Глава II

The circumstances and nature of the Apostle's evangelism among the Thessalonians (1-12). The success and effect of the apostolic preaching among readers who are faithful to it, even during the suffering suffered from persecution (13-16). The desire of St. Paul to see the Thessalonians and the obstacles to this (17-20). 1 Thessalonians 2:1. You yourself know, brethren, about our entrance to you, that it was not inactive; The nature of life and activities of Ap. Paul among F-skih Christians. The Apostle again returns to the thought expressed above in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, and now develops it, moving on to an apology for the motives and nature of his preaching, which, apparently, were denigrated and criticized, and, of course, initially from the Jews, and not from the pagans, who knew very little about the past of the Apostle. Pavel. 1 Thessalonians 2:2. but having first suffered and been reproached in Philippi, as you know, we dared in our God to preach to you the gospel of God with great feat. The beginning of F.'s sermon was not “in vain” - aimless and frivolous. Having suffered both physically and spiritually, the evangelists, undaunted by the failure in Philippi, dared to “speak” about God in Thessalonica “with great feat” - despite the enormous opposition from the enemies of the Gospel. 1 Sol.2:3. For in our teaching there is no error, no unclean motives, no deceit; 1 Sol.2:4. but, just as God has deigned to entrust us with the gospel, so we speak, pleasing not men, but God, who tests our hearts. The Physicians know this very well and also know that the teaching of evangelists does not come from error (in the sense of self-deception), and not from the desire to preach licentiousness (ακαθαρσία), or to rely on deceit. This indication of impurity (ακαθαρσία) or “sensuality”, as a possible source of the sermon, was very important in view of those extremely immoral forms of serving the gods, which were often sanctified by the religions of that time. Such, for example, was the mystical cult “Kabiri” in F-ka itself, accompanied by grossly immoral rituals. Evangelists are free from these shortcomings. Tested by God and honored to be bearers of the Gospel, they try to serve and please not the base motives and passions of man, but God. 1 Sol.2:5. For we never had before you any words of endearment, as you know, or any form of self-interest: God is my witness! 1 Thessalonians 2:6. We do not seek human glory either from you or from others; 1 Thessalonians 2:7. We could appear with importance, like the Apostles of Christ, but we were quiet among you, like a nurse tenderly treats her children. Their gospel is alien to flattery, calculated on crude personal interest, alien even to the “pretext” for self-interest. They do not seek glory, neither from people nor from them. They “could have been a burden to them” (έν βάρει είναι), like the Apostles - but this actually was not the case. How to understand this expression έν βάρει είναι - “mighty in the burden of being”? Are we talking here about the monetary benefits to which evangelists were entitled, or does this mean an insistent demand for recognition of their authority? Βάρος has two meanings: a) it can have a direct meaning of “heaviness”, “burden” (Vulgata - oneri esse), and in this case it can indicate the right of the Apostles to demand help and maintenance (see Art. 1 Thess. 2:9 and 2 Thess. 3:8); b) but it can also have a derivative meaning of “power, dignity”; in this case, it will indicate the honor that evangelists could expect from F-v as “Apostles of Christ.” If we connect the thought of Art. 7. with the thought of v. 6, then the second meaning of the word βάρος is more appropriate; if you connect Art. 7 with 5 art., then the first meaning of the word will be more acceptable. But “it may be safer to ascribe to the expression έν βάρει είναι a comprehensive meaning, including both of these royal, so to speak, prerogatives of the Apostleship - the right to insist on its authority, and the right to levy auxiliaries” (Lightfoot, op. cit.). The evangelists, without being burdensome, were, on the contrary, “quiet” among them (ήπιοι). In this place, another reading is possible: “νήπιοι”, in which case the thought would be: “we were children among you.” This reading is found in two ancient codes - Sinaiticus and Vatican. But the reading ήπιοι is just as well supported by manuscripts as νήπιοι, and in the course of thought is much more acceptable. 1 Thessalonians 2:8. So, out of zeal for you, we wanted to convey to you not only the gospel of God, but also our souls, because you have become kind to us. 1 Thessalonians 2:9. For you remember, brethren, our labor and exhaustion: working night and day, so as not to burden any of you, we preached the gospel of God to you. Here we see a wonderful picture of the life and work of Ap. Pavel and his employees in F-ka. Not wanting to be a burden to anyone, Ap-l worked personally to support himself. This work, undoubtedly, was making tents, a craft for which Ap. Paul was trained, according to Jewish custom, from childhood; He practiced the same craft in Corinth (Acts 18:2–3). But Ap. Paul did not always depend on his craft alone; judging by Philippians 4:15, in Ph-ke he received support from the Philippian Christians, and later in Corinth (2 Cor 11:9) he received support from Macedonia. There is no contradiction here with 2 Thessalonians 3:7–10. The apostle could easily have had in mind two motives for an independent and working lifestyle - the desire to avoid accusations of “self-interest”, and the desire to give others an example of hard work to follow. 1 Thessalonians 2:10. You and God are witnesses, how holy and righteous and impeccable we acted before you, the believers, 1 Sol.2:11. because you know how each of you, like the father of his children, 1 Sol.2:12. we have asked and urged and begged you to act worthy of God, who has called you to His Kingdom and glory. But this work was for livelihood. Paul is in a very advantageous position in relation to believers. She gave him the opportunity to study everyone in detail, with constant communication in work, and become the father of each of them in a spiritual sense. Each of them Ap. Paul exhorted and asked to “walk worthy of God, who calls them into His kingdom” (καλούντος). The idea of ​​the Kingdom of God was Jewish in origin; it is found very often in the Gospel, but not so often in other writers N. 3. This idea was alien to the Greeks. But the Apostle, apparently, especially put forward this idea in his sermon in F-ke. His enemies, the Jews, took advantage of this and gave it a false interpretation that was politically dangerous (Acts 17:7). It is very possible that the sad experience in F-ke forced Ap. Paul left this form of revealing Christianity in the Greek cities. 1 Sol.2:13. Therefore, we unceasingly thank God that, having received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as the word of God [as it truly is], which acts in you who believe. A new expression of gratitude on the part of the Apostle for the conversion of F-v and their firmness in persecution. They accepted the Word of God not as the word of man, hence its effectiveness. They accepted it with their hearts, and it acts in them with good fruits - it acts in them as “believers” (prov. present time πιστευουσιν). “The word is effective as long as the hearers believe. These two facts go together. If faith were to cease, the influence of the word of preaching would cease” (Adeney. w. 7, The Century Bible, Thessalonians, p. 171). 1 Thessalonians 2:14. For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea, because you also suffered the same things from your fellow tribesmen as those from the Jews. This contains the most powerful attack on Jewry by Ap. Paul (compare Acts 7:51–53). “This is the only place in his epistles where the expression “Jews” is used, just as it is done in Heb. John, to designate the chosen people as enemies of faith in Christ. To understand this passage, which is so different in language from Romans 9–10, we must remember that Ap. Paul, in general a man of a passionate nature, still painfully felt the recent persecution against himself on the part of his compatriots, who, as he realized, fought not only against him, but against God and the truth” (Iulford, Thessalonians, crp. 22). Contains an excellent refutation of the Tübingen hypothesis (F. Baur) about the alleged enmity between Ap. Paul and the churches in Judea. The F-tsy became imitators of these latter, and in the words of Ap. Paul feels “amazement, full of love” (Lightfoot) at the steadfastness of the Jewish Christians, who became a model for F-ki Christians. On the other hand, this verse perfectly confirms our conclusions about the state of the church in F-ka, and about the source of the persecution of Christians. “Although in the book of Acts the Jews are the main persecutors of Ap. Paul in F-ka, we still cannot doubt that the course of events was the same everywhere; the opposition to the Gospel aroused by the Jews was taken up by the local population, without whose assistance they would have been powerless” (Lightfoot op. cit. v. 32). 1 Thessalonians 2:15. who killed the Lord Jesus and His prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and oppose all men, Here the words “πάσιν άνθρώποις εναντίων” perfectly describe the godless and hostile nature of Judaism. Everywhere Ap was. Pavel, the latter drove him. On the other hand, the great Apostle, wandering through pagan cities, could perfectly notice the feeling with which Judaism was treated everywhere. Words by Ap. Paul finds excellent confirmation in the story of Tacitus, who said that the Jews have “adversus omnes alios hostile odium” (V:5). The Roman satirist Juvenal does not speak better of them; “Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges, Iudaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt jus... Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos.” XIV:100–104. "St. Paul sees an example of their hostility towards humanity in their opposition to the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles. But both of their characteristics, their exclusivity in the matter of spiritual privileges, and their selfish isolation in everyday relations in general, owed their existence to the same spirit alien to love and freedom, all the more hateful because it was a caricature and an unnatural growth on the exceptional purity of their old monotheism” (Lightfoot, op. cit. p. 34). 1 Thessalonians 2:16. who prevent us from telling the pagans to be saved, and through this they always fill the measure of their sins; but wrath is coming upon them to the end. “Wrath is coming upon them to the end” - there is no reason to attribute these words to the fact of the destruction of Jerusalem. If this were so, there would be references to such an extraordinary event in other places in the message, and even here this event would be described more specifically. Ap. Paul here read, so to speak, the signs of the times, the future fate of the God-fighting and stiff-necked Judaism. 1 Thessalonians 2:17. But we, brethren, having been separated from you for a short time in face, and not in heart, tried all the more eagerly to see your face. 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:10. Anxiety Ap. Paul regarding the Christian church in F., Timothy's visit to F., and the joy of the evangelist at the sight of the welfare of their church and the growth of their faith and love. 1 Thessalonians 2:18. And that’s why we, I Paul, wanted to come to you once or twice; but Satan prevented us. Ap. Paul especially emphasizes his personal desire to “see the face” of his disciples, but “Satan prevented us,” he writes. What does this expression mean? An obstacle could have been illness at this time. Paul; he hints at illness in the last sentence. to the Galatians (Gal. 4:14), among whom he had been shortly before. But, most likely, this expression refers to the opposition from Judaism. “Satan, acting through the Jews, instigated persecution against the Apostle, so that his repeated intention to visit F-ku remained unfulfilled.” Ramsay. W.M. (in St. Paul the Traveler, crp. 230 - 31) speculates that here an allusion is made to the action of the polytarchs (Acts 17:8), which prevented Ap. Paul to return to F-ku (Iulford op. cit. 23–24). You might be interested in: