1 Thessalonians 3: Paul Sends Timothy and Ends Up Comforted

Verse 1 says "when we could no longer forbear" and verse 5 says "when I could no longer forbear." I took the second one for a repeat until I noticed the pronoun. Between verse 1 and verse 5 Paul's "we" turns into an "I," and verses 6 and 7 go back to "we" again.

It could be plain style, a man drifting between plural and singular the way people do, but I don't think so, because the two sentences go different places. The "we" version ends with the group staying put in Athens. The "I" version ends with what Paul himself wanted to find out.

The word worth a second look in those two verses is "forbear," which in the King James means to hold back or to put up with, so both verses say that somebody had reached the end of putting up with not knowing. Verse 1 says it of the group and the result is waiting in Athens. Verse 5 says it of Paul alone and the result is that he sent. Of the two, only the second is something a person could have done on a Tuesday afternoon after a bad night, and I suspect that's why the sentence changed hands.

Why did Paul send Timothy instead of going himself?

The chapter never says why. What it gives is the arrangement: Paul stays in Athens alone ("we thought it good to be left at Athens alone," verse 1) and Timothy goes, with no word on what Paul did with the weeks while he waited.

Timothy gets three titles in verse 2, brother and minister of God and fellowlabourer in the gospel of Christ. You don't write that about a courier, and I'd guess it's there so the Thessalonians know what they're looking at when he walks in.

The errand is described twice, and the two descriptions don't match. In verse 2 Timothy goes "to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith," which is an errand for their sake. In verse 5 Paul says he sent "to know your faith," which is for his own. Both are true of the same trip.

What was Paul afraid of in verse 5?

He says it plainly: "lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain." He doesn't say which means. He can't, being in a different city with no idea what the last few weeks have looked like for them.

He'd already warned them, and verse 4 says "we told you before that we should suffer tribulation," and verse 3 says they know they're "appointed thereunto." The warning was given and it came true, and he still sends someone to look. Where I work, a processor cutover gets a notice to every merchant two weeks ahead, and on the first morning I still end up reading the reject queue line by line, because the notice told people what would change and not whether they'd cope. Paul seems to be doing the same thing from a distance.

The verb he uses for what Timothy brings in verse 6 is worth a look too. Timothy "brought us good tidings," which is the language of news and not of a report with findings in it. Paul doesn't say Timothy assessed them or tested them or reported on their condition. He came back and the news was good, and we're given nothing about how the questions went on the way to that answer or whether Paul had a list ready for him at the door. Back in chapter 2 he kept telling them to check his work, and here he's the one checking theirs.

There's a pairing across the chapter that I only saw on the third pass. Verse 3 wants that "no man should be moved by these afflictions," and verse 8 answers with "stand fast." Paul never writes "fall" or "leave" or "quit," and I think that's because he's picturing people who haven't gone anywhere, who might be shifted off their feet by something outside them without having decided to walk. Nothing in these verses calls the affliction good.

What does "for now we live" mean?

Timothy comes back and verse 6 lists what he brought: "good tidings of your faith and charity," that they "have good remembrance of us always," and that they are "desiring greatly to see us." Two of those three items are about Paul. After a verse of dread over their faith, the news that they miss him gets as much room as the news that they're holding, and he sets it down without apology. The last clause of the verse is "as we also to see you," which makes the longing run in both directions and leaves Paul no room to pretend he was only there to inspect.

Timothy was sent "to comfort you" in verse 2, and in verse 7 Paul writes "we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith." The comfort went out and came back the other way. Paul is in affliction and distress himself, which is easy to forget when the chapter is about theirs.

For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 3:8

The verse is ten words long and the shortest in the chapter. I'll be coming back to it at the end.

The question that doesn't finish

Verse 9 starts "For what thanks can we render to God again for you" and doesn't stop. It runs into verse 10, where it picks up "night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face," and ends on a question mark that the middle of the sentence has long forgotten. The word "joy" appears twice in verse 9 alone, in "all the joy wherewith we joy." He seems to have run out of other ways to say it.

Then, inside the same sentence that holds all that thanks, he wants to "perfect that which is lacking in your faith." He thanks them and lists repairs in one breath, and doesn't seem to think either needs softening.

Faith appears five times in these thirteen verses, and not once is it called finished.

Verses 11 through 13 are a prayer, and in it he asks for a road to open ("direct our way unto you"), and for their love to "increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men," and that their hearts be established "unblameable in holiness" when the Lord comes. The road comes first in the order of asking, and a man who'd just heard his friends were fine could have gone straight to the large spiritual wish and left the logistics alone, and he asks for the travel arrangements anyway.

The prayer starts at a road to one city and finishes at "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." The jump isn't announced anywhere, since "stablish your hearts" and the second coming sit in one sentence in verse 13, and Paul seems to find that an ordinary thing to put in a letter to people he misses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Timothy the same person as Timotheus?

Yes. Timotheus is the form of the name in the King James text here, and verses 2 and 6 both use it. Everywhere else you'll see Timothy, and it's the same man.

How old was Timothy?

Nothing in this chapter gives an age. Early twenties is the usual guess, and it is a guess. Paul calls him brother and minister and fellowlabourer, and that's all he says about him here.

Does the chapter say what the afflictions were?

No. Verse 4 says "it came to pass, and ye know," and Paul takes it for granted that the readers know exactly what he means. We're the people who don't.

What's the difference between "establish" and "stablish"?

In the King James they're the same word spelled two ways. Timothy is sent "to establish you" in verse 2, and in verse 13 Paul prays that the Lord "may stablish your hearts." The first is a job for a person and the second is the same job asked of God.

One thing I don't like about verse 8

I don't like the "if." Read at face value, Paul is alive when they stand fast and something less than alive when they don't. I've watched people live under that arrangement with a bishop or a parent who needed them to turn out well, and it never felt like a gift to the one standing. I'm sure Paul meant it as the kindest thing he could say. I still wish he'd written that he was glad.

— D.