VULNERABLE MISSION

UNVEILING EMPIRE
tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones” (3:1–2; niv). Emperors, and
the empires they serve, have a consuming appetite.
Understanding the prophets of ancient Israel as critical of the elites of their day has
been easy enough throughout Christian history. More recently there has been a wave of
scholarship reading New Testament Scripture through eyes focused on issues of empire.
I will use this empire-critical lens to read what scholars consider Paul’s earliest letter, 1
Thessalonians, as a text with clear rhetoric against the empire of his day—Rome.
We learn about Paul’s missionary activity in Thessalonica via a short passage from Acts.
After Paul and company made some converts in the synagogue, Jewish leaders became
jealous and stirred up a crowd. Unable to find Paul and Silas, the crowd captured some
new believers and took them before the politarchs (city officials), with the accusation that
they were stirring up trouble as well as defying the dogmas of Caesar (Acts 17:1–9).
Thessalonica had a long history of loyalty to Rome. Its support of Octavian and Antony
paid off when Thessalonica was given status as a free Roman city in 42 BC. 25 This freedom
gave Thessalonica ability to rule itself free of military occupation, and even could
mint its own coins. Because of this, Thessalonica, by all evidence, worked with intention
to keep strong ties to Rome. Coinage from 29 to 28 BC shows Thessalonians honoring
Julius Caesar as a god; later, Augustus was inducted to this rank as well, considered “divi
filius,” the son of a deity. 26 A statue of Augustus, as well as a temple to him , were installed
in the city, and are dated to the time of Paul. 27 The installation of a priesthood for the
goddess Roma both acknowledged the divine status of Rome’s power, as well as intimately
linked the inhabitants of the city to that power. 28 As Charles Wanamaker notes,
“politically, the establishment of the imperial cult made good sense because it cemented
Thessalonica’s relations with Rome and the emerging imperial order.” 29
Further, E. A. Judge has shown that the politarchs of the city—to whom the angered
crowd took Paul’s converts—were responsible for ensuring loyalty to Caesar and his decrees.
An example of such an oath taken from Paphlagonia reads as follows:
I swear . . . that I will support Caesar Augustus, his children and descendants, throughout
my life, in word, deed and thought…that in whatsoever concerns them I will spare neither
body nor soul nor life nor children…that whenever I see or hear of anything being said,
planned or done against them I will report it . . . and whomsoever they regard as enemies
I will attack and pursue with arms and the sword by land and sea. 30
Another oath of allegiance, this one to Tiberius, pledged reverence and obedience to
the new Caesar. 31 Finally, Judge cites an inscription suggesting that the local authorities
25 Ben Witherington, 1 and 2 Thessalonians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 3.
26 Charles Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, The New International
Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 5.
27 Witherington, 5.
28 Karl Paul Donfried, Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity (New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 36.
29 Wanamaker, 5.
30 Edwin A. Judge, “The Decrees of Caesar at Thessalonica,” Reformed Theological Review 30 (1971): 6.
31 Ibid., 7.
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