According to ACTS, Paul’s mission to Europe began with a vision of a man urging Paul to come to Macedonia to help them with the Christian message. Paul’s first stop was the city of Philippi and then Thessalonica. There, Paul went to the synagogue and converted some Jews and a great many of the devout Gentile God-lovers. Then, presumable after some weeks or months, riots broke out because of Paul. He left the city and went south to Athens and Corinth.

From his first letter to the Thessalonians we learn that while in Athens he sent his companion Timothy back to Thessalonica, which was about 300 miles away, to find out how the community was doing. By foot, the journey took fifteen or twenty days each way. By boat it took around a week. Timothy returned to Paul, who was probably in Corinth, with news of the community. Paul’s first letter to the     Thessalonians is in response to what he heard from Timothy. It follows the standard form of a Greek letter, as all of Paul’s letters do: (1) sender’s name, (2) the addressee, (3) a brief greeting, (4) a thanksgiving, (5) the body of the letter, a teaching, and (6) a closing.

In the teaching of this first letter Paul wants to maintain his relationship with the community. It is full of gratitude and affection. Paul reminisces about his time with them and how he has longed to see them. He also expresses his relief that they still want be in touch with him despite his absence. He expresses the fact that perhaps both they and he had really expected him to return to Thessalonica much sooner. He indicated that he sent Timothy to take his place and wondered if the community still thought well of   him even though there had been some disputes that arose before he left.

Paul fills this affectionate letter with family imagery. Fourteen different times he addresses the community as brothers and sisters. Though the Greek text has only brothers, the community included men and women and the intent was to address both. Brothers did not mean the mean among you but all of you as siblings in the new family. Family    imagery continues as Paul speaks of his relationship to them. He is like their mother or father. He also expresses the fact that he feels like an    orphan when separated from them.

In this metaphor of the Christian community as a new family, the relationship of the members to one       another is not based solely on intimacy or sentiment, but also on mutual support, including material responsibility for each other. This was a share community, just as a family is a sharing community.    Sharing in Paul’s communities, however, did not mean absolute equality of financial resources. It did mean that the community would make sure that all had the means for survival.