Hi Mike,
Thanks for responding. I got an automatic email letting me know someone had posted something here. Derek had also emailed me, awhile back, telling me he couldn't agree with the idea of a later time for the Thessalonian letters. As you pointed out, it is widely believed that these letters were quite early. In fact, just about everybody thinks this. However, seeing nothing really solid and several things that, to me, imply otherwise, I have wondered about it, and still do. I am not committed to a late date but I do wonder about it and it does seem to me that Acts 28 people would logically wonder about it.
1. Charles F. Baker used 2:16, "the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost," as evidence that Acts 28 dispensationalism is false. But this requires an early date. I think your statement about wrath having come in measure but not in time is complicated. A simpler answer might be that God was already as mad (wrath) at Israel as He would ever be but that this doesn't necessarily prove He had already set them aside. But even better, if true, would be that Acts 28:25-28 had already happened.
2. "Despise not prophecies" (5:20) indicates prophecy was being despised. Was this because they, knowing prophecy had ceased, went too far, despising even former prophecies like 1st Tim. 1:18? All I see to argue for signs in this letter is 5:20, which is not much of a case, in my opinion.
3. As to the order of the books, I can't read Dr. Bullinger's book, The Church Epistles, and help but see that he viewed the canon order of Paul's epistles as especially significant. If the order is significant and the Thessalonian letters were truly early, as everyone says, then it has seemed to me that they are out of place where Acts 28 dispensationalism is concerned, which you also seem to acknowledge. If they are not early, then they would seem to be just right.
4. As to the "mystery" in 1st Cor. 15:51 compared with 1st Thes. 4:17, perhaps my point didn't come through. I will put it as a question. Based upon "behold I show you," in 1st Cor. 15:51, which of these two passages appears to have been written first?
5. At the end of your response you said, define "soon." How about weeks or months compared with 10 to 15 years as a wild guess. How many years and how many trips by Timothy would it take for "always" in 3:6 to be meaningful? I don't really know. But I don't think the common idea that 1st Thes. was written in Acts 18 fits well with this or with the amount of knowledge they evidently had when Paul wrote the letter. I find in Phil. 2:19 that Paul was planning to send Timothy to Philippi, very close by Thessalonica. So why can't "But now when Timotheus came from you" (1 Thes. 3:6) be after Phil. 2:19?
Thanks for your good response, Mike.
Still studying and open for input,
Art |
