Second Thessalonians: Introduction-Authorship and Recipients of Second Thessalonians

Just as 1 Thessalonians 1:1a identifies Paul, Silvanus and Timothy as the authors of 1 Thessalonians, so 2 Thessalonians 1:1a identifies these same three men as the authors of 2 Thessalonians.

Like 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians employs the first person plural pronouns often used with reference to these three men: (1) “we” (1:3-4, 11; 2:1, 13; 3:2, 4, 6-11) (2) “us” (1:7; 2:2, 15-16; 3:1, 6) (3) “our” (1:1, 8, 10-12; 2:1, 14, 16; 3:6-7, 9m 14, 18).

Also, 2 Thessalonians 3:17 also contains Paul’s “signature” as evidence of the letter’s authenticity.

Furthermore, the early church fathers who lived after the apostles and during their lifetime never questioned the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians.

Several fathers mentioned the Pauline authorship of this letter in their writings.

They not only quote from this letter but also they explicitly attribute the citation to Paul or “the apostle.”

These are Irenaeus (130–202) in Against Heresies 3.7.2 cites 2:8; Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215) in Stromata 5.3 cites 3:1–2; and Tertullian (ca. 160-225) in An. 57 cites 2:4 and in Marcion 5.16 cites 1:6–9; 2:3–4, 9–12; 3:10.

Second Thessalonians is also included as a Pauline letter in both Marcion’s canon (ca. 140) and in the Muratorian Canon (ca. 170).

Therefore, no one in the church questioned the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians for almost two thousand years.

However, despite the clear identification of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy as the authors of 2 Thessalonians, rationalistic critics who rejected the inspiration of Scripture called into questioned the authenticity of this letter.

J. E. C. Schmidt in his essay Vermutungen über die beiden Briefe an die Thessalonicher, which was written in approximately 1800, was one of these critics.

Another one of these critics was of the authorship of Second Thessalonians was F.C. Bauer (1792-1860).

He not only questioned the authorship of this letter but also many of Paul’s traditional letters as part of his reconstruction of early Christianity.

He argued that 1 and 2 Thessalonians were disputed or non-authentic letters as opposed to the uncontested or authentic letters of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians (Baur, Paul, 2:314–40; 1:260–381).

Despite his arguments, many of his assumptions on which he based his historical and literary conclusions have been found by other scholars as lacking real substance.

So today in the twenty-first century, the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians like 1 Thessalonians is not questioned and widely acknowledged.

J.P. Sweeney writes “Today, the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians is not questioned. Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians also is widely acknowledged, including many recent commentaries and specialized studies. Scholars such as Menken, who maintain that 2 Thessalonians is post-Pauline (pseudonymous) argue a cumulative case on the basis of historical, literary, and theological differences between 2 Thessalonians and the less-disputed letters of Paul. However, the lack of a plausible life-setting (Sitz im Leben) for 2 Thessalonians and the difficulty of identifying its genre is problematic for this explanation (see Nicholl, Hope, 215–18). The reception of 2 Thessalonians as one of Paul’s traditional letters also challenges this theory. Pseudepigraphical writings (i.e., nonapostolic writings laying claim to the names of the apostles) were frowned upon in early Christian circles. In the early fourth century ad, Eusebius quotes Serapion, bishop of Antioch (ad191–211), as saying, “For we, [brothers], receive both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but we reject intelligently the writings falsely ascribed to them, knowing that such were not handed down to us” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.12.3; NPNF2 1:258). (See Ellis, “Pseudonymity,” 212–24, and Making, 320–29.)”[1]

Gordon Fee writes “When one reads the literature by those who argue that Paul is not the author of this letter, one is struck by the ‘thinness’ of the argumentation as such, especially since there is hardly a single argument that does not take some form of subjectivity on the part of its proponent(s). And at the end of the day, it becomes quite clear that had this letter not contained the material in 2:1–12, this view would not have arisen at all. Indeed, the most often-recurring argument against Pauline authorship is a very subjective one, that this letter lacks the ‘warmth’ of the first one. But one may rightly wonder how this is an objective argument at all. And in any case, why should the letter not come across thus, given (a)that some misinformation regarding the day of the Lord has been attributed to Paul himself, and (b) that he has to deal with one situation (the disuptive-idle) for a second time and now at length!...Finally, what is perhaps the most significant feature of all regarding this letter is the fact that its author has a thoroughgoing acquaintance with, and use of, language and terms from the first letter, but knew next to nothing, if anything at all, of the Paul of the later letters. As many have pointed out before, this phenomenon in itself calls the theory of pseudepigraphy into an extremely high level of suspicion, while at the same time it makes it nearly impossible that someone with knowledge of the whole corpus wrote it at a later time. The ultimate question on this matter, of course, is ‘why?’; why would anyone care to write such a letter simply for the sake of “palming off” as Pauline the singular (even for Paul) eschatological material in 2:1–12—and one could surely posit no other meaningful reason for a forgery. And to let that material sit in the middle of the letter rather than at the end would seem to make almost no sense at all.”[2]

Just as 1 Thessalonians 1:1 identifies the recipients of First Thessalonians as the Thessalonian Christian community, so 2 Thessalonians 1:1 identifies the same group of individuals as the recipients of Second Thessalonians.

They were new converts to Christianity who lived in the city of Thessalonica (cf. 1 Thess. 1:1).

Acts 17:1-10 records Paul establishing the church in this city.

This passage reveals that Paul taught in the Jewish synagogue in Thessalonica.

Consequently, “some of the Jews” and a “large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” were converted.

This passage teaches that eventually Paul and Silas had to leave Thessalonica because the Jews were jealous and incited the populace to turn against them.

This text would indicate that the church in Thessalonica was primarily Jewish.

However, this passage does not tell the entire story.

Undoubtedly, as the text says, the Jews were jealous of this response by their fellow Jews to Paul’s gospel.

However, 1 Thessalonians 2:14 would indicate that they were also jealous of the Gentiles in this city trusting Jesus Christ as their Savior.

This verse records Paul telling the Thessalonians that they became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.

Then, he says that they suffered the same things from their own countrymen as the saved Jews in Judea did from their own countrymen!

Notice the distinction Paul makes between the Thessalonians suffering persecution at the hands of their own countrymen and the Jewish believers suffering at the hands of their fellow Jewish countrymen.

This makes clear that the Thessalonians were primarily Gentile.

Thus, the Jews in Thessalonica would have also been jealous of the Gentiles in this city responding favorably to Paul’s gospel.

Indeed, Paul teaches in Romans 11:13-14 that he magnifies his ministry to the Gentiles in order to make his fellow Jewish countrymen jealous and thus save some of them.

Therefore, Paul must have had a ministry.

Another clear indication that Thessalonian Christian community was in fact primarily Gentile rather than Jewish is Paul’s statement in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, which records Paul asserting that the Thessalonians turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

The Jewish people were no longer practicing idolatry upon their return from Babylon in the fifth century B.C.

The gospels make clear that the practice of idolatry was no longer found among the Jewish people.

However, the pagan Gentiles living in the first century A.D. were totally and completely immersed in the practice of idolatry.

Therefore, this statement in 1 Thessalonians 1:9 is a reference to the fact that Paul was writing to Gentile Christians.

[1] Sweeney, J. P. (2016). Thessalonians, Second Letter to the, Critical Issues. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. [2] Fee, G. D. (2009). The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians(pp. 237–241). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.