The Church in Thessalonica

Last week’s post (here) introduced the idea that Paul had to rework his Jewish theology in three primary areas: election, monotheism, and eschatology. This re-evaluation shows up in the opening verses of 1 Thessalonians: his monotheism now has “the Lord Jesus Christ” on an equal footing with “God the Father” (1 Thess 1:1)¹ and his doctrine of election now includes Gentile believers—he knows their election of God (1 Thess 1:4). 

This post will deal with an important aspect of Paul’s reworked view of election: to him, the Thessalonians are “the assembly … in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:1 Wuest). I am using Wuest’s translation because our utter familiarity with the word church can cause us to miss the radical shift in the Apostle’s thinking. For him to call the Thessalonians “the assembly” shows he has thoroughly reworked his former belief system.

The evidence of this radical rework is easy to produce: Paul’s parents and teachers—including the famous Gamaliel (Acts 22:3)—had from his youth taught him the Old Testament Scriptures. There, the assembly (or congregation) of God comprised “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18)—a term Paul used to describe Israel as the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The term Paul uses for church (Gk. ekklēsia) is, in the Septuagint,² often equivalent to the Hebrew word that means “the assembly of the Israelites.”³ I will provide a few examples to drive home this point.

After God brought Israel out of Egypt he gave detailed instructions regarding those excluded from membership in his assembly (Deut 23:1–7). For example, he said, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of the LORD for ever” (Deut 23:3). From the start of her existence, Israel considered herself—based on God’s own words—to be the church (or congregation) of God. No other nation or group could claim that title.⁴

Israel kept this self-identity when she entered the Promised Land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. (More on that in a moment.) Just before that entrance, “Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of Israel the words” of a song that would testify against that congregation in her “latter days” (Deut 31:29–30). After Israel entered the land, Joshua reiterated Moses’ message: “There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them” (Josh 8:35). During the Exodus, the nation of Israel was the church of God.

Six centuries later,⁵ Solomon spoke to Israel after he finished building the first temple: “And the king turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel: (and all the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of Israel stood)” (1 Kgs 8:14). The temple—including the second temple built after the Babylonians destroyed the first one—served as the center of this congregation’s world until its destruction in AD 70.

Three centuries⁶ after Solomon finished building the temple, the prophets were still referring to Israel after the flesh as the congregation of the Lord. Joel said, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation (LXX ekklēsia)” (Joel 2:15–16). And Micah foretold a future time of judgment when Israel would no longer have land to divide as she did in the days of Joshua: “Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation (LXX ekklēsia) of the LORD” (Micah 2:5).

The idea of Israel being the church (or congregation) of the Lord finds its way into the New Testament. Stephen spoke of Moses as a type of Christ in the midst of Israel: 

This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church (Gk. ekklēsia) in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us. (Acts 7:37–38)

For fifteen centuries, the Jews had applied the concept of the church/assembly/congregation of God to themselves. This church had distinct boundaries that marked those persons who held membership in it and those who did not. But now, in his first letter,⁷ Paul applies this sacred and exclusive term to someone else: he refers to the followers of Christ in a foreign city as the church. 

This change is more significant than we normally recognize; Paul no longer recognizes Israel after the flesh as the church of God. He now thinks differently: “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh” (2 Cor 5:16). He no longer uses fleshly relationships to determine membership in the messianic-age church of God. This is consistent with another basic change he makes. Now, 

He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. (Rom 2:28–29)

In Paul’s new worldview, “the assembly … in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” comprises this kind of Jew, not Jews who are so only after the flesh. Paul has reworked his idea of election in a way that causes him to redefine the church of God.

The prophetic model we adopt must reflect this change in the Apostle’s worldview. Inmillennialism, the model I have documented in previous posts and now in book form, recognizes this basic change in Paul’s thinking.

Next week, Lord willing, I will look at Paul’s redefinition of election from a broader perspective.

1. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit—the third member of the Trinity—in these letters, too (1 Thess 4:8; 5:19; 2 Thess 2:8, 13).
2. The Greek translation of the Old Testament.
3. Joseph Thayer and James Strong, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Coded With Strong’s Concordance Numbers (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1982), 196 (s.v. “ἐκκλησία”).
4. The image in this post is The Crossing of the Red Sea by Nicolas Poussin  (1594–1665). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
5. Martin Anstey, Chronology of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1973), 160, 184.
6. Anstey, Chronology of the Old Testament, 248–49.
7. At least among those which survive.