The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians
1 FROM PAUL, Sylvanus, and Timothy to the congregation of Thes-
salonians who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace.
We always thank God for you all, and mention you in our prayers con-
tinually. We call to mind, before our God and Father, how your faith has
shown itself in action, your love in labour, and your hope of our Lord Jesus
Christ in fortitude. We are certain, brothers beloved by God, that he has
chosen you and that when we brought you the Gospel, we brought it not
in mere words but in the power of the Holy Spirit, and with strong con-
viction, as you know well. That is the kind of men we were at Thessalonica,
and it was for your sake.
And you, in your turn, followed the example set by us and by the Lord;
the welcome you gave the message meant grave suffering for you, yet you
rejoiced in the Holy Spirit; thus you have become a model for all believers
in Macedonia and in Achaia, From Thessalonica the word of the Lord
rang out; and not in Macedonia and Achaia alone, but everywhere your
faith in God has reached men's ears. No words of our are needed, for they
themselves spread the news of our visit to you and its effect: how you turned
from idols, to be servants of the living and true God, and to wait expec-
tantly for the appearance from heaven of his Son Jesus, whom he raised
from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the terrors of judgement to come.
2 You know for yourselves, brothers, that our visit to you was not fruitless.
Far from it; after all the injury and outrage which to your knowledge we
had suffered at Philippi, we declared the gospel of God to you frankly and
fearlessly, by the help of our God. A hard struggle it was. Indeed, the appeal
we make never springs from error or base motive; there is no attempt to
deceive; but God has approved us as fit to be entrusted with the Gospel,
and on those terms we speak. We do not curry favour with men; we seek
only the favour of God, who is continually testing our hearts. Our words
have never been flattering words, as you have cause to know; nor, as God
is our witness, have they ever been a cloak for greed. We have never sought
honour from men, from you or from anyone else, although as Christ's own
envoys we might have made our weight felt; but we were as gentle with you
as a nurse caring fondly for her children. With such yearning love we chose
to impart to you not only the gospel of God but our very selves, so dear had
you become to us. Remember, brothers, how we toiled and drudged. We
work for a living night and day, rather than be a burden to anyone, while
we proclaimed before you the good news of God.
We call you to witness, yes and God himself, how devout and just and
blameless was our behaviour towards you who are believers. As you well
know, we dealt with you one by one, as a father deals with his children,
appealing to you by encouragement, as well as by solemn injunctions, to
live lives worthy of the God who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
This is why we thank God continually, because when we handed on
God's message, you received it, not as the word of men, but as what it truly
is, the very word of God at work in you who hold the faith. You have
fared like the congregations in Judaea, God's people in Christ Jesus. You
have been treated by your countrymen as they are treated by the Jews,
who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out, the Jews
who are heedless of God's will and enemies of their fellow-men, hindering
us from speaking to the Gentiles to lead them to salvation. All this time
they have been making up the full measure of their guilt, and now retribu-
tion has overtaken them for good and all.
MY FRIENDS, when for a short spell you were lost to us — lost to sight, not
to our hearts — we were exceedingly anxious to see you again. So we did
propose to come to Thessalonica — I, Paul, more than once — but Satan
thwarted us. For after all, what hope or joy or crown of pride is there for
us, what indeed but you, when we stand before our Lord Jesus at his
coming? It is you who are indeed our glory and our joy.
3 So when we could bear it no longer, we decided to remain alone at
Athens, and sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow-worker in the
service and gospel of Christ, to encourage you to stand firm for the faith
and, under all these hardships, not to be shaken; for you know that this
is our appointed lot. When we were with you we warned you that we were
bound to suffer hardship; and so it has turned out, as you know. And thus
it was that when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith,
fearing that the tempter might have tempted you and my labour might
be lost.
But now Timothy has just arrived from Thessalonica, bringing good
news of your faith and love. He tells us that you always think kindly of us,
and are as anxious to see us as we are to see you. And so in all our diffi-
culties and hardships your faith reassures us about you. It is the breath of
life to us that you stand firm in the Lord. What thanks can we return to
God for you? What thanks for all the joy you have brought us, making us
rejoice before our God while we pray most earnestly night and day to be
allowed to see you again and to mend your faith where it falls short?
May our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, bring us direct to
you; and may the Lord make your love mount and overflow towards one
another and towards all, as our love does towards you. May he make your
hearts firm, so that you may stand before our God and Father holy and
faultless when our Lord Jesus comes with all those who are his own.
4 AND NOW, MY FRIENDS, we have one thing to beg and pray of you, by
our fellowship with the Lord Jesus. We passed on to you the tradition of the
way we must live to please God; you are indeed already following it, but
but we beg you to do so yet more thoroughly.
For you know what orders we gave you; in the name of the Lord Jesus.
This is the will of God, that you should be holy : you must abstain from
fornication; each one of you must learn to gain mastery over his body, to
hallow and honour it, not giving way to lust like the pagans who are
ignorant of God; and no man must do his brother wrong in this matter,
or invade his rights, because, as we told you before with all emphasis, the
Lord punishes all such offences. For God called us to holiness, not to
impurity. Anyone therefore who flouts these rules is flouting, not man, but
God who bestows upon you his Holy Spirit.
About love for our brotherhood you need no words of mine, for you re
yourselves taught by God to love one another, and you are in fact pactis-
ing this rule of love towards all your fellow-Christians throughout Mace-
donia. Yet we appeal to you, brother, to do better still. Let it be your
ambition to keep calm and look after your own business, and to work with
your hands, as we ordered you, so that you may command the respect of
those outside your own number, and at the same time may never be in want.
WE WISH YOU not to remain in ignorance, brothers, about those who
sleep in death; you should not grieve like the rest of men, who have no
hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again; and so it will be for those
who died as Christians; God will bring them to life with Jesus.
For this we tell you as the Lord's word: we who are left alive until the
Lord comes shall not forestall those who have died; and because at the word of
command, at the sound of the archangel's voice and God's trumpet-call,
the Lord himself will descend from heaven; first the Christian dead will
rise, then we who are left alive shall join them, caught up in clouds to meet
the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. Console one
another, then, with these words.
5 About dates and times, my friends, we need not write to you. for you
know perfectly well that the Day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
While they are talking of peace and security, all at once calamity is upon
them, suddenly as the pangs that come upon a woman with child; and there
will be no escape. But you, my friends, are not in the dark, that the day
should overtake you like a thief. You are all children of the light, children of
day. We do not belong to night or darkness, and we must not sleep like
the rest, but keep awake and sober. Sleepers sleep at night, drunkards
are drunk at night, but we, who belong to daylight, must keep sober,
armed with faith and love for coat of mail, and hope of salvation for
helmet. For God has not destined us to the terrors of judgement, but to the
full attainment of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us
so that we, awake or asleep, might live in company with him. Therefore
hearten one another, fortify one another — as indeed you do.
WE BEG YOU, BROTHERS, to acknowledge those who are working so hard
among you, and in the Lord's fellowship are your leaders and counsellors.
Hold them in the highest possible esteem and affection for the work they do.
You must live at peace among yourselves. And we would urge you,
brothers, to admonish the careless, encourage the faint-hearted, support
the weak, and to be very patient with them all.
See to it that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but always aim at doing
the best you can for each one and for all men.
Be always joyful; pray continually; give thanks whatever happens; for
this is what God in Christ wills for you.
Do not stifle inspiration, and do not despise prophetic utterances, but
bring them all to the test and then keep what is good in them and avoid the
bad of whatever kind.
May God himself, the God of peace, make you holy in every part, and
keep you sound inspirit, soul, and body, without fault when our Lord
Jesus Christ comes. He who calls you is to be trusted; he will do it.
Brothers, pray for us also.
Greet all our brothers with the kiss of peace.
I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to the whole brother-
hood.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Oct 6, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC
20