Getting Biblical in Daily Life
Christian Perspective
First and Second Thessalonians are written by Christians for Christians and talk about all about the unique way that Christians see God and the rest of the world. So, yeah, you could say they've influenced Christian theology just a little bit.
The End of the World As We Know It
One of the biggest deals in these two letters is their description of the end times, a.k.a., what will go down when Jesus comes back. Basically, 1 Thessalonians is the book that gives us the idea of "the Rapture." That's a term that some Christians use today to express the belief that when Jesus comes again, first he's gonna lift all the faithful (living and dead) up into the sky to live with him forever.
Paul says:
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
There are kind of two schools of thought around this in Christian circles. Some denominations (like Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians) believe that the second coming of Jesus is a one-time event. He comes down (from the sky, because, hey, that's way more awesome) and then lifts up all the faithful and ends and judges the world right then and there. Jesus really knows how to do an end of the world party.
Other folks (like some fundamentalist Christians) believe that the Rapture is like the pre-game show before a huge and terrible event called "the Great Tribulation." Basically, Jesus will remove all the faithful from Earth and then allow all Hell to break lose. Literally. Those who are left will suffer for a period of days, weeks, or years (no one knows). Then and only then will Jesus come back and give the whole world a big, I told you so.
First and Second Thessalonians don't really make it clear exactly what's happening during the end times though and, sadly, Paul is no longer around to take questions.
Predestination
Another big theological point of contention that's raised in the letters to the Thessalonians is the idea of "predestination." Basically, this just means that God has willed every single event in the world. He causes everything to happen and, in fact, chooses or "elects" certain people to be Heaven-bound. The letters say: "For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you" (1 Thessalonians 1:4) and "God chose you as the first fruits for salvation" (2 Thessalonians 2:13). Yup, it sounds like God is picking favorites here.
The idea that God knows who will be saved and who won't be is usually linked with Calvinism and its founder John Calvin. But this doctrine goes back a lot farther. Augustine, a Catholic theologian, struggled with trying to balance his love for free will (i.e., people can decide what to do) with his belief in God's omnipresence (i.e., God knows what people are gonna do). So who's the boss here? (Our vote is still with Tony Danza.)
Basically, this is a theological conundrum that's kept the world busy for thousands of years. People have free will, but God has ultimate knowledge. Think about it this way: if God knows that you're going buy a Sprite from the vending machine before you've even plunked your quarters in, did you really choose to buy that Sprite? Or did God will it for you? Shmoop thinks God is a Pepsi man, personally, but we digress.
If you follow this view to its logical conclusion (which lots of folks have) this also means that God chooses not only the winners in the salvation lottery, but the losers. So all those Gentiles that will feel his wrath on the last day are only guilty of not having been "chosen" for salvation. Why should people be damned for something they weren't even free to decide for themselves?
Roman Catholic Perspective
Catholics have a little thing called the seven deadly sins, which includes sloth. (That just means laziness, for those of you too slothful to look it up.) Though the whole of the Bible doesn't look too kindly on do-nothings, 2 Thessalonians really lays the smackdown on them:
Keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us[…] For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. (2 Thessalonians 3:6, 10-11)
Paul's talking about you, lazy bones.
Mormon Perspective
The words "son of perdition" are used to describe the Man of Sin in 2 Thessalonians 2, but this is also a term used by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It describes a no-good-terrible-bad person who will not get to share in the goodness that is an afterlife with God. These guys are followers of Satan who will suffer with him for all eternity. It's called payback—and it stinks. (Source.)
Jehovah Witness Perspective
These guys believe a kind of opposite Rapture will occur. When Jesus comes back and ends life as we know it, God will kick the sinners off the Earth and lift 144,000 faithful Christians up into Heaven. Um, that doesn't sound like a lot.
So what about the rest of us? There's gonna be Paradise on Earth. Sure, the 144,000 will be co-ruling up in Heaven with God, but everyone else will live on a new Earth in a world of peace and happiness. No one will be sick. People and animals will live in harmony. No one will ever die. And ice cream sundaes. We're guessing there'll be loads of ice cream sundaes.
Jewish Perspective
Paul was born and raised Jewish, so it's pretty nasty that his letters have lead to loads of problems between Christians and Jews throughout the years. Naturally, these little verses written to the Thessalonians are no different.
In fact, 1 Thessalonians has one huge not-so-flattering passage about the Jewish people:
You suffered the same things from your own compatriots as [the Judean Christians] did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God's wrath has overtaken them at last. (1 Thessalonian 2:14-16)
Uh…
This verse has (sadly) been used by anti-Semites throughout history as a way to label all Jewish people as "Christ-killers". Never mind the fact that Paul is speaking about a specific group of first-century Jews whom he's butting heads with. Nope. Terrible people have taken this to mean that all Jews (past, present, and future) are not only responsible for the death of Jesus, but that God is also really ticked at his chosen people for it. To the haters, this verse confirms what they already suspect. Paul—and by extension God—thinks it's fine to hate and oppress Jewish people.
We're gonna go out on a limb and say they're wrong.
If you think that 1 Thessalonians is anti-Jewish, then you're forgetting one tiny little fact: Paul, Jesus, and a whole bunch of his followers were Jewish. Yup. Paul was born and raised in a Jewish home and his understanding of Jesus' life, death, and eventual return on a cloud of glory all come out of his super Jewish life experiences. So, yeah, he's pretty down with Judaism.
Just take a look as his ideas about the end of the world:
You yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! (1 Thessalonian 5:2-3)
It is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9)
Now compare that to what Paul would have read about "the day of the Lord" in Isaiah:
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty! Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt, and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame. See, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. (Isaiah 13:6-9)
Seems like someone has been cribbing notes from Hebrew prophets. (Yeah, we noticed, Paul. Report to detention.) We're gonna guess Paul wasn't anti-Jewish. It's how people have interpreted him that's led to problems.
Islamic Perspective
Check out what we have to say about how Muslims interpret Paul's letters in our discussion of the Epistle to the Romans.