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1 Thessalonians

About this book
Chapter 1

1 From Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you! 2 We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers, 3 because we recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 We know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 in that our gospel did not come to you merely in words, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction (surely you recall the character we displayed when we came among you to help you). 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord when you received the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction. 7 As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For from you the message of the Lord has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, so that we do not need to say anything. 9 For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God⁠ 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath.

Texts in conversation

Compare Tobit 14:6 and 1 Thessalonians 1:9

Deuterocanon · New Testament

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Summary

1 Thessalonians describes gentiles turning from idols to serve the God of Israel, presenting as a present reality what texts like Tobit 14 anticipate as part of a future age of restoration, itself based on texts like Isaiah and Zechariah.

Passages

Tobit 14:6

Deuterocanon
5 and God will again have mercy en them, and God will bring them back into the land of Israel, and they will again build the house, but not like the first, until the time when the time of the seasons be fulfilled; and afterward they will return, all of them, from their captivity, and build up Jerusalem with honour, and the house of God shall be built in her, even as the prophets of Israel spoke concerning her. 6 And all the nations which are in the whole earth, all shall turn and fear God truly, and all shall leave their idols, who err after their false error.
225–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tobit

1 Thessalonians 1:9

New Testament
7 As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For from you the message of the Lord has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, so that we do not need to say anything. 9 For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath.
41–51 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Thessalonians

References

"... The turning of the nations to the god of Israel was yet another event anticipated at the End. Well-represented in biblical prophetic texts—Isaiah 25.6 (Israel and the nations gathered at the temple mount sharing a common meal); Micah 4.1–2; and Zechariah 8.23 — this expectation swells to a major theme in many Jewish writings of the late Second Temple period. Thus the Psalm of Solomon expects that at the End, the nations themselves will carry the exiles back to Jerusalem (7.31–41). Repudiating their idols, “all people shall direct their sight to the path of uprightness” (1 Enoch 91.14). “All the nations will turn in fear to the Lord God ... and bury their idols,” prophesies Tobit (14.6). Note: the word turning here does not mean or imply “converting.” According to these traditions, the nations do not “become” Jews at the End. In turning to Israel’s god, these eschatological gentiles preserve their particular ethnicities as gentiles. They just do not worship idols anymore. This is precisely what Paul’s gentiles have already done: “You turned to God from idols,” he tells the community of Thessalonika, “to serve a living and true god” in advance of the fast-approaching End (1 Thes 1.9–10) ..."
Paula Fredriksen, Sin: The Early History of an Idea (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 28.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Tobit 14:6 and 1 Thessalonians 1:9

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