1–2 Thessalonians. Nijay K. Gupta
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The third category of people Luke mentions in Acts 17:4 is “leading women,” women of wealth and influence (i.e., elite). It is possible that these women were benefactors to the Jewish community in Thessalonica. Lynn Cohick offers the example of Capitolina, a Gentile woman who gave money to the synagogue at Tralles (Asia Minor).17 This aligns with other examples in the New Testament of women of means attracted to the gospel of Messiah Jesus (such as Phoebe, Romans 16). Although the church must have had a few wealthy believers, the majority of the church would have been relatively poor, the kind of people who work with their hands (1 Thess 2:9; 4:11; 5:14).18 How large was the church in Thessalonica? Narrowing this number down is impossible, but Eugene Boring is probably correct that we are talking about dozens, not hundreds.19
Excursus : Was the Church of the Thessalonians a Male-Only Guild?
Richard Ascough has made the argument that the church in Thessalonica may have started as an artisan guild or association that, as a group, embraced Paul’s good news about Messiah Jesus.20 Firstly, he notes that Thessalonica had many guilds of various kinds. Secondly, Paul himself refers to working with hands (4:11), which may identify his readers as co-members of an artisan association. For Ascough, this would align with what appears to be a sole focus of the letter on men (see 1 Thess 4:4), thus he proposes that the church would have been nearly male-only, as some guilds were gender-exclusive in Antiquity.21 He notes, on this matter, how apt Paul was in this letter to refer to this church as “brothers.” Ascough also appeals to 1 Thess 1:9, how the Thessalonians turned (plural) away from idols to serve (plural) the living and true God, as evidence for the collective nature of their conversion.
This theory has piqued the interest of several scholars.22 However, we must be careful not to turn possibilities into probabilities. After all, as Lindsey Trozzo notes in her critique of Ascough’s theory, Paul is not necessarily using the language of working with hands in 4:11 in a technical sense.23 Also, Trozzo argues that there is insufficient evidence to assume that artisan guilds were gender exclusive.24
Furthermore, what would stop Paul from encouraging them to include women in their believing community?25 As M. Johnson-DeBraufre also urges, even if it were true that this church was guild-like and was male-only, does that imply the complete absence of women?26 As early churches often met in houses, Johnson-DeBraufre wonders where believing women might have heard Paul’s letter in these spaces, as assistants, slaves, relatives, and otherwise.27 We ought to be careful not to narrow Paul’s language of siblingship to men only. There is ample evidence from Paul’s letters that the term adelphoi (lit. “brothers”) is inclusive of women as well (hence NRSV: “brothers and sisters”).28 Just because specific women are not named does not mean they are not there.
Why Did Paul Write 1 Thessalonians?
Paul was not a “writer” in the sense that he did it as a hobby, or even vocationally. He wrote to communicate, but he much preferred being face to face (1 Thess 2:17; 3:10). In that sense, he echoes the sentiment of 2 John 1:12: “Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” He was an apostle with a mission and message, but clearly he was like a pastor, wanting to guide his own flock; or like a mother wanting to care for her children (1 Thess 2:7). Paul did not typically write letters to update his churches on his situation or simply to check in on them. His tendency was to write as a form of problem-solving, whether to correct, pacify, comfort, encourage, etc. It behooves us to ask, then, why did Paul write 1 Thessalonians?
Again, the challenge in answering this question is that the only real evidence we have (aside from some of the information listed above related to Acts 16–17) must come from guesswork based on the letter of 1 Thessalonians itself. Howard Marshall underscores the difficulty with this illustration: “It is rather like the problem of trying to form a picture of a modern church simply on the basis of the official minutes of its business meeting; we should know very little about what actually happened in its services and other activities or about the kind of people who made up the congregation.”29 Nevertheless, we ought to learn what we can and be able to distinguish what is certain from what is probable, and then also consider what is plausible.30
Persecution and Pistis
The first thing that is clear in Paul’s letter is that the Thessalonians experienced persecution from the beginning (1:6; 2:14). This would not have been a state-enforced persecution, but rather harassment from community members who were troubled by their newfound religion and practices (again, note the scenario in Thessalonica in Acts 17:1–10a). Thessalonian believers in Jesus would have been taught by Paul to devote themselves exclusively to the one God, thus they would have withdrawn from local pagan rites, festivities that typically had important political dimensions. They would have been charged with “atheism”; as Philip Esler explains, “To be respectable and decent meant taking part in the [local, religious] cult; old was good and new was bad; Thus, religion served to strengthen the existing social order. To deny the reality of the gods was absolutely unacceptable—one would be ostracized for that, even stoned in the streets.”31
With this kind of context in mind, most scholars presume that the persecutors were Gentiles, not Jews. Such a view, though, would discount Luke’s information in Acts 17 where it would seem Jews played a major role in the hostility against Paul’s ministry and local allies. Again, the scholarly tendency is to put doubt on Luke’s account for two reasons. Firstly, some argue that Luke has certain theological and narrative habits that shape how he presents Paul’s ministry, in this case leading to doubts regarding the historicity of his version of the situation in Thessalonica. Secondly, such a view seems to contradict what Paul writes in 1 Thess 2:14, that the Thessalonian believers “suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they [the Judean churches] did from the Jews.” The implication here seems to be that the Thessalonians were persecuted by Gentile Thessalonians while the Judean believers were persecuted by Jewish neighbors. However, the meaning of the word for compatriots here (symphyletēs) is contested.32 Again, many scholars assume that Paul is referring to Gentile Thessalonian “compatriots,”33 but when Paul proclaims that the Jews “drove us out” (1 Thess 2:15), why could not the same Jews that drove Paul out of Thessalonica also persecute the Thessalonians believers?34 First Thessalonians 2:14–16 makes good sense in Paul’s argument if Paul is connecting Jewish persecution in Judea to Jewish persecution in Thessalonica.35
My inclination is to find a way to bring Acts 17:1–10a together with what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians. While the implication of 1 Thess 1:9–10 is that the Thessalonian believers were largely Gentiles (forsaking idol worship), it very well may be that they were Gentile god-fearers prior to meeting Paul (see above, The Church in