Unlocking 1 Thessalonians: Greek Insights & Early Christian Context with Zac McNeal

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen sits down with Zac McNeal, a New Testament PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, to delve into the timeless message of 1 Thessalonians.

Together, they uncover profound insights from the Greek text, explore Paul’s message to a Greco-Roman audience, and examine cultural concepts like patronage that shaped the early Christian community. They also discuss how Paul’s teachings on manual labour, suffering, and Christ’s return offer encouragement and hope for both ancient and modern readers.

Whether you’re passionate about theology, fascinated by biblical languages, or seeking practical applications for your faith, this episode provides a rich exploration of 1 Thessalonians and its enduring relevance for today.

Don’t Miss the Next Episode:
Our next episode is a special Christmas edition, The Christmas Story According to Paul.  Join Daniel as he explores Paul’s unique perspective on the Incarnation and God’s redemptive plan in select Pauline texts.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
01:45 - Introducing Guest: Zac McNeal, A New Testament PhD Candidate
02:57 - The Importance of Biblical Languages
06:35 - Key Insights from the Greek Text
08:42 - How Greek Sentence Structure Shapes Meaning
11:48 - A Powerful Example of Why Greek Matters
15:28 - Unlocking 1 Thessalonians: Context and Themes
17:10 - How Paul Spoke to a Greco-Roman Audience
20:20 - Patronage in Early Christianity: Paul’s Use of Cultural Concepts
23:48 - Why Paul Wrote 1 Thessalonians
26:37 - Finding Hope in Suffering and Eschatology
28:21 - Why Paul’s Arrival in Thessalonica Was Significant
29:51 - Paul’s Radical View on Manual Labour
35:03 - Paul’s Vulnerability and Love for the Thessalonians
39:48 - Why Paul Sent Timothy Instead of Visiting
43:25 - Christ’s Return and God’s Care in Hardship
51:21 - Applying Paul’s Teachings to Our Lives

Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-folks/aspire

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:01

Paul was making a signal contribution to people of lower social status, that he was giving them, by telling them to pursue honor in this way, he was dignifying them in a way that many philosophers did not... The scriptural text can be, even in English translation, can be daunting, but to be able to find the broader meaning in the languages themselves, I really do think, kind of draws you closer to the revelation of Christ in scripture... What's the, why would these from Greco-Roman polytheists Why would they be interested in this? Why would this attract them? The story of Israel's Messiah is very particular to Israel in most iterations. So what does this have to do with them and why would they be attracted to it? And I settled on First Thessalonians really for two reasons... Yeah, it really is a simple thing. We kind of get used, especially if we're only reading one translation. A really good one is righteousness or justification. Dikaiasune. In context, it can mean... Then we could ask why Paul wrote this letter. The why of the letter, I think... Hey there and welcome to another episode of exploring the language of scripture. My name is Daniel Mikkelsen. I'm the host. And if you don't know who I am, I'm a PhD candidate in University of Edinburgh in Christian, New Testament and Christian origins. And I've studied New Testament and Cambridge and theology at University of Copenhagen and Fjellhaug International University College in Copenhagen. And this podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show how the biblical languages can help us. understanding deeper into the Word of God so that we will increase our love for Christ and for his mission and hopefully bring it to more people, which is what Jesus has commanded us to do. And today I'm joined by Zac McNeal who is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh as well, also in New Testament and Christian origins. He has done his former study at Duke University and at Lancaster Bible College. And I have the pleasure of meeting Zac at the University of Edinburgh when we started studying together. And as we're studying under Matt Novenson until he was moved to Princeton, or moved to Princeton. So, and unfortunately, Zac is a part-time distance, which means that I too rarely see him in person. So I'm very thrilled to have you here. And because I always enjoy our conversations. And today we are, we're bringing some, one of our conversations out to the... to the general public. It's a pleasure to be here. Pleasure to get to see you once again and spend some time talking about Scripture. Wonderful. And yeah, it's a great pleasure to have you here today. Thank you. Yeah. And anything else you want to add about yourself before we jump into it? nothing terribly interesting. Husband, father of two, lover of Christ and of Scripture pretty much covers it. Yeah. And that's a wonderful thing how did you get into the biblical languages, studying the biblical languages? I grew up in a Christian tradition that was, you know, the English Bible is obviously a big part of our life, reading scripture and interpreting scripture in that particular context was pretty heavily focused on individual subjective understandings of particular texts, so trying to find something that could apply to my life this week. And one of the difficulties with that way of reading, which can be fruitful, is that it makes the meaning of the text really impossible to determine in any kind of sound sense. So when I first discovered that the biblical texts were written in Greek and Hebrew, which I confess I did not know when I was young, The opportunity to study them seemed like a way of entering into the meaning of the text in a way that wasn't dependent on me and my situation. I could enter into a larger conversation spanning thousands of years in historical contexts and theological contexts and different applications and I was really attracted to that idea. That's wonderful. I think that is not uncommon for a lot of people to think. Maybe they know that the Bible was not written in English or they have a model tongue, but they might not always be familiar with what language it actually was written in. Yeah. Yeah. and it just resembled my own sort of... I don't know if I... At some point I did definitely pick up, but I don't remember that I was not thinking about that at some point. But I definitely myself, when I got into biblical languages myself, I wanted to go that deeper, like, what is the original? How can I know Christ better? And I don't know if it was a similar kind of thing that drew you to the biblical languages. Yeah, yeah, pretty similar. I think that the scriptural text can be, even an English translation can be daunting. And there are so many cultural details and historical details that are simply assumed by the writers of scripture that if you don't know what those mean, then you're missing really important resonances. And yes, you can learn those things in English translation. You can get study Bibles to help you learn those sorts of things. But to be able to find the broader meaning in the languages themselves, I really do think kind of draws you closer to to the revelation of Christ in Scripture. So, let's go a little bit more concrete. Have you had any experiences where you saw that the biblical language has opened up Scripture for you? Yeah, it really is a simple thing, but we kind of get used to especially if we're only reading one translation. We get used to certain verses being translated in a certain syntax and using certain English words that we kind of build, we have this built-in assumption that what I think a word means must be what it meant in Greek or Hebrew. A really good one is righteousness or justification, δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosyne). That term has a, what in biblical says, we call a wide semantic range. In context, it can mean... several different things. And it doesn't always mean the same thing in every place. But if we use the same English word over and over again, we get this sense that we're always talking about the same thing. And so found one of my biggest, things that drew me into biblical studies and into Greek in particular, was this concern with what is righteousness, what is salvation, what is justification, and how did Paul mean when he said it, and what does it mean for us now? And knowing, learning that those words had a variety, had a wider semantic range and that we actually had the resources within the text itself to parse those out and to understand what it meant really attracted me. And it was kind of my first exciting discovery in Scripture in the biblical languages that not that the words don't mean what they mean in translation, but that they might have a broader range of meaning and it opens up interpretive avenues. that are closed when you only know the text in your own language. Yeah, the interesting thing about δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosyne) or δικαιόω (dikaioō), which is the verb, is that we actually translate them with two different types of words in English. So in Greek we talk about cognates, which basically means that words have the same kind of like beginning of the root. Doesn't necessarily mean that they always convey the same meaning, but... that they are related in some sense another. So you have δικαιόω (Dikaioō) and δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosyne) and we translated righteousness, the noun, and then we used the word with justification or justified. And it's sometimes, and to a Greek reader, they although, and they come from different like groups, like righteousness come through, latin as far as I can remember and justification comes. I think from the Greek. So it is an interesting and it's a very detailed conversation. We probably shouldn't go into like all of it detail because then it can become very complicated very quickly. There are great resources out there if you're interested. Yeah, Simon Gathercole one of his students wrote a book on it. James Prothro I can't pronounce his name, I'm sorry if I butchered his name. He wrote a book about that. He actually published a recent book that's a little bit more for non-theologians. So, yeah, maybe we should move on to like, you any more specific examples of like when you experienced that scripture was opened by reading Greek? I think always whenever I dive into the Greek text of the New Testament, I'll gain some kind of insight that I had not considered before. Another example would be word order in Greek and sentence structure in Greek. It's really flexible. There's an enormous amount of elasticity to it so that the meaning of the sentence in an English translation can change based on how you structure it for English. I can't think of any examples right off the top of my head, but that's often one of the first things I notice. It's like, this sentence in Greek is structured this way, which could mean this, and it could also mean that. And figuring out grammatically and syntactically why you would prefer. So one of the dangers in knowing a little Greek is that you start to think that, I've noticed this difference, so I can choose which one I like more. Well, not necessarily. You actually are grammatical rules, there are syntactical conventions, are things that you can point to in the text that you can hold on to to indicate which reading is more believable or more reliable in its ancient context and not just based on whatever your personal preference might be. Maybe it's from someone who's not familiar with the word syntax very much. Right, so sentence structure. So the way that a sentence is structured. You know, in English it's... You know, we have the noun and then the noun and the verb and the noun always goes before the verb. In Greek, things can be moved all over the place. So you might actually have a long stretch of text where you have to find the verb and the verb could really be anywhere. But then you have to relate it back to the subject or the noun. You have to relate it to direct objects or indirect objects and so forth. So that in English, it's much, we have more fixed rules. I would say is, you can do this but that'll be more poetic language, it won't sound natural. In Greek there's a lot of flexibility on where you place particular words in a sentence. Yeah, so you put emphasis on things. So an example would say that I have a fish, I have caught a fish, maybe a better sentence in English. In Greek you could potentially move fish in the front of the sentence and it will still have the same meaning. Right. For example, you can say, I love you in Greek in like hundreds of ways. So in English, there's very few ways you can say that sentence, but in Greek, don't know, Dan Wallace did like an experiment with it once and it it was thousands of examples that he came up with. Fascinating. Just because one is word order, but there's also different words in Greek that means love. And as if you exchange one over another, then you have a new... and then the combinations become... Right. Yeah. So that's one of the fascinating things about Greek. And you can front load things that you want. So they often can front load things that they think is important for this sentence or for the argument that they're making. Yeah. And they can also repeat things. So essentially repeat in English, but it's two different words in Greek to show emphasis. I actually personally have an example from 2 Corinthians when Paul is talking about the suffering that he's going through. He's actually using his personal pronoun, the personal pronoun, so myself, I, he's using it three times in a row. yeah, yeah, In order to emphasize that the suffering that had put him to that closeness of death is because he tried to conquer these sufferings by himself. So when you read the Greek, you become aware that, the reason why he's talking about this and why he's putting it up front in front of the Corinthians is that he experienced this really hard thing and he tried to get out of it himself and it failed miserably. And then his emphasis is that I did this. And then he said, but that was in order for me to trust in God who is capable of rising from the dead. So he's emphasizing that. reality of him and then that the power of God was what saved him. So that he learned in that particular instant that I need to trust in God's ability to save me through all these sufferings I'm going through. And he re-emphasizes that again in chapter four when he talks about the jars of clay and that the power shall not be from us but from God. Or it shall be, he actually says It shall be from God, not from us. So emphasizing that at the end of the sentence, which I find a fascinating way of him. And he uses some of the same words, but that's a... I could actually go on for a long time about this because I find it very fascinating. But just to give an example of how you sometimes can use Greek in a way to emphasize things. So that was what reminds you, your example just reminded me about that. Yeah, that's exactly right. Anything else you want to add about this? No, there are many reasons to study the ancient texts and these are kind of the more immediate upfront reasons that you learn a little Greek and you can start to see these things immediately. And then things only become more interesting from there as you try to reconsider Greek verb tenses and how... how Greeks relate or how Greek thinkers in the ancient world relate to time and how they convey time in their language and really their layer upon layer of ways that you could pursue this. But certainly the two that I've mentioned are the most immediate. You can start to enjoy those benefits in just probably a few weeks or months of study. Yeah, exactly. And as my friend Kaspars said on the first episode of the podcast, There are goodies at every level. yeah. It only gets more interesting the deeper down the rabbit hole you go, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good rabbit hole. It's not a bad one. No, it's a great rabbit hole. They're not all great. This one happens to be great. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. And that's why I, yeah, I do this because I want to get deeper. want to emphasize the, the meaning that we can't wave, not necessarily. also as I mentioned many times before and I don't want to write my hobby horse too many times. the fact that we see things when we read in a different language that we might not be completely fluent in. So I think it was Kendall who emphasized that. It makes you slow down. You have to slow down and pay attention to every little detail. exactly. Yeah. just for re-emphasizing that point. for sure. So you spent quite a substantial time looking at one Thessalonians. I did, yeah, at Duke in my master's program. Yeah. So what led you to study that particular letter? There's many to choose from here. Yeah. Well, the prosaic answer is that I had to write a thesis for my degree at Duke and I was kind of groping around trying to find an interesting question, just something that... that I thought was interesting and that I would really like to be able to answer, or at least make an attempt at answering. And it took me a little while, but I kind of started to think, know, Christianity, the spread of Christianity after the fact seems inevitable. It seems like it could only have spread and expanded the way that it did, especially if you take a theological view of history. But I started thinking about the details of the Christian message and how Peculiar they are and how hard it is to understand how why some people would find those those details attractive And so the question that that really crystallized for me and I think I included in in my thesis was why do Why do Greco-roman? Polytheists around the ancient Mediterranean. Why would they care about an executed Greek peasant in Jerusalem? What is it about this story? What is it about? A Jewish peasant. Yes, a Jewish peasant, exactly. Why would these Greco-Roman polytheists, why would they be interested in this? Why would this attract them? The story of Israel's Messiah is very particular to Israel in most iterations. So what does this have to do with them and why would they be attracted to it? And so in considering that question, I was thinking of where in Paul's letters I might get a sense of what his message was and why it was attractive to these people. And I settled on 1 Thessalonians really for two reasons... The first is that it indicates in the text that there are very, that there are few and very possibly no Jews in the Thessalonian congregation. Paul does not clearly quote the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible at any point in 1 Thessalonians. There are some possible allusions, but they're contested. So, this was, know, Paul's writing to a really Greco-Roman audience here. One that we can identify fairly clearly that that's the case. And the second was that it wasn't terribly, he wasn't picking fights with anybody or anything. Except for one little line in chapter two indicating he's got some Jewish opponents, some fellow Jewish opponents. It really seems like he's just repeating and reinforcing a message that he had preached to them. And so First Thessalonians seemed like a great place to try and come to a preliminary answer of what was Paul preaching that was so attractive to Greco-Romans in this period. Yeah. And what was that from the letter? Yeah, from the letter itself, it can be a little bit difficult to identify. But I think that there's a few interrelated things there. The first is that I suspect, along with a couple of scholars, that he converted his Thessalonian congregation mostly from a leather workers association. Paul himself was a leather worker, tent maker as it says in the King James. I don't know if it's what it says now, but he was essentially a leather worker and that was how he made a living when he was traveling around preaching. And a couple of scholars think that it's pretty likely or it seems likely. that he converted the Thessalonian congregation from a leather workers association, that he was working alongside on a daily basis, so building relationship with them. And I think that if you pay close attention to the details of the letter, there are a variety of elements that fit within our understanding of association, such as he presented Christ and God, and the Christ and the Father to these leather workers as essentially as divine patrons that if they would reject their formal way of life and reject their idols as it says in 1 Thessalonians 2 and submit to God and His Christ that they would receive benefits from that submission. And I think the benefit, you know, benefit language and patron language in antiquity is very much focused on the here and now in many places. But I think that Paul incorporated future salvation and a future reversal of their economically and socially depressed condition to them as part of his preaching. And I think that that's what really attracted many of them, that Paul was demonstrating to them, think, through his conversations with them and through his... through what he was teaching, that they could one day, as we see in chapter five, things would be reversed and they would be exalted and no longer be under subjection to cruel and oppressive authorities. Yeah, interesting. Maybe you should explain what a Patron is, because everybody might not be familiar with it. Sorry for interrupting the episode. you're enjoying it and want to keep it at free, please consider supporting us by joining our supporter program. This helps us grow and get more guests on and also gives you some great benefits in return. Do check it out in the description below. Thank you and now back to the episode Maybe you should explain what a Patron is, because everybody might not be familiar with it. Because it's a little bit different than a patron, so to speak. Right, yeah. So a patron, the patronage system in the ancient world was that people of higher social status would retain large groups of their beneficiaries. And there were very clear lines as to what would happen. So this wealthy person would provide their beneficiaries with employment and money and favors, material favors, in exchange for loyalty. So the lower status person would be expected whenever their patron was in a tight spot or in any kind of difficulty or needed help in an election or needed to intimidate somebody, that they could rely on the beneficiary to be loyal to the patron because of the gifts that they have received. So there's a kind of asymmetrical gift-giving relationship. Anybody familiar with some of the work of John Barclay knows that he's done a lot with this. the idea being that these were not free gifts from the wealthy and the powerful to the poor and the powerless. These were exchanges. And the person, the lower status person could not exchange, give an equal exchange. And so there was this commitment of loyalty. And I think that some of that fits some of that particular language and that social concept in the ancient world applies very well to the relationship between people and their god. in Paul's case as well. Yeah. And so how do you think that that particular concept of patronage is like, that Paul is relating to these Thessalonians Yeah, there's two ways. It starts off in the beginning of the letter. where in a passage that could just be taken as like Paul praising the Thessalonians, that I think if we read more closely that he's setting the stage for what he's doing rhetorically in the whole letter. And he praises three things about the Thessalonians, three things that they have done and that he finds favorable. They have, he praises their work of love, their labor, sorry, their work of faithfulness. or being faithful to God is how I would translate that or gloss that a little bit. Their labor of love amongst one another, demonstrating love for each other and love for God. And their constancy or their endurance in hoping in Christ. And I think all three of these things come back in chapters four and five. where there is some ethical material where Paul tells them, you know what I taught you to do, let me just remind you, and goes on to give them some ethical instruction. And then in four, the latter half of chapter four, has to address the loss of members of the congregation to death and how that fits into what he preached to them previously. But then in five, he goes on to talk about the benefits to be gained at the last day or at the judgment if they remained faithful. So we see these all three of these, it could be a throwaway line in 1-3, but it isn't. It actually sets the stage for the closing chapters of the letter. Okay, yeah, sure. So yeah, but that's... And that's very common in many letters, that what is said in the beginning is what we can pick up on. Yeah, we make a mistake if we assume that Paul is just... In some cases it reads like a prayer so we could dismiss it as, he's throwing in some nice things to say about his audience or he's throwing in a prayer for them for their benefit. But no, really ought to, especially from reading a letter as a letter, we should be paying attention to how the letter begins. Yeah, definitely. Then we could ask why did, maybe already touched upon it, why Paul wrote this letter. Yeah. And what topics you see in this letter in particular. Yeah, we touched on that a little bit. The why of the letter, think, is more or less straightforward. Based on any kind of timeline of Paul's life that we develop, and especially if we pay attention to the timeline in the Book of Acts, Paul was not in Thessalonica for very long. He was there for, I think, on the outside, we might say, three to six months. that he was there, which is a relatively short time considering he spent, what is it, three years in Ephesus and he's had longer stretches in other cities. And I think that he had to leave Thessalonica in a hurry and in some adversity. That's certainly what we see in Acts 17. And he was concerned about this congregation that he left behind with kind of minimal leadership because one of the things he doesn't do in the letter is address any particular leaders in Thessalonica. He assumes that they have leaders and he might have left somebody nominally in charge, but he doesn't know what's going on right now. He doesn't know the details of their situation. He knows from chapter two that they've been persecuted, that they've been ostracized by their neighbors, that they've been mistreated to one degree or another, that could be related to their rejection of the pagan gods and acceptance of the God of Israel. And so I think he's concerned for them and I think he wants to encourage them. And he's also heard some things, heard some concerns, possibly even received a letter from them with some concerns that he wants to respond to. Those concerns, think, chiefly being how to how to theologize and how to think about the suffering that they've endured. How does suffering fit into the language of divine patronage? Like if God is going to provide for us if God is going to give us gifts, if God is going to give us salvation, why are we in such dire straits? Which is question we still ask today, but it was very much a question in the ancient world where the proper piety towards the gods was specifically to receive benefits from them. So think Paul has to lay out a Christian conception of suffering and of enduring those difficulties. I also think from chapter 4, it seems pretty clear that they've had some of the members of the congregation die. And I don't think that they were expecting this. And if we read Paul's other letters, there seems to be this indication that he thinks that Christ is returning soon and that maybe people won't be dying before the kingdom comes. That's certainly questionable and debatable. We don't have to go down that particular path. But I do think that he needs to give them like, okay, people have died. They are worried. What happens to these people? Are they also going to be resurrected? Are they also going to be translated into the kingdom of God at the last day? And Paul has to affirm that not only will they be translated, they will be first. They come up first and then we who are alive and remain so forth. So he's having to both encourage them, but also give them a theology of the end, of the eschaton. And then finally, think, tying back to their persecution and their suffering, he wants to reaffirm what he has already taught them, that God's coming kingdom is one of reversal, where the powerless are no longer powerless and downtrodden and oppressed. But that they are now, I don't know if I want to say that it's a full reversal where the low are high, where the higher brought low and the lower are glorified, but there seems to be something of that going on, at the very least, his readers, his hearers, will not be as they are now. That is a very helpful way of looking at it. We could go down the rabbit hole of resurrection, but we won't do that today. So that's my thing. I think that there are other points in the letter that seems very interesting as well that I know that you have looked into as well. One of the things that when you read one Thessalonians that you see that does not necessarily appear in all of Paul's letters. There's one thing, the first thing I will mention is that Paul's arrival to Thessaloniki seems to be a major thing in his sort of letter is talking about how he came. He actually mentioned it at least twice. that you know that it was a good one, that it was not in vain, it was not a mistake. But he doesn't seem to say it in the same way, for example, maybe the Corinthians is the only other congregation where he's talking in a similar kind of way to, but those letters are much longer. So what do you think about that? Yeah, he mentioned several times that the gospel is preached to them not in word only, but in power. He describes himself as like their mother, as a nursing maid, a wet nurse to the congregation. And I think that a lot of this comes down to the way of life that he demonstrated there. And it makes you wonder, how did he enter into other communities? As I mentioned before, I think that his emphasis on hard manual labor, Yeah. And his own manual labor in particular that he was not dependent on the Thessalonians for anything, but he worked and earned his own way and earned his own keep in that community. I think there's a huge degree of him coming in with a different frame of mind than many of the people around him. He also talks in the letter about, he gives them certain instructions. And one of the things that he instructs them to do, is to, I think the English translates it, live quietly, but in reality it means to pursue honor and to pursue honor through manual labor, which is very interesting in the literature of the ancient world because high literary texts by philosophers and so forth, they consider manual labor to be a hand worker as just one step above being enslaved. And I think that Paul is inverting a lot of that and he demonstrated to them a certain way of being in the world that maybe they had not considered a value before, but that he has shown them through the gospel and through his own work that it's valuable and that it's important and that they are not less than simply because they have to, you they're living hand to mouth, so to speak. And I think that... That has a lot to do with it. Paul comes in and he shows, he puts his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and that he sacrifices for the community rather than calling on the community to sacrifice for him, which is what something like a cynic or a roaming philosopher might do. They might charge students to come and study under them, and that's how they make their living. Paul didn't do that. He worked all day and preached all night if you take him seriously. Yeah, and you do see in Seneca that he... He sees like, can you make a living? And he never mentions anything about this. Right. Exactly. So he has three options and none of the three options are a manual labor. Right. One is to live off someone's money. Another one is the one you just mentioned and I forget the last one, but it's definitely not manual labor. So, yeah, so that's very interesting that, yeah, that Paul's see the honor in actually doing good work. I think there's, you know, to jump ahead to application just a little bit, there is positive and negative ways that that has carried out. And I think that the Protestant work ethic, as it's known in the United States, is exactly a reflection of this shift, this idea that to work and build and do are good things. And they're divinely good things. Now, that can be massively unhealthy, but... I think in proper proportion. Paul was making a signal contribution to people of lower social status. That he was giving them... By telling them to pursue honor in this way, he was dignifying them in a way that many philosophers did not... Yeah. So it's in many ways he's saying that any work that you do well, as Luther would have put it, anything you do well... work you do well, you do it to the glory of God. And that seems to be what he is trying to say actually. I think so. When he talks about do live quietly and make sure that you don't need anything in the sense that he take care of your own business, I think is a wrong sort of like, because that's not actually what he is saying. I do like the English idiom, mind your own business, which is featured in a few English translations, which is it has a very... It has a very particular connotation in English to mind one's own business. Yeah. But I don't think that that is actually what Paul is saying. No, I don't think so. No, no. It's more the fact that there is an honor in not being dependable in your work or other people. Right. And also, I think that there's a degree to which he explicitly connects this to being a busybody and minding your own business in that sense is to not insert yourself into other people's affairs. in a way that is that even in the ancient world wasn't very attractive. Yeah and a busybody is someone that is not someone who is feeling busy. No no this is somebody who's you know so for lack of a better term sticking their nose in other people's business. I think in the British term will be meddler. Meddler yeah that would be yeah meddler would be perfect. Yeah basically you are and in an annoying way sticking around and about other people's business. Yeah. So there's nothing about like asking how you're doing mate. No, no, no, no, not at all. So, but it's more like, you're doing mate and you're coming in the middle of the night, three o'clock kind of way. Or, yeah, or, know, I heard so and so's, you know, spouse or child or this or that, the gossiping, the sense of gossip where you're, you have no interest in the person's life. You have interest in the sorted details of their suffering to a certain degree. Yeah. Yeah. Or the details that. that actually is not meant for you. Right, exactly. Yeah. So I think that is a clarifying because I think sometimes when you read the word busybody, it's just like that you shouldn't be a busy, busy person. No, not at all. Which is not necessarily good in itself, but that's not the actual meaning of that Greek term. Yeah. But there is another, in another sense where being busy for the sake of being busy is not very godly. Right. Yeah, that's not what Paul is addressing here. Yeah. As matter of fact, more often than not, it seems that Paul has to address laziness more than he has to address busyness. Yeah, actually, yeah, the two Thessalonians that is actually mentioned explicitly that the one who doesn't work is not gonna eat. Yes. I knew that verse very well growing up. Yeah, but yeah, let's make the other thing that seems to be a very... interesting feature of this letter that seems to be very unique to one Thessalonian is that Paul seems to forward point his own care and he's vulnerable with them in a way that you don't see in other of his letters. Why do you think that that is the case for that he is that vulnerable and direct with them in a way that it seems to be unprecedented apart from maybe 2 Corinthians? Yeah, and the settings, the respective settings of one Thessalonians and two Corinthians are very instructive here because Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians and possibly another letter, has been very harsh with the Corinthians. And so there's a rupture in their relationship and he is working overtime to mend fences with them. I think the exact opposite is going on in... in one Thessalonians, I think that because Paul was not in the community for very long, he was concerned about the depth of the relationships that he built there. And he was concerned to, you know, you could say the cynically, he was trying to retain their loyalty because he serves as an intermediary for their divine patron. He preached the gospel. And he does focus on his own work amongst that community. It's very important that he is not the patron, but he is certainly a representative of the patron. And you could be cynical and say, he's just trying to retain their loyalty as he goes forward or what have you. I think that the very intimate and affectionate language of the letter pushes me in a different direction, which is to say that I think he wanted them to know that in spite of how brief he was there and in spite of how quickly he had to run off because of the challenges because of difficulties he was facing that he retains affection for them and he wants them to retain affection for him. And this is I think this is very relational. I think it's very theological even. He's showing the kind of gentleness and concern for this congregation that he founded. That he doesn't always get in other contexts in Galatians and in one Corinthians. He doesn't always get the the upside of being the founder of these communities. He's often having to come in with correction and be harsh. In this case, I think he really wants to continue to foster affection and emotional closeness, even though he can't get back to them for some reason. Yeah, because it seems to mention their affection and the way that they have been doing, that that has been a proof of God's love in a way. He doesn't use that particular gloss, but... Yeah, he talks about that is spread to all of Achaia. Yeah, he said their faithfulness has Macedonia and Achaia. That's right. Their faithfulness has been proclaimed all across Macedonia and Achaia. I think that's, you he's saying he's holding them up as a model both to encourage them and to encourage further affection. Yeah. Yeah. And this is basically modern day Greece. So Macedonia is just above all of ancient Greece. Yeah. And Achaia is practically ancient Greece. Yeah, there's so many details about Thessaloniki that are fascinating. We won't go off into that tangent, but there's a lot to be gained in our understanding of the letter, of the audience of the letter by some of that historical and archaeological research that's been done. Because it was a very important city, frequently sided with the losing side in Rome's civil wars and then often switched back right at the last minute. which happened in the war between Augustus and Marc Antony and so forth. So that they were a full-blown Roman colony with relative autonomy. They were on an intersection of the Ignatian Way and the North-South Road to the Danube. Tons of details about the city are really fascinating. And so it's really instructive to talk about, because of their placement, how widespread their influence has become. And I think part of that is Paul going around saying what a great group of folks the Thessalonians are. Yeah. And maybe we should leave it up to the audience whether they want to hear something more about this. Yeah. And so if you're watching on YouTube, could post it in the comments if you want to. Yeah. If there is a substantial amount of people who want to listen about it, we might do one. yeah. That's a whole... One of the things about biblical studies, we're talking biblical Greek, obviously, is the emphasis of this podcast. But there's... some fascinating stuff going on in archaeology and ancient history and in some more specialized fields that have the potential to illuminate our reading of scripture. They also have the potential to be distractions and red herrings. So they can't drive the bus in interpretation, but they can be really fruitful when deployed carefully. Yes. Yeah. But that could be another episode. Yeah, because you mentioned that he is very concerned about their faith in many ways. That seems to be what is the thing and he's wanting to encourage them in certain ways. But why is he not going himself? Yeah, I think that's the hardest thing to try to ascertain. And some of it might depend on when the letter was written. So there's kind of two schools of thought of when it was written. It could have been the early 40s, so around 40 CE. It could also have been in the early 50s. And the situation that Paul is facing in those times are very different. 40 CE would be fairly close to Paul's own conversion. So that this would be not only an early letter, but a letter pretty early in his ministry. In the early 50s, he's facing more controversy. He's dealing with... churches that he has established over the preceding 10 or 12 or maybe even 15 years and they have grown in ways and they've made mistakes that he has to address and so his letters get more polemical and he might feel like he needs to be in those places where we have where there are hot button things going on rather than Thessalonica. Also I don't think we can underestimate the challenge of traveling in the ancient world. And that even if he is resident in Greece when he writes this letter, which he probably is, it's not exactly, you know, to hop on the train and run over to Thessaloniki. It's a more challenging thing than that. So there are a few possible reasons that he might be sending an emissary rather than going himself. And I think that either way, whether it's down to the difficulty of travel or because he has more pressing pastoral concerns going on, he didn't want to just send the letter. without any kind without the the the expense and then we can't even get into the to ancient letters and how they were sent and how they were received but all of that factors into a certain degree of how he's he's conceiving of this yeah we might talk with Peter Head about that yeah that's great so yeah so that that seems very because he sends Timothy obviously Timothy is a very like they're very close to Paul, but it sends him rather than going himself. Yeah. And he's relieved when he comes back. Yeah. like, reports is always good and well. Yeah. And the affection is still there, both for him, but it seems more pressing for him because he talks about the tempter might not have tempted you, so there are label in vain. yeah. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, he certainly needs, he needs news of the Thessalonians. I think that's what he's most concerned about, which is why he sends Timothy in particular. And if I remember correctly, Timothy was also the letter carrier for Philippians. Yeah, I'm not familiar with... Timothy and Epaphroditus, Well, I think they both get mentioned in Chapter 2 of Philippians. And that's a similar letter in many ways, because it's also very positive and very upbeat and very... But in a very different way because the Philippians have financially supported Paul and he wants to acknowledge their support and thank them and that sort of thing. But it seems very clear that Timothy is not just Paul's errand boy. Timothy is, you know, to send Timothy is like, is to send Paul Jr. so to speak or, you know, diet Paul. There's a really close association between the two. And Timothy crops up when important things are going on. Timothy often... often crops up as the emissary. Which is an indication, I think, of how important Paul's concern for the Thessalonians was. Yeah, that seems to be something that comes up at many times. So why is it that he brings the coming of Christ into this context of God's care? Yeah, that goes back, I think, largely to the deaths in the Thessalonian community. Now this is where things I think get really tricky because there are some who read Paul as having kind of a consistent eschatology throughout all of his letters. Like he always has, he always had the same view of what Christ's coming and what the end would look like and there are others who see a development as Paul goes on. That early in his work he imagines that Christ is coming back in his lifetime, that he won't die and that his congregations aren't going to see death until the return of Christ. That the end is very near. But that he eventually, over decades, his view develops to say, well, Christ is coming back, but now I probably won't live to see it. And many others won't. So those are two things I can't say for certain where I fall, but I do think that if we take seriously that the church is thinking through some challenging elements of their teaching in this stage and that Paul is really one of their leading thinkers, which we have every reason to think that, that he is kind of wrestling with, okay, what does it mean that Christ died and was resurrected and ascended and is returning? And how does that play out in historical space-time? And I think that maybe he touched on it a little bit with the Thessalonians, but he wasn't focusing there on the return of Christ. It was more about the patronage relationship with God and the eventual eschaton, the eventual arrival of Christ and reversal of fortunes. But ultimately, I think what happened is that members of the congregation died and they just didn't know, okay, well, what does that mean? Because death in the ancient world for many people, and this might be little bit overstated and I know it's somewhat your area of expertise, but death is pretty final. for the ancients as it is for us. And there's less of a conception, there's a less defined conception of the afterlife in Greco-Roman religion. There are a variety of views and all that sort of thing. And I think that they wanted to understand, we all came under, we all submitted to Christ, we all rejected our idols. Now our loved ones are dead. What does that mean? And I think that Paul had to explain, Christ's... resurrection and his coming again means that they are just as you are, if not better. They're going to be first. They will be resurrected, they will rise, and then those of us who remain will be caught up to meet Christ in the air. I think however you define Paul's eschatology, however you want to think about its development, I think that that probably gets us fairly close to what's going on there. I that's fair. Yeah. I definitely think that there's maybe less of a development than some people would say. And I think on the backdrop of what you're thinking of, it may be that they were stuck in their own like conception, which is hard to tell because it's a very brief letter and there's not much given to what they believed and what they didn't believe. But without going... of a tangien on resurrection and new life and the new creation. There is definitely elements because he mentions the resurrection of Christ and turning from idols to the living and true God in the introduction of the letter. And then he, so the emphasis is the same as it is through all of Paul's letters that life has come and we can be saved because of Jesus Christ's resurrection. But what could be a reason why they are little bit worried about people who died is that they might not have catched, or caught, the fact that although you might die, as Jesus says in the Gospel, even if you die, you will live. It was also possible that it never came up, that it wasn't a central part of Paul's teaching and he just, for lack of better term, never got around to it. Yes, yeah. And then they might have been stuck in there as we both experience all the time. And if you have been near any church or any new converts, ourselves included, then in the sense that when we first met Christ, might have lots of things that we didn't understand, we didn't quite get. as we grew in understanding, certain things got more settled. Yeah. It may be that these people are still stuck in their own conception of Hades. As soon as you die, there is no turning back for most people. Yeah, they might have known okay Christ rose from the dead because he's like Hercules or something like that. And therefore we can be safe. they thought that he will come back and collect them. Maybe they misunderstood Paul. And Paul needs to say that, no, no, it's not how it works. So they're still with... God and still he still loves them and he still control of them and we don't have to grieve the same way as the he says that yeah don't have you so that you don't have the grief as the rest which referring to all those outside yeah and and the grief outside of Christ if you read yeah anything about like if you mean inscriptions and you read the Iliad or read some which was a very big Homer of writing were a big thing in the ancient world in many way their Old Testament so the Old Testament of Hellenism. Hades is a very gloomy place. Yeah. It's not a very nice place. And that conception, although things developed, which we will not go into now, and there could be another time, but it was still that conception of that gloomy, mindless place where you will end up. And although your soul might live on in some kind of an extension, it was not alive at all. And it's very clear that that existence in Hades is not great at all. Like Achilles when he is addressed by Odysseus, he's saying, you are the lord of the dead. He says, would rather be a peasant alive. And he was the greatest warrior in their understanding. So he would rather be a peasant having no land himself than being dead. So that sort of states how gloomy it was. Yeah. And I think that that could be what they're still sort of like experiencing that they've not understood that for the Christian, for the follower of Christ, reality is different now. Then you don't have to grieve in the same way. Yeah. Because now things are secured and that is why Paul is saying they will be first. That's my thoughts on it. I don't know if you have anything to add on it. No, think the only the hint that we get that this was something that had not been considered or brought up is the way that Paul and it's just five and it's remarkable how much speculation has arisen from these five verses. But in verse in 4.13, he opens with we do not wish you to be ignorant, ἀγνοεῖν (agnoein) And I think that it's just a matter of, this is something that they were not aware of. And that's why he has to. this has happened. There's this concern. I can address this. This is a lack of information for them. Yeah. And an opportunity to challenge those preconceptions that the Greco-Roman, the lower status Greco-Roman person would have about life and death and the afterlife. Yeah. Yeah, because if you were a hero, you had a little bit better. Yeah. But the likelihood that you will be called a hero, even at that time. Not many people working with leather were getting... hailed as heroes. No. Yeah. Although that has got an inflation into the hero term at that time. Right. Which would be another interesting topic for you to discuss. Yeah, sure. but I think that that on the backdrop of this it is a tradition here is that what is then now we've been talking about this, what is some application that our viewers and listeners could bring back and bring into the everyday life and every walk with Christ based on this conversation. Well, there's so many ways to go wrong when you try to apply one Thessalonians to your life. I think uncontrolled and kind of rampant speculation on the end of the world and how that's going to go and theories of Christ's return can distract from the really fruitful positive things that Paul has to say that are, you know, I think one of the temptations we often have to resist as readers of scripture is this temptation to universalize everything and make everything universally applicable. But the things that Paul says about minding your own business, so to speak, and pursuing honor through labor, through work, and those are two things that are quite obviously, think, for many people. And context, think context has a huge impact on application in the United States. There are some people who need to take more seriously. They would benefit more from serious reflection on the Sabbath than they would on an instruction to work hard. Because working hard and accumulating wealth and prestige is baked into much American culture. So that... a more serious reckoning with what it means to submit to God and to rest in Him and to find rest in the midst of labor would be very fruitful. But for some of us, it is important to be reminded that the work that we do, the day-to-day work, the work that nobody appreciates, that nobody looks at, that nobody gives us any credit for, that that work is divinely appreciated. It is not just our duty to God, it can also be our pleasure to know that we are, by our faithful work, whatever that work might be. And I remember when I first started working in First Thessalonians, I couldn't help but think back to the different jobs that I had had previously. I came to academic biblical study a little bit later in life. And so I had worked in a manufacturing plant, manufacturing automobiles. I had worked in a homeless shelter, working with homeless and drug addicted men. And it's easy in some of those settings to just kind of feel like your work is pointless and meaningless. like, you know, even God couldn't appreciate what I'm doing here, especially building cars, you know, contributing to that sort of thing. But in reality, First Thessalonians gives us that room to say that not only does your work have value, but you have dignity, you have divine dignity through the work that you are doing... through providing for yourself and not being dependent on others, through overly dependent on others, for providing for your family, for taking care of what is yours, which empowers you to take care of what is the community's. All of these things come back together, I think, in clear application. And the second thing I would say is, especially for those who feel, or they are, or they feel that they are at the bottom of society's ladder, and that they exist solely for oppression and to be oppressed, rather, that there is an eternal hope that at the judgment, that faithful work that I've been talking about. and the suffering that we endure will be redeemed. That's not to say that it's good in the here and now or that it will be good later. I don't think that suffering in itself has that kind of salvation value. But I think that we will be, things will be turned around. That if death is something that is overcome through Christ and his resurrection, so too are all of the ways that we are oppressed in the world spiritually, economically, politically. So in Christ we have a different outlook for the future. Very much so. So if we trust in Christ and live with him, then and live and work for him in our lives, as Paul mentioned many times. That makes a makes a big big difference for what the value of our work is eternally. Exactly. And that God doesn't dismiss that. Yeah. But he actually looks on it. I think this is all creational. This all goes back to God's intention for us in creation, that we are meant to be co-regents, we are meant to expand God's kingdom. We threw a monkey wrench into things and not unexpected to God, but we mess things up. But there is that glimmer in all that we do, all the good that human beings do. There is that glimmer of what was and what is and what can be. And I think that Paul, expands that and gives it a timeless dimension when it's brought up to the eschaton, when brought up to the end. Yeah, in Christ there's no time, it doesn't matter in the same way. Exactly. Yeah, that was wonderful. Let's end on that note. That sounds good. Yeah, thank you for coming on and thank you for sharing your insights and God bless you in your studies and your ministry. Thank you very much for having me, it has been a pleasure. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one