Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! We've been reading the Bible clear through this year. We are finishing the New Testament, so read along with me. But first, let us pray:
Father,
When the fullness of time had come, you sent your Word in the One who said, “Whoever sees me, sees the Father.” No revelation can surpass this until Jesus comes again. By your gift, the Church continues to receive unfathomable riches from the inheritance handed on from the Apostles and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.
Let the Spirit who inspired the writing of today's pages "guide me in the truth and teach me" to follow Jesus ever more closely, until he calls me to follow him to the Kingdom where he lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
Today's chapters are 2 Thessalonians 3 and 1Timothy 1-2.
Evidently, expectation of the Lord's imminent return was an excuse for some in Thessalonica to give up their day jobs, provoking Paul to reiterate his famous, "whoever refuses to work should not eat" (3:10). Naturally, Paul is not referring to the needy (he was going to spend a lot of time and energy taking up a collection—among those very Macedonians—for the poor in Judea!), but to certain members of the community who seemed to have plenty of time and energy for getting involved in other people's business. Paul notes that this disruptive behavior does not at all correspond to the example he himself set (on purpose!) while he was in Thessalonica, and he commands the community ("in the name of the Lord Jesus" is an injunction, not a preference) to respond firmly. This "fraternal correction" would be a great blessing for the Church to recover!
As he signs the letter, Paul reminds the Thessalonians to look for his handwriting on any message that claims to be from him (just in case there were false letters circulating).
As we turn the page, we come to a new kind of Pauline Epistle, the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus). In these, Paul is not writing to a community, but to an individual with whom he has close personal and apostolic bonds, and who is now exercising a pastoral (shepherding) role in a community.
This first letter is filled with personal touches and treats us to a deep interior testimony about Paul's conversion. Timothy has been Paul's associate in the mission since his youth. Indeed, Timothy's youth is still a bit of a pastoral challenge! Some of what is written here about community prayer and about women dovetails with what we read in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians. (Although Ephesians was probably not directly addressed to Timothy's community, it likely circulated in the region.)
Finish reading 2 Thessalonians here and start 1 Timothy here.
N.T. Wright's Paul: A Biography is the book I would recommend to someone who wanted to read one (only one) book that combined the life and letters of St Paul. Written by a noted Scripture, this is a flowing narrative that is scripturally enlightening and historically sound. Wright gives the reader a way of following Paul through the Acts of the Apostles and the writing of his letters, making Paul the person that much more approachable, and the letters themselves more readable as a result of having a social and historical context.
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