ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

2 Thessalonians 1.1

Book: 2 Thessalonians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

1. Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;

  1. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth; (2 Thessalonians 1:1-3, ASV)
WEB

1. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ:

  1. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each and every one of you towards one another abounds; (2 Thessalonians 1:1-3, WEB)
KJV

1. Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

  1. Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; (2 Thessalonians 1:1-3, KJV)
YLT

1. Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, to the assembly of Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ:

  1. Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ! 3. We ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because increase greatly doth your faith, and abound doth the love of each one of you all, to one another; (2 Thessalonians 1:1-3, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul the Apostle, opening the letter with Silvanus and Timothy named alongside him.
  • Audience: The church at Thessalonica, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia and a free city on the Via Egnatia. Paul had planted the congregation only months earlier (Acts 17:1-9) and left the city under duress; the believers were still under local pressure, and had been unsettled by a report that the day of the Lord had already arrived (2:2).
  • Location: Most probably Corinth, where Silvanus and Timothy were with Paul (Acts 18:5), written shortly after 1 Thessalonians.
  • Time period: c. AD 50-52. The date is anchored by the Gallio inscription at Delphi, which places the proconsulship of Achaia held by Gallio (Acts 18:12) at roughly AD 51-52.

Theological reading

The address is short, and two things in it are doing work.

Three names, one letter. Silvanus (the Silas of Acts) and Timothy were both present at the founding of this church (Acts 17:1-9; 17:14-15), so the co-senders are not honorary. The same three names open 1 Thessalonians. Paul is writing to a congregation that knows all three men personally, which is part of why the letter can appeal so directly to what they were told in person (2:5, 2:15).

A church "in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Paul normally locates a congregation geographically and then theologically. Here the theological locator is a single preposition governing both the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ together, with no repetition to separate them. The construction places Jesus on the divine side of the sentence as a matter of grammar rather than of argument, and it does so in one of the earliest surviving Christian documents.

Why the greeting matters for the rest. The letter will spend chapter 2 correcting an eschatological panic and chapter 3 correcting disorderly conduct. It begins by naming who the readers already are and where they already stand. The correction is addressed to a church, not to a problem.

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; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

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.