1 Thessalonians Chapter 2
In I chapter 2 Paul defends the actions and behaviors of his group as righteous, honest and with the best intent toward the Thessalonicans. This makes it seem as though some have attacked their integrity since they left in an effort to undo their teaching. Paul goes to great lengths to remind them that they worked to support themselves while among them, rather than asking for support, how they spoke to them as a father to his children, and treated them as a mother nursing her children.
Paul says that these at Thessalonica were mistreated - persecuted - by their own countrymen as Paul was mistreated by the Jews. He uses the phrase that the Jews have "filled up the measure of their sins". I think this is about how once God has condemned, he usually seems to allow a nation to continue, growing perpetually worse, so that in the end there is no doubt that they should be condemned. Perhaps Paul has some idea of the coming of 70 AD, and knows that the persecution by the Jews is just another gallon of gas thrown on the fire that will consume them. The paragraph ends with this line: "But wrath has come upon them at last." I had never noticed the use of this word "wrath" before. I would latch onto this if I wanted to say that Revelation was about 70 AD. But I don't think it is. MSB gives four things these two phrases could refer to, one of which is 70 AD. But he says in this case, it is soteriological, about God's wrath pouring out on unbelievers being so certain that it is spoken of as if it is already done. Sure seems debatable, and MSB is acknowledging that I think by giving four possibilities for how this might have been meant, and then choosing the one he thinks it is.
Paul indicates that he was "torn from them", perhaps by some big event elsewhere that required his presence. (2021-2, No, I think in the MSB intro it says that he was essentially run out of town, went to Berea, and was forced out of there too, and ended up in Athens. It was in Thessalonica that Jason was dragged from his house into the town square because the frustrated crowd couldn't find Paul and Silas to murder them. This was definitely a "run out of town" situation. Acts 17 has the details.) He doesn't seem to be saying that he was "run out of town" as he was so many other places. Since that time, Paul says he has been trying to return, but Satan has hindered it. This should give an indication that Satan has considerable power in this world. You know that Paul was praying for this opportunity but so far it hasn't happened. Satan doesn't want it to happen. He can prevent good things from arriving where they are needed and wanted, and he can prevent those who strive to deliver what is needed...for a time. How is that? Does God allow Satan this freedom as part of the curse or part of some punishment of mankind in general for rejecting Christ?
2024 - Or does He allow it to test the faith of those who need but have not received, to grow their faith, to turn them to each other in time of need, in love, in sharing, in support of each other. This seems far more likely.
Surely there is a battle, and I have recently heard that Satan, being Prince of the Power of the Air, controls the "highways" from heaven to earth and back, to the point of trying to prevent human souls going to heaven at the rapture. He fails, of course, and I'm not sure I believe this anyway. But something is going on if Satan has prevented Paul from returning to Thessalonica. OR...Paul is speaking figuratively. As in "the devil made me do it". As in circumstances seem to be conspiring to prevent him from returning. And the simplest explanation...maybe Paul wrote to Thessalonica while he was imprisoned someplace. I didn't check to see where this was written from. (2021-2. Supposed to have been written from Corinth. In fact, both the Thessalonican letters were written from there. And Paul was always pretty busy at Corinth. There were big problems there. Perhaps dealing with those kept him from leaving, perhaps those problems were a bigger threat to the Corinthian church than anything building up at Thessalonica.)
2021-2, These first two chapters went pretty quickly. Either I am missing something deep, or there isn't a lot of doctrine at the beginning of this book. It has essentially been praise and reminiscence so far.