1. Living Between The Times Bethany Covenant Church 2018
1, 2 Thessalonians
Living Between The Times
Bethany Covenant Church 2018

2. Matthew 24
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
Matthew 24: 42-43

3. Matthew 24
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Matthew 24:44
“Till he returns, or calls me home….”

4. WINTER SESSION JAN 7 INTRODUCTION
JAN 14 1 THESS How the Church Was Born
JAN 21 1 THESS Family Matters
JAN 28 1 THESS How the Church Was Established
FEB 4 1 THESS Ready Or Not, Here I Come!
FEB 11 1 THESS Walk In Light & Obedience
FEB 18 2 THESS Encouragement in Suffering
FEB 25 2 THESS God’s Timetable
MAR 4 2 THESS The Truth, And Nothing But

5. Living Between The Times
Introduction to the class
Author
Audience
Date and Setting
Purpose and Occasion
Message/Theme

6. PAUL (aka Saul of Tarsus)
1 Thess. 1: “Paul, Silas and Timothy…”
1 Thess. 2:18 “For we wanted to come to you certainly I, Paul did…”
2 Thess. 3:17 “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand…”
Galatians 6:11 “See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand.”

7. PAUL (aka Saul of Tarsus)
ZEALOUS JEW
PHARISEE
ROMAN CITIZEN
HATED CHRISTIANS
CONVERTED BY CHRIST
COMMISSIONED AT ANTIOCH TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL

8. FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY (ACTS 13:1-15:35)

9. SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY (ACTS 15:36-18:22)

10. The Audience
The first converts were described in Acts 17 as “Some of the Jews a large number of God-fearing Greeks ”
Jews lived in the Greek city in the first century.
Paul and Silas started the church, with Paul persuading some of the Jews and Greeks that Jesus was the Christ.
This provoked a harsh response from unconverted synagogue leaders and they forced Paul & Silas to flee the city.
Paul and Silas went to the synagogue for 3 Sabbath days and reasoned with them from the scriptures. That does not mean Paul only spoke for 3 weeks, he likely started home churches after a number of Jews were converted.

11. Thessalonica
Berea
“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” (Acts 17:11–12, NIV)
“Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.” (Acts 17:4, NIV)
This may explain why Paul was opposed by prominent men because some of their wives were converted to the new faith.

12. Today we are audience to half a conversation between Paul and the church.
We discern what the church said to Paul, because we have his answers and instructions.
The correspondence sent by the church is lost to us, so we have to discern what questions were asked based on the answers and instructions given by Paul. It is a bit like Jeopardy where we see the answer and guess the question.

13. Date and Setting
“So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith,” (1 Thessalonians 3:1–2, NIV)
50 to 51 A.D. and Paul is in Corinth with Silas and Timothy.
Not all believe the canonical order is the chronological order. Some scholars argue that 2 Thessalonians may have been written first:
Relative size; 1 Thessalonians is largest and thus was placed first in the cannon.
Timothy’s travels; 1 Thessalonians 3:1–2 reveals that Paul sent Timothy to Thessalonica from Athens and wrote 1 Thessalonians after Timothy’s return. This assumes Timothy would have taken a letter from Paul to the church.

14. Date and Setting
“. . . You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews” (1 Thessalonians 2:14, NIV)
“Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.” (2 Thessalonians 1:4, NIV)
Signature In 2 Thess 3:17: “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write.” One might argue that it was in his first letter to a particular congregation that Paul would establish his normal procedure and call attention to his signature.
Persecution: 2 Thess 1:4–7 refers to persecution in the present tense, but by the time 1 Thessalonians was sent, the persecutions were in the past tense (1 Thess 2:14).
This alert from Paul about this signature or mark in all his letters is also important because there were false prophets and apparently forged letters circulating that were not from Paul.

15. Purpose and Occasion The first letter had several purposes behind it:
Encourage and confirm the new believers in the things of Christ;
Answer false charges made against Paul and his ministry by false prophets;
Explain that the Christian dead would participate in the second coming of Christ;
Warn the Christians against pagan immorality;
Remind the church members to honor and follow their spiritual leaders; and
Warn believers who had given up their jobs and were idle because they thought Christ would soon return.

16. Purpose and Occasion Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians to:
Encourage the church to persevere in spite of testing;
Explain the events leading up to the Day of the Lord;
Warn the busybodies to get back to work.

17. Each chapter of 1 Thessalonians ends with a reference to the second coming of Christ.
Eschatology is the study of the teachings in the Bible concerning the end times or of the period of time dealing with the return of Christ and the events that follow.
This brings us to the theology of Eschatology and Paul’s view of Last Days.

18. Message & Theme Eschatology and Endurance:
End times
Parousia
Rapture
Day of the Lord
Man of Lawlessness
Tribulation & wrath
“It may be said without exaggeration that St Paul has no Eschatology. By that we mean that he has never approached the subject in a systematic fashion.”
“But St Paul has also laid the foundation for the Eschatology of the Christian Church.”
Kennedy, H. A. A., St. Paul’s Conceptions of the Last Things.
Paul’s teaching has no scenery or landscape. It is spare in the extreme, especially compared to John in the book of Revelation. John uses grand, colorful, vivid descriptions of animals with 10 eyes and 7 heads and bloody battles between armies and demands our attention. No so with Paul.

19. Message & Theme Pauline Theology:
Not a complete expression of Christian theology.
Paul was speaking to their specific needs
Somethings needed no expression:
“Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” (1 Thessalonians 4:9, NIV)
“Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you,” (1 Thessalonians 5:1, NIV)
Test without context is pretext: We only have very spare text from Paul in these 2 letters. It would be difficult to get a broad picture to Paul’s view of Last Days, just from these letters.

20. Message & Theme Thanksgiving Form:
“We always thank God for all of you . . .” (1 Thess. 1:2)
“And we also thank God continually because, . . .” (1 Thess. 2:13)
“How can we thank God enough for you ?” (1 Thess. 3:9)

21. Message & Theme Persecution and Peace: The gospel has opponents
They will lie about you, use violence, instigate mobs and misuse the legal system to force you out of the city and area
Persecution is inevitable, and suffering is for the kingdom of God.
You are not alone. Suffering will give way to victory and peace
Legal system is an interesting comment because after Paul was run out of town, the protesters took Jason from his home to the City authorities and said “these men have turned the world upside down” which was an exaggeration, but turns out it was true. And Jason was required to post a bond to his release.

22. Next Week: 1 Thessalonians 1
January 14, 2018