Background of Thessalonians

Thessalonica was a major city in northern Greece. Situated on the main east-west highway of the Roman Empire, it was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia and very loyal to Rome. It survives to this day, now known as Salonika.

Paul planted this church on his second missionary journey about 50 AD. After Paul and Silas had, during the Apostle's second missionary journey, left Philippi, they proceeded to Thessalonica. Luke, one of Paul's mission band, concisely records what happened in Acts 17:1-15.

The signal success of Paul's apostolate among Jews, proselytes, and Hellenes together with the conversion of “not a few noble ladies,” aroused the Jews to a fury of envy; they gathered together a mob of idlers from the agora and set the whole city in tumult; they beset the home of Jason, found the Apostle away, dragged his host to the tribunal of the politarchs and charged him with harbouring traitors, men who set Jesus up as king in place of Cæsar. That night the brethren made good the escape of their teacher to Berea. There the Gospel of Paul met with a much more enthusiastic reception than that accorded to it by the synagogue of Thessalonica. The Jews of that city drove Paul to Berea and there, too, stirred up the mob against him.

Concerned for their spiritual welfare, he sent Timothy back to check on them. Upon hearing Timothy's report, he writes this letter from Corinth to encourage, instruct and equip them in their relationships with Christ. This means that 1 Thessalonians is one of the earliest documents of the New Testament—preceded only by Galatians and James. It is also one of the most personal.