Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: Paul begins this section by recognizing the suffering of the Thessalonians and comparing it to the suffering of the first Christians at the hands of the Jewish authorities. It was the Gentiles of Thessalonica, however, who persecuted the church there. Although the Jewish establishment in Thessalonica hated the Christians, and stirred up trouble for them, the Jews were themselves a rather small minority and so had less impact. We can see that Paul intends verse 14 to be backhanded praise. He is not happy to see the Thessalonians suffering, but nevertheless, to be persecuted in the name of Jesus is honorable—even glorious. Paul equates their persecution by the Greeks to the persecution and execution of Jesus, Stephen, and the prophets by the Jewish elite in Jerusalem: the Pharisees and Sadducees who dominated the Sanhedrin. The church of Jerusalem was the original “church,” the site of the Pentecost, and in the first century A.D. was the center of Christianity, playing much the same role as the Vatican plays to Catholicism today. While the church at Antioch had probably outgrown it by 50 A.D., the Jerusalem church was still pre-eminent. When a theological question arose in Antioch, they deferred to James in Jerusalem. Acts 15. Even when Peter and Paul both went to Rome (largely for their personal safety!), and although Rome was the capital of the huge Empire, the Roman church’s claim to central authority in the Empire accumulated slowly and gradually; John wrote a gospel from Ephesus around 90 or 100 A.D. Rabbit ringing a church bell Gentile persecution was also a new phenomenon when 1 Thessalonians was written. The Greeks and Romans, unlike the Jews, did not engage in the systematic persecution of Christians until the edict of Emperor Valerian in 253 A.D. (For Roman history buffs, it was actually an emperor named Decius who first criminalized Christianity, in 250 A.D., but he only lived 18 months. Valerian, who took the purple in 253 A.D., is considered the great systematic persecutor of Christianity.) On the other hand, very bloody local Christian persecutions erupted sporadically — most famously, Nero feeding Christians to dogs and burning them alive as torches for his garden parties. But Nero had nothing against Christians as such; he simply designated them as the scapegoats for the great fire that destroyed Rome in 64 A.D. Paul’s sympathy with the Thessalonian suffering leads him into a tangent, a vitriolic criticism of what we might call the Judeans. Jesus was persecuted and executed by the Sanhedrin, and thus by the sects of Judaism that controlled it, primarily Pharisees and Sadducees. Stephen, standing in the Sanhedrin, was stoned for comparing them to the Jewish rulers who had murdered so many prophets during the two-kingdom period. (Acts 7:51-53.) (Jesus frequently blamed them for killing the prophets, e.g. Luke 11:51, Matthew 23:29-33.) Paul was hardly “anti-Semitic.” He, like most other early Christians, was himself a Jew by birth. He actually continued to practice Judaism after his conversion. But he rightfully castigated the Jewish religious establishment for the evils it committed against Christ and his followers. Note also that Paul does not suggest or hint at any sort of revenge (unlike centuries of misguided Christian leaders in later years). He tells us that they will suffer God’s wrath which, together with his conduct, demonstrates full acceptance of Christ’s teaching not to resist evil people. He left their judgment to God. Just so nobody misreads Paul, he will later write a long piece in Romans 11 on how many of the Jews will be “grafted back” into the tree of life, i.e. be accepted into the Kingdom of God, as they accept Christ and their sins are forgiven. And in this regard, we must also remember that Paul is not simply Jewish by birth, but was a primary perpetrator of violence against Christians before his conversion; by his own life, he proves that forgiveness is possible for all, Jew and Gentile alike, no matter what their sins.