THESSALONIKA was a major city in Macedonia (northern Greece). lt was near Mount Olympus, fabled home of the Greek gods. The city still stands today; it's called Salonika.
Because the congregation there contained both Greek and Hebrew members, Paul began his first letter to them with his usual greeting, combining the Greek "grace" (charis) and the Hebrew "peace" (shalom}. His letter is generally one of personal encouragement.
1 Thessalonians contains just one important doctrinal passage (4:135:11). But this is one of the most crucial passages in the Bible about Christ's second coming at the end of the world.
"We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.... For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of the trumpet of God.
"And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words."
These words are not mere "comfort," they are also true. Paul isn't telling fairy tales to children. The issue is serious: It's a matter of life and death. The Thessalonians had apparently become distressed over the death of some of their members, ,and Paul comforts them with the truth that all believers in Christ will be united and resurrected at His second coming.
Unlike many modern "nuancers," Paul was very clear about the literalness and the absolute necessity of the Resurrection: For "if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Cor 15:14).
In I Thessalonians, as in all his letters, Paul joins doctrine and practice. dogma and ethics, theology and morality. His connecting point here is that since we'll live again in resurrected form when Christ comes, we should live now in a spirit of preparation. Life is a rehearsal for that great event. The play gives meaning to the rehearsal.
This means at least eight specificthings; eight practical consequences, in the present life, of Christ's future second coming:
1) hope, encouragement and comfort (4:I8);
2) alertness, openeyed expectation (5:4);
3) firmness, "standing fast in the Lord''(3:8);
4) critical questioning (5:21: ''Test everything, hold fast what is good"); .
5) sobriety, both mental and physical (5:6);
6) "rejoice always";
7) "pray constantly";
8) "give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ Jcsus for you" (cf. Rom 8:28).
Everytthing in our lives should be transformed by this hope of our ultimate end. The best practical way to discern whether anything is good or evil is to ask: Would I want Jesus to find me doing this when He comes again?
The Second Coming is not a strange myth to be tucked away in some remote corner of our mind but a truth to be lived daily, like everything in the Bible. God's revelation is not mistyeyed escapism but cleareyed realism. For no event in history is as important, as spectacular or as final as the final event, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire" 12 Thes 1:7).
2 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians is the second stage of the story Paul uses in trying to teach the Thessalonians the real implications of the doctrine of the Second Coming. It's essential to get this doctrine right, for it's close to center stage in the Christian Gospel. It is mentioned no less than 318 times in the New Testament.
The Thessalonians had misunderstood Paul's teaching in two ways.
First, they seem to have,thought they knew how soon Christ would come, even though Christ Himself did not (Mt 24:36) and even though Paul too had told them that He would come not when expected, but "like a thief in the night" (1 Thes 2:51.)
Second, some had given up their jobs and were just waiting around idling, until the end, even though Paul had explicitly warned them about this in 1 Thessalonians 4:1112, "to aspire and live quietly, to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands, as we charge you, so that you may command the respect of outsiders and be dependent on nobody."
But Paul had to repeat his warning against idleness in his second letter (3:6) and lay down the common sense economic principle which is no longer common sense today that "if an' one will not work, let him not eat" (3:10). (This was not universally recognized in Paul's day either; Rome was soon to grow into a welfare state of ''bread and circuses." )
It's enlightening to see the oneness of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, right doctrine and right life, throughout the New Testament. The Thessalonians' misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Second Coming necessarily had disastrous effects in their lives.
Even today this doctrine is more of a touchstone of orthodoxy than most of us realize. The mistake Paul corrects in I Thessalonians is essentially the same mistake that's made bv many modern theologians: ignoring. denying or reducing to myth and symbolism the Second Coming. And the mistake Paul corrects in 2 Thessalonians apparently made in misunderstanding to the response to Paul s first letter, is essential!, the same mistake that s made by many modern fundamentalists and extremist sects: a fixation with the imminence of the Second Coming.
Modernism ignores the next life for this one; fundamentalism ignores this life for the next; orthodoxy sees the two as mutually reinforcing, like life before birth and life after birth.
Paul uses the Old Testament term "the day of the Lord" to refer to Christ's second coming. In the Old Testament this is a phrase full of mystery; what's clear about it is that it will be the time when God does His greatest work in history and inaugurates a radically new era. The fact that no one understood very well just what that work was to be, is shown by the fact that no one understood Christ when He came, neither His enanies nor His friends, not even His Apostles. Even His mother was puzzled.
The term "day" (yom in Hebrew) does not necessarily mean a literal 24 hour day, but a period of time- perhaps a very long time. The six "days" of creation in Genesis 1, for instance, took millions of years.
When Paul spoke of "the day of the Lord" to the Thessalonians he meant the last times, the last era in world history. In one sense this era had come already with Christ's first coming; but in another sense (the one Paul emphasizes here) it had not yet come, for there are certain events that have to happen before the end, such as the appearance of "the man of lawlessness . . . the son of perdition:' i.e., the Antichrist (2:34).
The practical results of correct belief about Christ's second coming "like a thief in the night" should be to work for our salvation, for others' welfare, and above all for their salvation through the spread of the Good News throughout the world while there is still time, while the light lasts. This is just the opposite of laziness; it is not leaving your job but adding a new job. lf every Christian lived out his essential missionary vocation, the world would be reconverted in one generation.
Since we do not know the day or the hour, we must be ready at any time, not by doing nothing but by doing everything, by knowing and doing the whole of God's will for us.
As a bumper sticker I saw on a college campus put it, "Prepare for your finals: Read your Bible."
Peter Kreeft is the author of many books including "Making Choices'' (Servant Books) and Back to Virtue (Ignatius).
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