On the premise that Matthew was published coincident with the events of Acts 10–11, and that Matthew was one of the Scriptures which Paul examined in the synagogues on his missionary journeys, and also that he left copies with each of the churches, how does this paradigm serve to change our understanding of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, likely written around AD 49–51?
Many commentators have reflected on the relationship between the eschatological discourses in the Gospels (Matt. 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21) and the eschatological material in the Thessalonian epistles (1 Thess. 4:13–5:11; 2 Thess. 2:1–12). Notably, Gary Shogren demonstrates that Matthew’s Gospel provides the best parallels to Paul’s eschatological teaching in the Thessalonian letters, including the shared use of technical vocabulary.1 Shogren even goes so far as supposing that Paul “knew and taught something resembling the Matthean tradition,” although Shogren declines to speculate regarding the “date for the final publication of Matthew’s Gospel.”2 In contrast, after examining the parallels, Bernard Orchard concludes that Paul did indeed use Matthew’s Gospel in composing his letters.3 Further, Orchard contends that parallels are also to be found between 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 and Matthew 23:31–39, although modern scholars commonly reject the notion that there is linkage to a published Gospel.4 Nevertheless, we will now take our own look at the parallels between 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 and Matthew 23 within the framework of the above premise, for I suggest that Paul makes more intertextual references to Matthew 23 than those which Orchard highlights.
The Word of Men or the Word of God? Paul praised the Thessalonians, for they had received the word, “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13 ESV). This verse begins the connection to Matthew 23. The Pharisees, as teachers of the law, were to be proclaiming the word of God. Instead, they were “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9), laying man-made burdens on the people (Matt. 23:1–4), and subverting the word of God with their own teachings (Matt. 23:16–24). Paul thanked God that the Thessalonians knew the difference between these human teachings and his own teaching.
Imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus in Judea. In Matthew 23:5–15, the Pharisees were condemned for seeking honor and respect and for seeking to train up proselytes who would imitate them (who would then become “twice as much a child of hell”). Thankfully, the Thessalonians instead chose to honor and imitate the churches in Judea.
Endured suffering from their countrymen as they did from the Jews. Jesus had anticipated the persecution that would come from the Jews (Matt. 23:34).
The Jews had killed the prophets, Jesus, and were persecuting Christians. This is an unambiguous allusion to Matthew 23:34.
The local Jews had hindered Paul from preaching to the Thessalonians, Bereans, etc. This finds a parallel to Jesus’s condemnation of the Pharisees who had “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” (Matt. 23: 13) by their false teaching and poor example.
The Jews had filled up the measure of their sins. This is another strong intertextual reference to Matthew 23 (23:32).
Wrath had come upon the Jews. Paul here is applying the promise of judgment in Matt. 23:32 to the abuses that the Jews experienced in AD 48–49 under Ventidius Cumanus, procurator of Judaea (AD 48-52), as were documented by Josephus.5 Even though there had been a measure of judgment, Paul yet anticipated a more severe wrath when the Son finally came in judgment, a wrath which believers would escape (1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9).
What is the significance, if these are indeed intertextual references? Ian Turner uses the term “broad reference” to refer to “the intertextual phenomena where a NT author signals his audience to refer to the wider context of the precursor (OT) text,” and thereby to invite “readers to make further sense of the passage by bringing more into play from the wider OT context.”6 According to Turner, this signaling is accomplished through the use of multiple allusions or citations to a specific OT passage.7 Correspondingly, I see Paul’s intertextual references—as he repeatedly invokes the broader context of Matthew 23:1–36—as subtly encouraging the Thessalonians to continue embracing his teachings over those teachings that may come out of the Pharisaic schools, so that they don’t themselves become blind and duplicitous guides; and further, I see Paul as more fully developing a contrast between what it means to walk in a manner worthy of God (1 Thess. 2:12) versus what it is to walk in a manner which displeases God (2:15), as exemplified by the Pharisees.
Note also that once it is recognized that an author has intentionally established an intertextual link, based on citations or strong allusions, less explicit connections become more visible. For example, the intertextual approach has allowed us to derive a more specific understanding of the opening verse, as not simply drawing a contrast between the “word of God” and the “word of men,” in a generic sense, but with the “word of men,” as referring specifically to the teachings of the Pharisaic Jews, who are the antagonists throughout the Matthew 23 passage.8
- Gary Steven Shogren, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), ProQuest Ebook Central, 26. ↩︎
- Ibid, 26, 26n39. ↩︎
- Bernard Orchard, “Thessalonians and the Synoptic Gospels,” Biblica 19, no. 1 (January 1938): 38. ↩︎
- Ibid., 20–23. F. F. Bruce rejects Orchard’s claim: “While this series of parallels cannot be taken as evidence for the dependence … on Matthew (so Orchard…), it certainly points to dependence on a common, ‘pre-synoptic’ source.” F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), ProQuest Ebook Central, 93. ↩︎
- Josephus, Jewish War 2.224–227. ↩︎
- Ian Turner, “Going Beyond What Is Written or Learning to Read? Discovering OT/NT Broad Reference,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 61, no. 3 (September 2018): 578. Further application of this concept, with respect to NT use of Matthew, is illustrated in Daniel B. Moore, A Trustworthy Gospel: Arguments for an Early Date for Matthew’s Gospel (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2024). ↩︎
- Turner, “Going Beyond What Is Written or Learning to Read?”. ↩︎
- For example, Green is merely concerned with a generic “human source.” Gene L. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 87. ↩︎
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