In last week’s Blog we discussed what it meant to be a Roman Colony. This week we finish reading the letters to Thessalonica. Thessalonica was a free city not a Roman Colony. There are several cities that Paul visited that were free cities. Cities such as Athens, Ephesus, and Thessalonica were all free cities. Its citizens were not Roman citizens as were the citizens of Roman colonies like Philippi and Corinth. What is a free city? These cities did, however, have a number of advantages over other cities in the Roman provinces but because their status as a free city could be changed easily by the Roman Government the local government officials had to be careful that they governed well and that no riots got out of hand. Free cities were governed by their own local officials, they had their own constitution and city council, and they did not have to pay taxes to Rome. They could even mint their own coins, and Rome could not have a military presence within its walls.
If you have a Bible Dictionary or Study Bible it’s always helpful to read the article in the dictionary about the city the letter is addressed to or in your Study Bible read the Introduction to the book. Reading these articles will give you important background information. Why is background information important? We need to always remember the Bible was written at a time and for a people whose culture was vastly different from our own and as we correctly understand its message to them, we can then apply it correctly to ourselves. As John Stott put it so well,
Whenever we pick up the Bible and read it, even in a contemporary version like the Good News Bible, we are conscious of stepping back two millennia or (in the case of the Old Testament) even more. We travel backwards in time, behind the microchip revolution, the electronic revolution, the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution, until we find ourselves in an alien world which long ago ceased to exist. In consequence, the Bible feels odd, sounds archaic, looks obsolete and smells musty.1
The major theme in both First and Second Thessalonians is the Second Coming of Christ. In First Thessalonians the Second Coming is mentioned in every chapter. We don’t know how long Paul was in Thessalonica establishing the church. We are told he spoke in the Synagogue on three Sabbaths Acts 17:2-3. Interestingly Luke doesn’t mention anything about the Second Coming being taught in the Synagogue so Paul must have spent some time teaching after leaving the Synagogue and before the Jews stirred up trouble that forced him to leave town. Many scholars believe Paul’s stay in Thessalonica would have been from two to four months. The letter of First Thessalonians was written from Corinth (cf. 1 Thess. 3:5 and Acts 18:5) just a few months after the church was established. There is little in Second Thessalonians to indicate when it was written but since Paul states in the first verse of Second Thessalonians that both Silvanus and Timothy are with him as they were when he wrote First Thessalonians it is believed that Second Thessalonians was also written during Paul’s 18 month stay at Corinth. One reason that Paul writes Second Thessalonians was to correct some misunderstandings some member of the church had concerning the Second Coming. There were some being taught that the Day of the Lord had already come (2 Thess. 2:2-3). Others believed that Christ’s second coming was so imminent that they had quit their jobs and stopped working (2 Thess. 3:10). To help counter the first false teaching Paul used the Greek word Parousia seven times in these letters that is translated ‘coming’ in our English versions. It literally means ‘presence.’ It is a coming to be present. Paul’s use of this word says ‘no way’ to only a ‘spiritual’ coming.
1 J. R. W. Stott, The Contemporary Christian: Applying God’s Word to Today’s World (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 186. Cited in McKnight, Scot. 1995. Galatians. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
