Art, it is not just the Acts 28ers that recognize this fact, it is every recognized theologin in every backgroud (MidActs-Cornelias Stam, Calvinists, etc, etc.). Again, I would just like to drive that position home...it is a view WIDELY held by the majority of MidActs preachers and Baptists that I.Thess was the first epistle written by Paul if not one of the first. Stam and the BBS puts this as an early epistle. Grace Bible College puts this as an early epistle. Derby Bible College puts this as an early epistle...these are all MidActs schools.
"Chapter 2:16 indicates the great dispensational event of Acts 28:25-28 had already taken place when this letter was written." Not so. Observe...
1 Thessalonians 2:16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
The wrath of God HAD come upon them...in MEASURE, but not in time. Here is the complete story...
1 Thessalonians 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
NOTE: This wrath was seen as being in the future as according to all the ref. given in I.Thess. "WRATH of God", by the way, only means "death". In the case of the non believers it was going to be by the Coming of Christ.
There ARE sign gifts in the Thess. epistles. Prophecy was still abounding: 1 Thessalonians 5:20 Despise not prophesyings.
And no wonder for they were prophecying! The word of God was coming out of them! 1 Thessalonians 1:8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.
Beloved, this is prophecy!
This word (prophecy) CAN NOT be found in the epistles of Eph.,Phil.,Col., Philemon, I.Tim., 2.Tim., and Titus IN REFERENCE to it PRESENTLY occuring. It only points BACK to a time when it HAD occur.
The fact that 1 and 2nd Thess. is placed where it is in the Bible means very little once you understand that the Bible is NOT in a dispensational order. It is only in a TOPICAL order. BUT since it IS in a topical order it does have "somewhat" of a dispensational order. In the Old Testament the book of Job is put way out of its dispensational order. Technically, it SHOULD have been inserted somewhere after after the tower of Babel and before the Exodus. There are no recognized scholars that see it in any other way. So, since that is the case, why are we to believe that the New Testament can not have some books out of dispensational order? I propose that in the case of the Thess. epistles, it has happened.
"First Thessalonians 4:13-18 had to be written after 1st Corinthians because, according to Paul, the mystery of many being changed without dying was first made known by him in 1st Cor. 15:51. "
"Thus, 1st Thes. 4:13-18 could not have been written before Paul said "behold, I show you a mystery" and made that mystery known by writing about it in 1st Cor. 15."
No, actually it is an Old Testament mystery that was made known through Paul.
1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, THIS IS ANOTHER PRE-ACTS 28 SEARCHABLE MYSTERY.
1 Cor 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
1 Corinthians 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
NOWHERE AFTER ACTS 28 DOES PAUL USE THE PHRASE "AS IT IS WRITTEN" OR ANYTHING SHOWING LAW AUTHORITY!
Acts 28:23 And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
It was a mystery that some would see the resurrection and yet escape death. The OT prophets did not understand this.
Isaiah 25:8-9 He will swallow up death in victory;...And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Why even quote it if it is not based upon the authority of jewish prophecy of the coming kingdom?
"Further, Paul's "but now" in 1st Thes. 3:6 easily reads as years later after the many other things remembered by Paul in the letter and Timothy's report in this verse that they "always" (i.e., at the various times Timothy had visited them) remembered Paul and desired to see him fits well with a later writing."
YEs, but here is the problem...it also fits in well with his early writings...
"It also seems to me that 1st Thes. 1:8 says way too much for the letter to have been written soon after Paul had first been there. "
Define soon. Soon is a relative term. Also, why couldn't their faith spread rapidly? How could it be CONCLUSIVELY proven that it was not?
Grace and Peace,
Mike Holt |
