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1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Structure

Dave Black commented on the structure of this passage, and I’ve been trying to work with it a bit. I do a loose form of phrasing when I study, in which I break pieces of the passage in some detail at times and leave others less chopped, so to speak.

This morning, my Sunday School class, always small, was canceled due to absences, so I spent some time chopping! Here’s an image of what I did. This is a large image. If you want to actually read it, you can click on it, but if you have your Greek NT nearby, you should be able to see just the shape.

1 Thessalonians 1-1-10 Greek

 

Now I don’t know if this was of any value to you, because it’s just my way of thinking about the structure. You may find it hard to follow. I know there are some phrasing systems that are different.

Nonetheless, it helped me, though I don’t think it finally answered the questions I had. You might want to read Dave’s post (which I copied to JesusParadigm.com so we’d have a good link!) before this discussion.

There seemed to be two major questions, first whether 1:2-10 should be divided into two paragraphs (2-5, 6-10) or seen as one, and second whether one could imagine a division of the text that used 1:1-3 as a division.

As to the second question, I could not see when I first read this how it could be divided in that way. First, there is a clear division, in my view, between 1:1 and 1:2, and second, there is no division that I can see between 1:3 and 1:4. I think eidotes is likely parallel with poioumenoi in modifying eucharistoumen. (Pardon some loose transliteration.)

As to the first, this results from the e-mail that was sent to Dave, challenging the division between 5 & 6. The most logical reading seems to me to relate verse 6 right back to the thanksgiving of verse one. My blue line on my image above would should the structure if 6-10 is a different paragraph. My red line subordinates it to eidotes in verse 4. I was having a hard time seeing that logic until I had broken this down and bit and read it several times. It could be, but I would lean to making 2-10 a single paragraph and tying verse 6 back to verse 2. Lean, not fall head over heels into.

I rarely post this sort of stuff. I’m not really an expert, and the epistles are not my normal stomping ground, but one must venture off of comfortable territory at some time or another!

I do want to call attention to Dave’s article and his post because I think it is unfortunate that so many of the epistles are chopped into pieces in the way they are used in the church. We have our proof texts and our favorite passages, but we don’t read them as a whole. They’re short. You can afford to sit down and read the whole thing. I can afford to sit down and read all of 1 Thessalonians in Greek. It’s fun, and it’s profitable.

On something this short, I recommend starting a study by reading it 12 times, preferably in different sources. It’s a good time to polish up your Latin or French, or if you’re not into languages, just use a number of English translations. People tell me they’ll get bored reading the same thing 12 times. I haven’t found it to be so. I recall being challenged to try this on the Sermon on the Mount. I promised to stop when I found nothing new. I read it over 30x, and stopped just because I needed to study other scriptures. How can it be boring?

But even more, we neglect so much of the Pauline material in the Bible. Galatians and Romans are the big things, but I think you won’t understand Paul unless you read other epistles. I think 2 Corinthians is another one that is neglected, and by neglecting it, we miss some of who the apostle Paul was and how he led churches.

Those are my thoughts instead of teaching Sunday School!

What do you think?

 

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One Comment

  1. I think your assessment of 1:1–3 is spot on. Concerning the division between at 1:6—which in all honesty can go either way—I’m curious if 1 Thess 2:13ff might be of some assistance in understanding the relationship of 1:6 to the surrounding context.

    In 1 Thess 2:13, Paul returns to the idea of Thanksgiving. It seems as if, after a long aside between 2:1–16, he finally brings his thanksgiving to a close. In 2:13ff, Paul rehashes (almost in the style of an inclusio) the same things he is thankful for in 1:1–10: thankful for their reception of the gospel as the word of God, its work in them, and for their imitation of—not Paul in this case—but the churches in Judea.

    The use of γάρ in 2:14 alerts us to the fact that the information contained within the clause, even though it is an independent clause, supports an idea that came before: i.e., Paul’s thankfulness.

    This seems to be what is happening in 1:6 as well. The Thessalonians’ imitation of Paul is support for why he knows they are are elect, which is a reason for why he is thankful.

    Also, one of the reasons it seems difficult to construe 1:6 as a second reason controlled by the ὅτι of 1:5 is the intervening καθὼς οἴδατε οἷοι ἐγενήθημεν ἐν ὑμῖν διʼ ὑμᾶς (just as you know what sort of people we ere among you). But, if we see this clause as the parenthetical aside that it seems to be, we are better able to see the relationship between 1:5 and 1:6.

    On this matter (the relationship between 1:5 and 1:6) commentators are divided, so there is sufficient evidence for either position. Just thought I might weigh in with some of my reasoning.

    Thoughts?

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