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1-2 Thessalonians: A New Covenant Commentary is unavailable, but you can change that!

In the first century, the Thessalonian church grieved deaths in their community, endured harsh persecution, and struggled with questions about the future. Paul offered them the comforts and reassurances of hope in the Messiah Jesus. But he offered far more than wishful thinking or pie-in-the-sky comfort. Paul’s emphasis on hope in the Messiah Jesus involved capturing a vision of God’s redeemed...

these death-sleep associations “in the air,” as it were, there seems to be a more theological purpose behind Paul’s word-choice. It is almost certain that Paul’s depiction of death as sleep is influenced by teachings from the Jesus tradition.3 There is the well-known story in the Synoptics where Jesus visits the house of a synagogue leader and heals his daughter. According to Matthew, he proclaims, “the girl is not dead but sleeping” (Matt 9:24; cf. Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52). The point is not that the
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