Letters To Thessalonica Analysis

For the church in Thessalonica, there were some unique circumstances which had warranted an address from Paul. Writing to the Thessalonians from Corinth, a notoriously licentious seaport, Paul had known well of the moral corruption that his new converts were also constantly exposed to in the seaport of Thessalonica. His letter, appropriately warning the new converts, is timely for mostly those of whom had only very recently lived in the low moral standards of the common pagan world around them. It was possible that immorality would soon sprout in the infant church due to the cultural mores of the city. Thessalonica was within sight of the home of Greek gods- Mt. Olympus. In light of this, we see there were cults of Dionysus, Aphrodite, Osiris, …show more content…
Philippians 1:23 has the positive idea of lust merely meaning “desire.” In Romans 1:24 the negative idea of lust is seen as giving oneself into the “lusts of their hearts to impurity.” When it comes to passion, Romans 1:26 offer a negative insight to passion as degrading and Colossians 3:5 is equating passions along with impurity and evil desires in the sense that these things are immoral. The words, “passionate lust”, in verse 5 of 1 Thessalonians 4 are both the negative use that we have seen from the other passages.
In light of this structure, it seems more probable that “passionate lust” is referring to how the idolatrous pagans treated their bodies rather than their wives. In fact, it was seen more as an oddity for Greek or Roman men to be passionately involved with their wives. It also, suffices to say that the structure of the phrase, “passionate lust”, must refer to unbridled sexual desire; a sexual behavior outside of marriage rather than a man’s attitude toward his wife. This, in turn, makes it all the more difficult to see verse 4 as pertaining to one’s own