1 Thessalonians was a book in the Bible that was written by Paul and intended for the church of the Thessalonians as a thanksgiving for the Thessalonians’ faith and their example of transformed lives in Christ. Specifically focusing on verse 9 and 10, where it says “⁹ For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, NRSV). Analyzing verse 9, it appears that third parties from other areas had told Paul about the effects of the gospel-centered team in Thessalonica. The verse is also emphasizing how Paul’s gospel-centered team moved into Thessalonica with such impact, impact to the point where the Thessalonians had caught on to the fire and passion of Paul’s team that they turned from their idols and began to live transformed lives in serving the one and only God. Verse 10 goes on to talk about Jesus, his resurrection, and his ability to rescue those from the wrath that is soon to come. So from these two verses, it seems evident that the core message is to put emphasis on the truth that Jesus was in fact resurrected from the grave by God, and those who believe in Him will be rescued from wrath (not specifically mentioned as to what the wrath is but perhaps a reference to the end times and/or trials and tribulations). The book of Philippians is a book of letters that Paul is writing to the Philippians. Specifically looking at Chapter 2:5-11, we can see that Paul writes about Jesus Christ, saying that he was in the form of God but humbled himself, taking on the life of a human slave where he sacrificed himself for the world, eventually being exalted by God and rightly deserving and receiving glory by being worshiped by everyone on earth. So it appears that the core message of this passage is (specifically meant for the Philippians) to imitate Jesus’s model of humility, realizing that Jesus went out of his way to give up all his “rights” for God and offered himself as a living sacrifice in human form, being crucified, but in the end, being exalted and rightly deserving of everyone’s worship and praise.

Crucifixion was an absolutely shameful and disgraceful way to die.  The Romans would use it on slaves and foreigners, not on their own citizens.  The Jews regarded crucifixion as a curse, believing that victims of crucifixion were cut off from their connection with God as seen in Deuteronomy 21:23 when it says “²³ his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession” (Deuteronomy 21:23, NRSV). So the Christ hymn can be seen as describing Christ’s humiliation, degradation and alienation to an extreme and disgraceful extent in regards to Jewish scriptures. Jesus’ obedience meant that he never went outside of God’s will.  Jesus never eased his situation with his own divine abilities.  Jesus remained humble and obedient to death – even crucifixion. For the Romans at Philippi, Philippians 2:8 would have made a profound and almost incomprehensible statement. This is because cultural ideas of divinity found in the Greco-Roman world considered honor, glory and pride as valuable virtues. Shame and humility was seen as a despised weakness.  The humility and obedience that the New Testament teaches, specifically in the Christ hymn, would have been a completely counter-cultural concept for the Philippian Christians. Furthermore, the word, “Lord,” used throughout the New Testament in reference to Jesus and also specifically in the Christ Hymn, was used in the Greek Old Testament as referring to Yahweh. Jesus is Yahweh, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  These three are the one true God, affirming the Trinity. And according to White, the Christ Hymn reflects early engagement with the Jewish scriptures and draws upon cultural ideas of divinity found in the Greco-Roman world by “calling Jesus ‘Lord’ here in the hymn as a reference to his exalted heavenly status was itself a Pauline adaptation based on another allusion to scripture, specifically Isaiah 45:23, as paraphrased in the last stanza of the hymn” (White 121).

In light of the fact that Jesus’ death was problematic for his followers because they had to work hard to convince people that his death was a positive event rather than a negative one, the Christ hymn probably served as a powerful and positive message for those who had negative views on Jesus’ death. The Christ hymn showed that Jesus’ death and crucifixion was intentional and used as a way to show how he humbled himself and died on the cross as a service to God, and how it eventually led to a reward for his service. The reward was that God exalted him “to a superior position (in heaven) and gave him the confessional title ‘Lord’” (White 121). So the Christ hymn served a great service to the Christian community in showing Jesus as Messiah, his ability to show humility, his free choice to die on a cross, and his reward to glory through God, who highly exalted him and graced him to the name Lord. This ultimately helped show that Jesus’ death was in fact a positive event and not a negative one.

Paul addresses his Thessalonian community (Thessalonians 4:13-18) in the time of mourning a death of a community member. The community is fearful that those who pass away before the end times will not able to be a part of the kingdom of God because they were not on Earth at the time of the apocalypse. But Paul addresses this fear and reassures the community by relating Jesus’ resurrection story and the ability of God to take those who have already died with him to the kingdom of heaven. In addition, Paul talks about how the dead will rise first, and will not be forgotten when it is time to join the kingdom of God. This teaching was important for the early followers of Jesus because it gave the assurance of life after death and decreased fear in the midst of death because of the promise of a reunion with Christ regardless of whether someone died before the end times. Paul urged that everyone in the community who had heard his message to encourage others with this truth.

Coping with death is never easy, especially when a faith and community leader is brutally murdered. Jesus’s followers struggled with his crucifixion; struggled to understand, to continue to believe, and to have hope. Despite this, many of Jesus’s closest followers orally passed on and lated wrote down accounts of his death, burial, and resurrection, known as called the “kerygma”/proclomation (White 106). Throughout different Gospel accounts and Paul’s letters, Christ’s followers are encouraged that Jesus’s death had purpose, was in God’s plan, and is a key tenant of faith.

Within 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, Paul writes of a conversion of pagans to serving God. He identifies the previous traditional worship to idols, transitioning into Christians who are choosing to serve a “living and true God”. Within just a single additional verse, Paul also identifies the central belief of Jesus’s resurrection to Christianity along with the offer of eternal life to Jesus’s followers who choose to serve him. On the other hand, within the “Christ Hymn” of Philippians 2:5-11 Paul identifies Christ’s divine qualities as coming from God; but also highlights his humanly humility, obedience, and servitude and the acknowledgement from God that followed along these traditions. The core message within these scriptures is to highlight the duality between Jesus’s divinity and his humanity; the coexistence of the two and how they can occur simultaneously and that through being a suffering servant Jesus is exalted and honored by the Lord.

According to White (121), the Christ Hymn reflects early engagement with the Jewish scriptures and draws upon cultural ideas of divinity found in the Greco-Roman world by addressing suffering and the idea of being a servant (“obedient to the point of death”) such as were mentioned in Isaiah in regards to suffering servant songs.

The Christ Hymn served as a model for early Christians of God’s plan for Jesus. Watching their faith leader be crucified would have been devastating for Christians and have seemed like the “end of the road’. Paul takes Jesus’s crucifixion and describes it as something with purpose and hope. By describing Jesus as “emptying” himself and “humbling himself”, Paul makes the notion that it was a noble deed for Christ to die and within the Lord’s plan. Following the description of the crucifixion by exclaiming God’s exaltation of Jesus and the divinity of Christ, Paul reinforces the fact that Jesus is Lord and the crucifixion was an event to highlight Jesus’s divinity (Philippians 2:5-11).

Paul addresses his Thessalonian community in a time of mourning a loss of a community member, who are fear that those who pass away before the end of time will not able to participate in the kingdom of God because they were not on Earth at the time of the apocalypse. Paul relates Jesus’s resurrection to the ability of God to take those who have already died with him to the kingdom of heaven. In addition to this, he highlights that the dead will rise first, and will not be forgotten when it is time to join the kingdom of God. This teaching was important for the early followers of Jesus because it reinstilled hope in life after death and hopefully decreased fear and morning in the time of death because of the promise of a reunion with Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).