Intro to 1 Thessalonians
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 1 Thessalonians 4:1 When you consider the content of Paul’s letters to the churches he wrote, you get the sense that not everything is going so well. To the church at Corinth, he wrote long letters to encourage unity and to call them away from worldliness, immorality, and pride. To the church at Colossae, he encouraged them to not fall to mysticism or legalism, but to be faithful to the Lord. The church at Ephesus was too proud and lacked in forgiveness, the Galatian church were tempted to fall into false gospels and the church at Philippi seemed worrisome and had two cantankerous women in the body. But the letter to the Thessalonicans has a much different tone, one of exceeding joy. Paul and his mates (Silas [Silvanus] and Timothy) had planted this church during his second missionar...