1 Thessalonians 1:8

These verses close the thanksgiving that opens the letter (1 Thessalonians 1:2–10), which is the earliest of Paul’s letters that we have. He has just praised the Thessalonians’ “work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope” (1 Thessalonians 1:3) and has said in verse 4 that God chose them. He has also recalled how the gospel reached them: “not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). Verses 6 to 10 give the evidence. They show what that power did in the people who heard.

Luke tells how the church began (Acts 17:1–9). On his second missionary journey Paul came to Thessalonica, a busy port and the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. The city stood on the Via Egnatia, a major road running east and west, and Greeks, Romans and Jews all lived there. Paul’s stay was short, perhaps only a few weeks. Some of the Jewish community stirred up a mob against the missionaries, and Paul and his companions had to leave early. The new believers were left in a city already hostile to the gospel, facing trouble from their neighbours and possibly loss of income. Paul wrote this letter from Corinth, probably only a few months after the church was founded.

Paul says the Thessalonians “became followers of us, and of the Lord”. The verb is gínomai, to become or come into being, and it tells us that something came about in them when the gospel arrived. They did what they had seen. They took up the way of life, the teaching and even the suffering of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy. Paul asks the same of the Philippians, telling them to do what they have seen in him (Philippians 4:9).

The words “and of the Lord” carry the imitation higher. The apostles were the examples close at hand, and their whole aim was to point people to Christ. In following them the Thessalonians were following Jesus, in his character, his obedience and his self-giving love. Jesus himself said that those who follow him take up their cross (Matthew 10:38).

All this began when they “received the word”. The word is the gospel, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ: his death, his resurrection and the call to repent and believe. Faith comes by hearing that word (Romans 10:17). The verb for received, déchomai, speaks of a willing and welcoming acceptance. They heard the message and took it in gladly, as the truth by which they would now live.

“So that ye were ensamples” states the result. The Greek word is týpos. It first meant the mark left by a blow, such as the impression of a die or a stamp, and from there it came to mean a shape, a pattern, or a model to be imitated. The Thessalonians became the kind of church other churches could look at to see what living the faith means. The verb is gínomai again, the same verb as in verse 6. Having become imitators, they became a pattern.

The pattern reached “all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia”. Pâs means all or every, and pisteúō means to believe, to credit what is said, and to entrust oneself, here to Christ. Macedonia and Achaia were the two Roman provinces that covered most of Greece, and the names stand for the believers who lived in them. Paul’s phrase is strong, and he means it to be. This young church was known and looked to throughout the churches of the region.

Three things explain how a new church came to be known so quickly. Their conversion was real and thorough, a turning from idols to God. They held firm under persecution with a joy people could see. And they lived on a great Roman road, along which news travelled fast.

This is what Jesus describes when he tells his disciples to let their light shine before men (Matthew 5:16), and what Paul means when he calls believers a letter of Christ, known and read by all (2 Corinthians 3:2–3). The pattern itself began with Christ. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and the Thessalonians were worth imitating because they imitated him. Their endurance came from the Holy Ghost, whom Christ sent (John 16:7), and believers are told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14).

Verse 8 explains how they became an example. “From you sounded out the word of the Lord.” The verb exēchéomai means to echo forth or resound, and it pictures a sound leaving its source and spreading in every direction. The lógos, the word, is the gospel message, God’s own announcement of salvation in Jesus Christ. It came to Thessalonica, and then it went out from Thessalonica. The believers who had received it passed it on.

Paul then names what people were hearing about: “your faith to God-ward is spread abroad”. Pístis, faith, is conviction and trust, an active reliance on God for salvation. It was directed toward God, which marked it out sharply in a city full of other gods and of emperor worship. So two things travelled together, the message and the news of people who really believed it. Their changed lives made the message hard to ignore.

It went “not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place”. Paul is speaking broadly, of a reach far beyond their own provinces. Scripture describes the gospel moving like this elsewhere. The faith of the Roman believers was spoken of throughout the world (Romans 1:8), the gospel bore fruit wherever it went (Colossians 1:6), the word of God grew mightily (Acts 19:20), and the Lord added to the first church daily (Acts 2:47).

Their witness belongs to something larger still. Christ sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20), he draws all people to himself (John 12:32), and the earth is to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). The message they echoed is the message of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

“They themselves” are the people in other places who had heard the story, and they were now telling it back to Paul. They reported two things. The first was “what manner of entering in we had unto you”, meaning how Paul’s visit had gone and what kind of welcome and effect his preaching had. The second was the conversion itself.

“Ye turned to God from idols.” The verb epistréphō means to turn, to turn around or to return. It names a change of direction, and Scripture ties it to repentance (Acts 3:19). An eídōlon is an image made for worship, and so a heathen god. Paul uses the plural, because Thessalonica had many. The city held temples to Greek and Roman gods, mystery cults, and the worship of the Roman emperor, and these were woven into daily life, social standing and trade. To leave them for one God could cost a person friends, income and safety. Most of these converts were Gentiles, and this was the life they left. Acts records the same call elsewhere, to turn from vain things to the living God (Acts 14:15).

They turned for a purpose: “to serve the living and true God”. The word for serve is douleúō, to be a slave, which here means devoted service to a new master. The word for living is from záō, to live or be alive. An idol is lifeless, and God is alive, so he acts, hears and answers. He is also true, the real God over against every false one. Jeremiah calls the LORD the true and living God (Jeremiah 10:10), and Paul tells the Corinthians that an idol is nothing and there is but one God (1 Corinthians 8:4–6).

This turning happens through Christ. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The living and true God is fully made known in Jesus, whom John calls “the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Conversion turned the Thessalonians toward the future as well. They turned to God “to wait for his Son from heaven”. The verb anaménō means to await, and their waiting was expectant and patient, the settled direction of their lives. “His Son from heaven” tells us who Jesus is: the Son of the Father, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), who is now in heaven and will come from there. His return was promised at his ascension (Acts 1:11), it is called our blessed hope (Titus 2:13), and Paul describes it later in this letter (1 Thessalonians 4:14–17). This hope gave comfort and courage to a suffering church, and it is one reason they held on.

“Whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus.” The one who raised him is God the Father. The verb egeírō means to waken, rouse or raise up. The resurrection is God’s own confirmation of who Jesus is and of his power to save. If he had stayed in the grave there would be no return to wait for and no rescue from wrath. Because he lives, he is the firstfruits of those who will rise, and all who belong to him will be raised (1 Corinthians 15:20–23).

The verse turns on the word “from” again and again: from heaven, from the dead, from the wrath. In a single sentence it gathers who Jesus is, what God did for him, what he has done for us and what he will yet do, and it reads like a short confession of the faith.

This church was perhaps only months old, and it was under pressure from the day it began. God made it a pattern for two provinces. What Paul thanks God for is the work of the Holy Ghost in ordinary new believers: a welcome for the word, joy that held under affliction, a turn from idols, service to the living God and a steady waiting for his Son. The same Spirit gives the same joy now. It rests on what Christ has done and on his promised return, so it holds when circumstances are hard.

The passage also shows how the gospel travels. It went out from Thessalonica through people whose faith toward God could be seen, and others were talking about it before Paul arrived. The faith of one church strengthened believers in places its members had yet to visit.

And these verses tell us where we stand in time. Behind us are the cross and the empty tomb, where our rescue was secured. Ahead of us is the coming of God’s Son from heaven. Between the two we serve the living and true God, and if you belong to Christ you can wait for that day in peace, because the one who is coming is the one who delivered us from the wrath to come.