Opening Greetings: Part 1 - 1 Thessalonians 1:1a

Opening Greetings: Part 1 - 1 Thessalonians 1:1a
Written by LaRosa Johnson
Friday, July 17, 2009

Confident that we've spent an adequate amount of time laying the foundational groundwork for this epistle, we are now ready to start our verse-by-verse study of 1 Thessalonians. As always, we're going to start with chapter 1, verse 1 and work our way through the entirety of the letter. To begin our study, we are going to spend a little bit of time looking at the opening greeting or salutation. This is a section that most readers quickly glance before moving forward, but every word of Scripture is valuable and has eternal truth that can edify our soul. So, if hearts and minds are ready for the study of God's Word, let's begin our study at 1 Thessalonians 1:1.

Quote :

1 Thessalonians 1:1a (NASB) - Paul and Silvanus and Timothy...

That's it; that's all we're going to be looking at today. Our focus today is going to be on that small portion of Scripture that reads, "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy," a passage that simply lists the names of three people. But, these aren't just any old people, as you will soon see.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we want to make note of this letter's style. It is a typical Greco-Roman letter, much like you find anyone writing in the First Century. In many ways, Greco-Roman letters are like ours, but they have a different way of opening a letter than we would normally think of. When we sit down and write a letter, we usually begin the letter with a short greeting and the name of the recipient, while closing the letter with our name (the author/sender). Greco-Roman letters follow a different format, containing three opening elements in this order: 1) the name(s) of the sender(s), 2) the name of the recipient, and 3) a formal greeting. This is exactly what we have here in this epistle, as we can see three names at the beginning of this letter; but, instead of being the recipients of the letter, these are the ones who penned and sent the letter.

The first name that we encounter is Paul. Who is Paul? If you're at all familiar with the Bible, then I'm sure you know who Paul is. By chance you're not familiar with him, then we'll take a brief moment to give you some details concerning him. Paul, formerly known as Saul, was a Pharisee (Phil. 3:5), a man who formerly persecuted Christians (Acts , was the last called apostle of the Church (1 Cor. 15:, and penned thirteen New Testament epistles. Of course we could go on, but that sums it up; in terms of this epistle, it's probably most important to recognize him as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Getting back to the epistle, as we saw in Acts (15-18), Paul was the lead on a missionary journey (his second) to spread the gospel to the far reaches of the known world. Part of his travels landed him in Thessalonica, whom this epistle is named after. As noted in our introduction, this letter was penned after leaving the city and during the same missionary journey, as he wrote from Corinth.

The next name that we see is Silvanus. This is a man that we see elsewhere in Scripture, but he is probably better known by the name Silas (specifically in Acts). Why the difference in names? Well, much like the difference between Saul (Hebrew) and Paul (Greek/Roman), Silvanus is the Roman form of Silas, which is his Hebrew name. Silvanus was one of Paul's companions during the second missionary journey, which is what he is most known for in Scripture, as we see from his mention in the opening of this letter. A lesser known fact about him is that he later became a writer for the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 5:12), once his travels with Paul were complete. A final note about Silas is the order in which his name appears in the listing of the three; he is listed before Timothy, which is likely due to the fact that he is Timothy's elder and had been a companion of Paul for a longer period of time, thus his being listed first after Paul.

The third name that we find in the list of authors is Timothy. This young man was Paul's most notable disciple. We find this revealed to us in Scripture, as well as the fact that Paul penned two letters specifically to Timothy (1 & 2 Timothy), and also the epistle to the Ephesians, which is where Timothy was located at the writing of that epistle. Timothy, born to a Jewish mother and Greek father, was a convert to Christianity during Paul's first missionary journey (Acts 13-14). It was then during Paul's second missionary journey that he began to accompany Paul, which also included Paul's third missionary journey. There is much more to be said about Timothy, but this will suffice for our study, although further independent study is highly encouraged.

The final thing that we want to point out is something that is peculiar to Paul's two epistles to the Thessalonians that is different from every other that he wrote. The piece to note is that these are the only two epistles where Paul did not add any elaboration or titles to his name or to the names of his co-authors. If you look at his other eleven epistles, you will find Paul reminding his recipients of his apostolic authority and adding descriptive titles to his co-authors. This is interesting to observe because their absence in these two epistles may imply that there was no need for Paul to assert his apostleship because of the positive relationship he had with them. It's also worth mentioning that since this is one of Paul's earliest writings (second overall after Galatians), it may not have been a consistent part of his practice in writing letters to churches. Personally, I'm under the conviction that Paul chose not to assert his apostolic authority because of the rapport he had with this group of believers, which becomes evident as you read through the epistle.

In closing, as you can see, there was a good amount of meat that we were able to extract from a mere listing of three names; but, that is the depth at which we're going to take this study. We're not going to overlook the obvious, but we're going to see all that God has for us to see in this epistle, however minute it may be. Next time, we will continue our look at opening greeting of this epistle, as we look at the second part of a Greco-Roman opening, which is the sender. Until then, remain diligent in your study of the Scriptures!

devotion courtesy of Trailblazin Ministries
http://www.trailblazinministries.com/devotions/1thess010