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The Letters to the Thessalonians is unavailable, but you can change that!

In this commentary Gene Green reads Paul's two letters to the Thessalonians in light of the canon of Scripture and of new knowledge about the first-century world of Thessalonica. This fruitful approach helps illuminate the impact of the gospel on its original readers and, in turn, shows how potent a force it can be for the church and society today. The book begins with an in-depth study of the...

dead. The verb Paul uses (phthasōmen) appears in other texts with the meaning of “to arrive” or “to come” (Matt. 12:28; Luke 11:20; Rom. 9:31; 2 Cor. 10:14; Phil. 3:16; 1 Thess. 2:16), while only here in the NT does it carry the sense of “precede.” However, this second sense is quite common in Greek literature,138 while the meaning “to have advantage over” is not attested in the sources. The point Paul makes is simply that the dead in Christ will be raised first (v. 16b), and then the living and
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