Passage

1 Thessalonians 5.27

Book: 1 Thessalonians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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Setting

• Speaker: Paul, writing with Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy, who are named as co-senders in the opening (1 Thess 1:1).
• Audience: The church in Thessalonica, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia; a largely Gentile congregation of recent converts (1 Thess 1:9) founded on the second missionary journey (Acts 17:1-9).
• Location: Written from Corinth, shortly after Timothy returned with news of the young church (1 Thess 3:6).
• Time period: c. AD 50-51. The Gallio inscription from Delphi fixes Paul in Corinth around AD 51-52 (Acts 18:12), which makes this letter either the earliest or one of the two earliest surviving Pauline writings, roughly twenty years after the crucifixion.

Theological reading

"I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren."

The strongest verb Paul uses about his own correspondence. Enorkizō is a solemn adjuration, putting the recipients under oath before the Lord. Paul asks for very few things this way, and the abruptness of it at the letter's close, in what appears to be his own hand, has drawn comment since antiquity.

Public reading. The instruction assumes the letter will be read aloud to the assembled congregation, which was the normal mode of reception in a largely non-literate society and which is what the parallel at Colossians 4:16 describes, with letters exchanged between churches for reading. This is the practice that makes apostolic letters function as congregational address rather than private mail.

Why it matters for canon. The verse is among the earliest evidence for apostolic writings being given a place alongside the reading of Scripture in Christian assemblies, a practice Justin Martyr describes as settled by the mid second century (First Apology 67, memoirs of the apostles read together with the writings of the prophets). Paul does not here call his letter Scripture, and the page should not claim he does; what he does is place it under oath into the church's public reading, which is the practice within which the canon later took shape.

"To all the brethren." The insistence on all may reflect the divisions or the idle members addressed at 5:14, or simply Paul's concern that a letter of consolation reach the grieving members it was written for.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

• G2962 - kyrios, kyrios, Strong's G2962
• G3956 - pas, pas, Strong's G3956

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

• Bible Was Written by a Literate Few Objection Defeater

Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

• ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
• WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
• KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
• YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.