testament books becomes more meaningful for us if we are acquainted with the setting out of which they came. Unless we know the essential factors in the background of the various documents―the circumstances which called them forth and the object which the writers had in view―we cannot grasp the full force of their contents.

There are important reasons why the Epistles to the church at Thessalonica are a challenging area of investigation. They occupy a unique chronological position in the formation of the New Testament. With the possible exception of the Epistle to the Galatians, First and Second Thessalonians are the earliest extant letters of Paul, and as such they may well be the first canonical New Testament writings to come down to us (unless possibly they are antedated by the Epistle of James). Therefore all that we can learn about these earlier literary productions of the Apostle of the Gentiles will contribute to our understanding of the later and more complex Pauline letters.