First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

MOSHIACH'S LETTER THROUGH THE SHLIACH SHA'UL TO THE BRIT CHADASHA KEHILLAH IN THESSALONIKA (I)

In only one month's time in C.E. 50, amidst great persecution

both in Philippi and in Thessalonica, Shliach Sha'ul, Silas, and

Timothy had started a new congregation in Thessalonica in

Macedonia (north of ancient Greece)! Then this city was the

capital of Macedonia, a Roman province, on the main highway to

Rome. Like New York and London today, it was in G-d's plan a

strategic target for kiruv outreach. The area is the northern

part of modern Greece today.

These two letters to the Brit Chadasha kehillah at Thessalonica

were probably written rather close together, one after the other,

from Corinth during the second of Rav Sha'ul's three

congregation-planting journeys. By studying Acts 17-18 and I and

II Thessalonians we see the rapid way Shliach Sha'ul worked as he

moved around the world with a couple of associates.

Knowing where to find a captive audience of his easiest potential

people to be won (the Gentile G-d-fearers in the Hellenistic

Jewish synagogues), Shliach Sha'ul would preach as a rabbi for a

few Shabbos and thus become known to many people quickly. Those

who were convicted or interested he undoubtedly spent many hours

meeting with in their homes, not wasting a single precious day

nor losing any time seeing the potential leaders immersed into

discipleship so that these in turn could later immerse the rest

in the absence of the Shliach and his associates, and a

congregation could then form in one of the leaders' homes.

Then, even if Shliach Sha'ul would have wanted to be the

congregational leader of the new believers for a time, usually

persecution prevented him and he had to make a quick exit to the

next virgin territory where another congregation-planting

challenge awaited him. However, here is where his two assistants

were so crucial. One shliach's assistant could return to the

newly planted congregation as a letter carrier, follow-up

preacher, and messenger, reporting back to Shliach Sha'ul so that

a second letter could be dispatched to answer doctrinal questions

or deal with potential problems developing. The other assistant

could work with Shliach Sha'ul or, when a new

congregation in the next area began appearing, could be freed

from staying with Shliach Sha'ul to do the same thing the other

assistant was doing but in the newly planted congregation Shliach

Sha'ul was already exiting!

The King James Version of Acts 13:13 calls this shliach's

congregation-planting kiruv outreach team a "company." What a

brilliant methodology G-d had developed for it! Dealing with

three new Brit Chadasha kehillah plantings at a time, Shliach

Sha'ul and his company of only three or so men could hop like a

three-leqged spider across the world, leaving new Brit Chadasha

kehillot behind everywhere they went, some in just a few weeks,

yet with excellent communications and follow-up, even in a day

without modern telephones, planes, and automobiles!

Rav Sha'ul's tent-making secular profession was critical to him

in being able to move fast without having to constantly take time

off to do fund-raising. He could arrive at a new area, set up

shop and integrate into the local economy with enough prosperity

in his vocational pursuit to have instant credibility as an

honest businessman who was at the same time an itinerate

religious speaker without pecuniary motives. Then, with this

secular respectability as a bottom line, the local towns people

perceived Shliach Sha'ul as a worshipper worth listening to,

especially since he was a trained scribe who knew the Hebrew

Scriptures as an educated rabbi. Not only did his preaching with

tears let the love of G-d shine through, but also his power-

encounters with sickness and the demonic, as well as his

debating skills held forth the W-rd of G-d with such authority

that really there was no competition or incentive to follow

anyone else, as far as those who were hungry for G-d were

concerned.

Therefore, since his secular work was critical to his credibility

and conservation of time as well as independence and mobility,

Shliach Sha'ul was extremely concerned with some of the attitudes

toward work of the immature believers at Thessalonica. In their

ignorance they seemed to feel that, since the L-rd's Coming was

near at hand, and since menial, mundane manual labor was

perceived by them to be spiritually trivial, irrelevant, and

beneath the status of their newly acquired religious dignity

(pride was entering the picture!), they had quit their jobs,

weren't really looking for work, but were lying around like

religious bums. Some may even have thought that, just because

they were new believers, perhaps someone owed them a living or

should support them (see II Thes. 3:10).

Being unemployed was probably unwittingly getting them depressed.

Also, the Thessalonians had been persecuted and may have had a

few narrow escapes with death. Then too there may have been a few

funerals in their community of believers, and consolation was

needed because, though many had hoped that Moshiach Yehoshua the

King would arrive without delay, someone may have died and

seemingly missed the L-rd's parousia or Coming. Shliach Sha'ul

assures them, however, that the dead will rise first at the time

the living are changed when the L-rd comes, and therefore there

will be no disadvantage to a believer's "falling asleep" as far

as receiving a resurrection body at the rapture is concerned (see

I Thes. 4:13-18). But there was a need to stay alert and to keep

the heart's hope based squarely on nothing but I Thes. 1:10, "to

wait for his Ben HaElohim from heaven, whom He raised from the

dead-- Moshiach Yehoshua, who rescues us from the wrath that is

coming... the wrath to which we have not been appointed" (I

Thes.5:9).

There also may have been a tendency by some to overdo the "holy

kissing" (I Thes. 5:26), because a spouse may have changed

partners in the congregation and Shliach Sha'ul promises G-d's

vengence (I Thes. 4:5-6) for this Judas-like act of betraying a

brother and destroying his home by stealing his wife.

Notice there also may have been some heathenish rebellion against

Rav Sha'ul's "theology" connected with this adulterous sexual

affair in the Brit Chadasha kehillah (4:7-8). Rebellion against

authority goes hand in hand with sexual immorality (see also II

Shimon Kefa 2:10; Yehuda 8), so whenever a rebel appears on the

scene with a new theology and an arrogant attitude toward those

over him in the L-rd, it often happens that all this is nothing

more than a cover for an undercover and illicit sexual liaison.

Notice 5:1-2. Shliach Sha'ul was reluctant to give us a neat

dispensational chart of exactly how things end.

To "live a life worthy of G-d" is the key to ethics (2:12). To

stay alert means to keep our hope squarely on nothing but I Thes.

1:10, which means that we are obeying chapter 5.

The characteristics of a true servant of the Besuras Hageulah are

found in 2:3-7.

Those who think that Satan doesn't exit or can't hinder or that

believers don't suffer should read 2:18 and 3:1-5.

On the rapture, see NIV Study Bible note on I Thes. 4:17, which

says, "Some hold that this (the rapture) will be secret, but

Shliach Sha'ul seems to be describing something open and public,

with loud voices and a trumpet blast."

In I Thes. 2:9 we find Shliach Sha'ul working "night and

day," and, of course, Hasatan and his co-workers are also working

(2:16, 18; 3:5). Shliach Sha'ul knew that all believers are

appointed to suffer persecution (3:3) and this was part of his

own calling when he saw the risen L-rd (Acts 9:16). See the key

word thlipsis (affliction, tribulation, persecution, oppression,

distress that is brought about by outward circumstances) is

repeated in I Thes. 1:6; 3:3,7; II Thes. 1:4,6. Moshiach

Yehoshua warns that a day of universal and climactic thlipsis is

coming on the world (Mark 13:19-20) so terrible, that unless the

L-rd shortens those days no one could be saved. However, for the

sake of the elect, who apparently see some of those days, the

time of distress is cut short. When Shliach Sha'ul is writing,

Claudius Caesar is already persecuting Jews in Rome, expelling

them from the city. Nero is then a mad teenager waiting for his

murderous opportunity (he will kill both Shliach Sha'ul and

Shliach Kefa in only 14-17 years in an initial fulfillment of the

Mark 13:19-20 prophecy). Then, only 10 years before, the Roman

Emperor Caligula raised the specter of Antiochus Epiphanes

redivivus, likewise threatening to erect an "abomination that

causes desolation," namely his own heathen idol in the Beis

Hamikdash in C.E. 40 as a narrowly averted replay of 167 B.C.E.

But, it is interesting that later, as all these horrors are

rapidly approaching, Shliach Sha'ul is more focussed on the

coming of the L-rd and divine deliverance than he is on Satan's

expanding, intimidating activities (see Phil. 1:19; II Tim. 4:8,

17-18).

Why is doing the work of G-d so important? See 1:3, 2:9, 2:13

(Satan is also working, hindering the Besuras Hageulah through

those who are blinded by him,--see 2:16 and 2:18.)

3:5 We need to make sure our labor is not in vain because of

Satanic temptation.

3:13 What is our work? It is the Father's work? What is our

fatherly work? See 2:11-12