The Hope of the Gospel (Salutations)

 

As with all of Paul's letters, both of these begin with a salutation, an opening greeting to the church.  "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." (1 Thessalonians 1:1-3)

The opening of 2 Thessalonians is extremely similar, the opening words being almost identical. "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure." (2 Thessalonians 1:1-4)

Every single one of Paul's epistles begins with a salutation (unless you consider Hebrews as one of his), and in every other case, Paul begins by identifying himself as an apostle and/or a servant of God or a prisoner of Christ. These are the only exceptions. I don't know if there's anything significant about that. My first thought was that he didn't feel like he needed to identify himself to the Thessalonians since it had been such a short time since he had been with them, but when writing to Timothy (one of his closest friends) he still made sure to identify himself.

In any case, we note that Paul is joined in this salutation by Silvanus and Timothy. Most people believe that Silvanus is the same as Silas. Silas and Timothy had accompanied Paul on his second missionary journey and, specifically, both had been with him during his ministry in Thessalonica so it makes sense that they would have such a prominent place in the Greeting. 

So, both letters begin by identifying Paul (in association with Silas and Timothy) as the sender of the letter. And both identify the recipient as the church of the Thessalonians which is in Father and the Son. The concept of the Christian being in Christ is a familiar one in Paul's writings. The church was in Thessalonica geographically, but spiritually it was in God. It was this union with Christ that made this group of ordinary people something more than just a group. They were a church because they were in Christ and in the Father. They were still Thessalonians and yet they were separate from the general mass of people in Thessalonica. They had been called out. 

This is what Paul said regarding the life of the Christian in 2 Corinthians 6:17-18: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Notice the two ideas there. One on hand, there is a separation from the world around them; the Christian is to be distinct and separated from the immoral life of the general mass of men. But on the other hand, there is a separation to God. They were not merely to come out but to come in; they were to leave their old home because they had a new home; they were to reject the world so they could be received by something (or Someone) beyond the world.

And I realize that seems far away from the simple phrase of 1 Thessalonians 1, but this concept—the concept of the Christian and the church, as something called out from and separate from the general mass of unregenerate humanity, is something that becomes very important later. 

They were in the Father and the Son—in an organic relationship to God's family—and therefore they could receive something from the Father and the Son; Paul prays for them to receive grace and peace specifically from God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

All that is almost word-to-word between letters. And in both cases, Paul follows it by giving thanks for the church. In these two short books, the word 'thank' or 'thanks' is found six times, and in five of those times, Paul is giving thanks specifically for the Thessalonians. These were people who were very close to Paul's heart and people whose Christian life was an example to those around them—in 2 Thessalonians, Paul speaks of glorying or boasting about the Thessalonians in other churches. They were a good example. Paul will have words of correction later, but he makes it clear from the beginning that he had confidence in the Thessalonians. They were a good church and God was doing good things through them, even if they did have a few issues as well.

In 1 Thessalonians 1:3, Paul names three things specifically that he knew about them: their work of faith, their labor of love, and their patience of hope. 

That phrase “work of faith” is interesting because so often we see those two things—faith and works—contrasted. But here Paul links them. Paul's insistence in Romans or Galatians on the primacy of faith is not an attack on works—both things are important in their place; they just have very different places. It is faith, and not works, which initializes salvation. But works are the logical and necessary result of salvation and therefore of faith. 

You may recognize this group of things—faith, hope, and love—the three theological virtues. But they are not merely abstractions; Paul here unites them with actions. Faith, hope, and love are not merely things we think about or talk about—at least they shouldn't be. Faith must produce work. Love labors. In 2 Thessalonians, Paul also mentions the Thessalonians' faith and love, but there he specifically points to the fact that they were growing and abounding in faith and love. Faith and love were not mere static things in the life of Thessalonians. 

And here, already, in the 3rd verse of the letter, we come to one of the key words: hope. The Thessalonians were characterized by hope and this hope gave them patience or endurance, the ability to face and persevere through difficult circumstances without losing heart. Chesterton said the problem with the advice: “Grin and bear it” is that if you merely bear it, then you do not grin. Mere endurance does not produce joy. The Greek word translated patience means more than merely not giving up; the picture it paints isn't of someone merely dragging their way slowly forward. Strong defines it as “cheerful endurance.” It is keeping a light alive even in the darkness. And what is that can produce such an attitude? How can someone remain cheerful even when things are going wrong? Hope.

In the opening of 2 Thessalonians, Paul doesn't mention hope, but he does speak of patience or endurance (which we saw before is the product of hope). Endurance has the idea of facing difficult times and here we learn of the difficult times the Thessalonians were facing--they were facing persecution and tribulations. This was not a church in perfect situations. It was a church that was facing problems. 

It is interesting that several times in the scriptures, messages of hope come to people in the worst circumstances. The clearest words of hope and eschatology come from the Thessalonian letters written to a persecuted church. The visions of Revelation came to a man banished to a lonely island. Some of the greatest visions of the future in the Old Testament came to Ezekiel, an exile who wrote at the darkest time of Israelite history. It is when things are worst that we remember our need for hope. It is in the dark that you know most certainly that you need light. 

So what is hope? 

The word hope is used in many different senses. However, there are two things we can say hold true about hope in any sense. First 'hope' always has to do with something good, something desirable. Nobody would say seriously “I hope something bad happens,” unless for some reason they want or desire something bad to happen, say as an excuse to get out of something else. Second, hope always has to do with that which is out of reach; that which we do not presently know or possess. “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” (Romans 8:24)

Hope, at its lowest level, is a desire for and possible expectation of something you do not presently possess. Hope, in this sense, is desire mixed with possibility. It has no certainty or assurance that the desired outcome will happen; it does not even necessarily expect it. Often when we say “I hope” we mean “I do not expect.” If we say “I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow,” it is often because we think it probably will. That kind of hope is a defiance of probability.

And even when hope is not defiant, it still usually refers to something uncertain, something that might happen or might not but that we desire and wish to happen, even that we plan to happen. So, in Philippians, Paul speaks of his plan to send Timothy to Philippi: “Him therefore I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me.” (Philippians 2:23) Paul desired to send Timothy and was making plans to do so, but it doesn't seem that he was absolutely sure it would be possible. It was his hope, but not a certainty.

However, suppose you could be certain of something good happening. That is hope in his highest sense--a certain expectation of a desired outcome. And hope, in a Christian sense, is a certain expectation based on our faith in God's word. And this hope is so certain that it can be ground of present actions. We see an active example of this in the Bible. “By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” (Hebrews 11:22) God had promised that the children of Israel would someday leave Egypt to go and possess the Promised Land and Joseph had so much faith in God's word and therefore such hope in this future deliverance, that he made sure to give directions concerning what was to be done with his coffin when the Israelites went up. He was making his actions in the present based on his certain hope regarding the future.

So, when we speak of hope in the Thessalonian letters, we are not referring to a general, ungrounded desire for something god. The hope of which Paul speaks here is a certainty (based on God's promise) of something that has not yet come to pass, a certainty that is enough to serve as the basis for action in the present.

Without God's word, we have little grounds for hope for the future. Based on other evidence, there is more reason for despair than hope. Certainly, for a church facing the problems the Thessalonian church was facing, hope seems improbable. But they had faith in God and therefore they had hope, and that hope allowed them, even in their dark time, to live a life of love.